Time Machine backs up the entire system each time.

Every time time machine backs up the system, it backs up EVERYTHING instead of only backing up the new stuff. What is wrong?

TM always appears to back up everything, but normally only backs up a few MB.
How much does it say it's backing up? (click the clock icon in the menu bar, or go to >System Preferences...>Time Machine to see while it's backing up).
Good luck!

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I have an Apple Macbook and will be backing up the entire system to an external hard drive utilizing the Time Machine application. when I am doing this, will the data on the external drive that I am using be erased?

I have an Apple Macbook and will be backing up the entire system in order to upgrade to a newer OS. I will be using an external hard drive to do this and there is already data on it. To complete the backup, i will be using the Time Machine application. Does this application wipe out all of the existing data on the external hard drive, or will it create a new "folder" for the backup?
thank you

No, but as steve359 states you should use a dedicated hard drive for backups. It you need a temporary backup then you can use the drive provided it has sufficient space for all your data on the hard drive.
When Time Machine finds that the drive has data on it already it may decide to erase the drive before continuing, which is another reason to use a dedicated drive.

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library?

If you have a considerable photograph and/or movie collection you may want to consider off loading those to the EHD too. Here are Apple's article showing how handle iTunes & iPhoto libraries.
iTunes: library on EHD
iPhoto: How to move the Library to EHD
Roger

HT3275 Can some HELP, I keep getting this error with my Time Machine Back up, "The backup disk image "/Volumes/JKPN Safe/JKPN IMAC.sparsebundle" is already in use.

Can some one HELP me , I keep getting this error with my Time Machine Back up, "The backup disk image “/Volumes/JKPN Safe/JKPN IMAC.sparsebundle” is already in use.

See > http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html

I have just started using Time Machine. I was thinking about deleting old E-Mails on my Mac to clean. Does Time Machine back up the E-Mails , if so how can I find them in Time Machine ??

I have just started using Time Machine. I was thinking about deleting old E-Mails on my Mac to clean. Does Time Machine back up the E-Mails , if so how can I find them in Time Machine ??

If you back up your mac before deleting your emails, Time Machine should back up your e-mails.
I never tried this so i'm not sure to find them in Time Machine. To browse in your backups simply click the Time Machine icon in your dock. In the right bar, you can select an backup. Than you can browse in finder, in your backkup.
EDIT: Just browsed and CT above was right. This topic might help you:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/20154303#20154303

Can you restore a slideshow in iPhoto using Time Machine without restoring the entire iPhoto library?

Can you restore a slideshow in iPhoto using Time Machine without restoring the entire iPhoto library?

Afraid not.
Regards
TD

Does time machine back up the data in the PC part of my intel MacBook?

I'm backing up my MacBook to an external hadr drive using Time Machine in the apple part of my partioned MacBook.
Does time machine back up the data in the PC part of my intel MacBook at the same time or do I have to do a separate backup for it? Does it have to be on a different external hard drive?

Franklin Osgood wrote:
I'm backing up my MacBook to an external hadr drive using Time Machine in the apple part of my partioned MacBook.
Does time machine back up the data in the PC part of my intel MacBook at the same time or do I have to do a separate backup for it? Does it have to be on a different external hard drive?
TM only backs up the BSD portion of your HD.
If you partition your external HD you can have a FAT32 or NTFS partition for Winders and another for HFS+.
Naturally if you choose to repartition the drive, you should backup everything on it or you may lose it.

My CS6 program that has never had a problem before, is not telling me that there is an error and that it "unexpectedly quit" when I simply try to launch the program. I have restarted my computer several times. It does the same thing each time. So then

My CS6 program that has never had a problem before, is not telling me that there is an error and that it "unexpectedly quit" when I simply try to launch the program. I have restarted my computer several times. It does the same thing each time. So then I tried uninstalling the program and re-installing. It said that it could not install due to an error. So I STILL can't launch my program. I don't know what to do. Any help would be appreciated. I have to edit photos for a photoshoot and return them tomorrow. :/

Reset Photoshop's Preferences?
Your Photoehop preferences will survive un-installing and re-installing Photoshop......

