Time Machine backup size mystery

Today I used Time Machine to back up my Mac, as usual, to my external hard drive (1 TB). The backup was 160 GB. Yet my hard drive only has, er, 69 GB of data on it.
So what was the other 91 GB that was backed up? Magic? Kittehs? Hopes and dreams? Ghosts of Christmases past?
Proof:
And looksie at this:

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message that corresponds to an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included—anonymize before posting.

Similar Messages

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    Try Use Terminal to limit Time Machine sparcebundle size on timecapsule,
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    Regards

  • Limiting Time Machine backup size onto external drive

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    Try Use Terminal to limit Time Machine sparcebundle size on timecapsule,
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  • Time Machine backup size has doubled since updating to iMovie 10.0

    So since installing Mavericks and running iMovie 10.0, the size of my Time Machine backup has increased enormously.
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    What I have found so far is that when upgrading to iMovie 10 there is a conversion/duplication process that takes place in order to make your iMovie 9 events compatible with iMovie 10.
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  • Time Machine - backup size seems wrong

    I just started my first Time Machine backup. I am doing to to an external USB drive. My MAC drive shows 27 GB used. I have a 60gb boot camp partition but I don't think that comes in to play here.
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    What I have found so far is that when upgrading to iMovie 10 there is a conversion/duplication process that takes place in order to make your iMovie 9 events compatible with iMovie 10.
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    If you want to see the contents of the "iMovie Library" then right click and select "Show Package Contents".  You should see all the folders (events) you created originally in iMovie 9.
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  • Time Machine backup size discrepancy

    Apologies if this has already been answered, but I just did my first Time Machine backup to a new external HD and when I compared the amount of data on the Time Machine drive to the internal HD I backed up, it's about 7 GB smaller (149 GB vs. 156 GB). Is it normal to have a discrepancy in the initial backup file like this? I didn't exclude anything on the internal drive from the backup. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

    Frank O'Connell wrote:
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  • Time Machine Backup Size Calculation Error

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    Disregarding the Mac/Win partitions, my internal HD as a whole is 298GB. My external USB drive is 153GB.
    nestea247,
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  • Time machine backup size fail error

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    Disregarding the Mac/Win partitions, my internal HD as a whole is 298GB. My external USB drive is 153GB.
    nestea247,
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  • Time machine - backup size

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    Message was edited by: nerowolfe

  • Time machine backup size differences

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  • Time machine backups: Size of Mac HD Backup vs Mac HD on local machine

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  • I am trying to update my time machine backup on time capsule, but time machine keeps trying to create an entirely new backup (evidenced by the 200GB backup size). How can I get time machine to modify my old backup rather than create a new one?

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