HT201250 (1) Where is the "Time Machine menu" and the choice to "Enter Time Machine" (mentioned in the "Restoring data from Time Machine backups" section)?

1) Where do I find the "Time Machine menu" and the choice to "Enter Time Machine" (as mentioned in the "Restoring data from Time Machine backups" section in the Mac Support article "Mac Basics: Time Machine")?
2) How would I restore e.g. a particular photo from a backup I made with Time Machine? I can see how this is done with Word documents, but can't see how to do it with photos?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
1. The Time Machine icon is on the menu bar.
2. If you want to do that with individual photos, it's the same way as for documents. If you want to do it with iPhoto, you have to restore the whole iPhoto library, not only one photo

Erase and install with SL with Time Machine Back up the right way

Ever since I upgraded to SL last year my MBP has had issues. After going round and round with Apple Care which is now expired it is clear that I need to do an erase and install. Most of the Apple Care guys don't know jack and you get a lot of answers but the one guy who seemed to know something said you have to first go back and reinstall Leopard then run through all of the updates then install the SL upgrade and then run through all of the updates. Now you are ready to install back all of your apps and documents from Time Machine. This is where I have a problem and I just want someone to give me a step by step way to best do this. Should I use Migration Assistant or is there something in Time Machine Utilities that I can just load all the apps and documents on top of my newly loaded OS? When I tried Migration Assistant the first time it created a new directory and did not get rid of the old directories just eating up disk space. Thanks.

Hi J,
I don't know if the upgrade would do a full install, I think it will not. Get a retail version. I did that and it got me very satisfied as in 40 days I reinstalled the system 8 or more times.
In my new experience I would tell you to do a full carbon copy of today's state in a bootable disk only for safety matters.
Then insert installation disk;
Shutdown;
Press OPTION key;
Press Power button;
Choose installation disk;
After choosing language >Utilities>Disk Utility;
Apply a partition scheme if you don't have any data to use from this disk AND/OR;
Erase disk - a simple erase would be better here, no zero out or anything*;
I like to shutdown here, install asks for a startup disk and itself is the one;
Power button, language, install with or without customizing.
About Migration Assistant, I would only use it to transfer personal data without any applications. For applications I would reinstall all of them right after install all updates one by one chronologically if you have downloaded them or till software update tell you are up to date.
Only after these updates and any other applications updates is that I use to bring up my personal files using Time Machine.
About the * above: I also have noticed that two zero out erases got me a longer time setting up the system again, is that possible that a simple erase enable the system to recover data and recomposing system files?
Thank you and good luck.

I can not get Time Machine to back up an external WD Passport 2 TB drive! Has anyone else had this problem? The drive is new and I was running Snow Leopard and upgraded to Lion and it still won't do it. Time Machine backs up the internal drive fine.

I bought 2 2TB WD Passport Drives with the intention of housing my iTunes/iPhoto libraries off my older MacBook. I have successfully transferred the Libraries to one and am using the other one for Time Machine. In Snow Leopard I could back up my computer to Time Machine no problem but when I did not exclude the iTunes/iPhoto drive the back up fails. Both drives have been reformatted, permissions repaired and checked in Disk Utility and one was replaced. I have been to the Genius Bar now 5 times. I have tried using USB drive and FireWire. Both drives are recognized and are working properly otherwise regardless how they are connected. Finally yesterday the Apple store installed Lion to see if that fixed the issue and it did not. Time Machine successfully backed up a USB Flash drive, and today I will try an older external drive. Any ideas on what else to try??? Do I have to resort to third party software like Carbon Copy Cloned to get this done? Any ideas why this wont work? I am using a FireWire converter but as I said, both drives are working normally otherwise (libraries working, time machine working for the computer's hard drive. Any ideas would be appreciated!!?

Thanks so much but none of that helped. It was driving me crazy because it would back up another external drive. I just changed the name of the drive from iPhoto/iTunes Library to Media Libraries and IT WORKED!! I guess for some reason it didn't like the drive being called iPhoto or iTunes ???? I don't understand but I have tried so many solutions and exchanging things out but the name change did it????!!!
Thank you for your help and replying to this. Guess I made my own issue!

Does Time Machine Back Up The Mail Store?

Okay,
I have been running regular Time Machine backups of the Lion OS X 10.7.4 server that is hosting my mail server. I would like to know if Time Machine is also backing my users' mailboxes? In other words, if that machine crashed, and I had to build another, would I be okay to just simply restore the new server from my Time Machine backup so that users would have all of their messages?
..Prime

I finally found the answer.
Check out this link from Apple.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH8024

Does time machine back up the OS?

Wanting to install a new hard drive in my Mac Book Pro. Will Time Machine book up the OS on my current hard drive, so that when I do the reinstall it will boot up & operate as before, or do I need to use something like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner?

If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
My computer didn't come with any discs, so I can't boot that way.
The link you provided says "press command R" at startup, then restore from TM.
Will this work OK?

Time Machine backing up the same amount of data EVERY time

Just upgraded to a MBP 17" and started new backups on a clean drive a couple of days ago. First backup took about 14-15 hours and now everytime it does a subsequent backup it is backing up 5.0G every time.
Any idea why? I have never seen it do this before and I have NOT been downloading/adding anything to my machine. Find it hard to believe I am getting 5.0G of cache data from browsing web sites every few hours.

John Potts wrote:
Mine does the same, except it's "only" 1.4GB each time. It does this even though zero new data has been added to the hard drive (by me).
I have tried TimeTracker as recommended above but it seems to be very pre-beta indeed: according to the log, each Time Machine backup adds 0KB. And the original backup was also 0KB.
The backups will show zero until you click them, or set the Preference option to +*Automatically load backups.+* And the first one always shows zero (you really don't want to wait while it calculates the size of everything that was on your system). If they still show zero, you may be using an account that doesn't have permission to see them. Try signing-on as an Admin.
Moreover, when I invoke TimeTracker it remains on the desktop and can't be quit.
Did you try Quit? Either from the menubar or Cmd-Q?
I have my VM folder marked as excluded from back up, along with three external hard drives. Obviously, something must be going on that I don't know about. Are there are other tools that track the TM backups (in addition to TimeTracker)?
Try the BackupLoupe application, at: http://www.soma-zone.com/BackupLoupe/
But you'll likely have the same problems with it as you did with Time Tracker, as they don't sound like problems with the app itself, but your permissions.

Time Machine backing up the same location?

I have recently switched my backup external HD to my airport extreme. Before TM was doing great, doing everything it was suppose to. When I switched it to the airport it was overwriting the previous backup instead of creating a new tier in TM. I figured it was because I switched locations. I erased the disk and reformatted the drive, then I set everything up in TM to work with the Airport disk. Unfortunately I'm having the same problem, it's just backing up the same area over and over. I can not look through "time" it's just stuck at the one image.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

John Potts wrote:
Mine does the same, except it's "only" 1.4GB each time. It does this even though zero new data has been added to the hard drive (by me).
I have tried TimeTracker as recommended above but it seems to be very pre-beta indeed: according to the log, each Time Machine backup adds 0KB. And the original backup was also 0KB.
The backups will show zero until you click them, or set the Preference option to +*Automatically load backups.+* And the first one always shows zero (you really don't want to wait while it calculates the size of everything that was on your system). If they still show zero, you may be using an account that doesn't have permission to see them. Try signing-on as an Admin.
Moreover, when I invoke TimeTracker it remains on the desktop and can't be quit.
Did you try Quit? Either from the menubar or Cmd-Q?
I have my VM folder marked as excluded from back up, along with three external hard drives. Obviously, something must be going on that I don't know about. Are there are other tools that track the TM backups (in addition to TimeTracker)?
Try the BackupLoupe application, at: http://www.soma-zone.com/BackupLoupe/
But you'll likely have the same problems with it as you did with Time Tracker, as they don't sound like problems with the app itself, but your permissions.

Time Machine backs up the entire system each time.

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