Time machine backup too large

i had a weird quirky thing happen to my computer. It crashed and when I restarted, all my login items and programs were asking me for my licenses and registration nos. as if i had just installed them. Plus all their settings went back to default. Recovering all my registration information would have taken an act of god, as my appshelf data was corrupted too. After many different recovery attempts, I scrapped it all, did one final Time Machine backup, and restored my computer from a date I knew was working (about 3 weeks earlier), using the system disk. My Time Machie backups went back nearly a year. When I was up and running, I then went in to Time Macine and brought over piecemeal new files that had been added since three weeks ago.
A couple days later, I attempted to get something from an old Time Machine backup, but now the bakups did not extend back as far, but they only went to the date I restored from 3 weeks earlier. I thought that was weird, but continued on. Later, it was only going back a couple days. Having a "working system" I thought nothing of it..but now it is telling me July 25 is the oldet backup, taking up 230.84 GB of 499.76, and any successive backup fails. Instead of incrementally backing up, Time Machie is now attemptng to do a full bnackup, requiring 250 GB, but only 230 are available. Does asnyone know it's not just backing up the changes, but attempting to backup the whole thing??

Sometimes, this error is legitimate. The user may not realize that they need to exclude additional hard disks that TM may be seeing. This is done in the “Options…” window of the Time Machine Preferences.
Nevertheless, many times this error just doesn’t make sense, stating that not enough free space exists for a backup that is clearly smaller. (“The backup requires 45.9 GB but only 182.6 GB are available”)
The answer and fix may have been discovered by a poster in the macosxhints forums: (http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-84284.html)
Essentially, while Time Machine DOES delete old backups from the sparsebundle, it DOES NOT free up the space occupied by those old backups. Eventually, "all previous backups were deleted and no space was gained. . . . What appears to be going on here is that the sparsebundle isn't self-shrinking - unused bands aren't being automagically discarded."
The solution is to compact the TM backup sparsebundle in Terminal using:
hdiutil compact yoursparsebundlefilename.
He concludes, "I gained 30+gb of space on the backup volume by compacting that sparsebundle. And now TM runs just fine, since it has plenty of space."
Obviously, this is a bug in TM. It does not appear to effect everyone, and only seems to appear under certain curcumstances.
Let us know if this works for you.

Similar Messages

Time Machine backup too large for backup disk

My Mac hard drive is 750GB (25GB free).
My LaCie external dedicated backup hard drive is 1TB (342GB free).
I am now getting the error "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup" "This backup is too large for the backup disk"
I thought once my initial backup of 750GB happened, it would be incremental backups from then on (with old changes betting deleted as space was needed for new changes).
Is this not the case? Do I need a much larger backup drive or something?
Thanks much for any help.

It's true but Time Machine has also to make complete backups again in case you want to restore your Mac with a more recent Time Machine backup.
Clearly the external drive you have doesn't have enough storage to back up your Mac. As you have about 725 GB of used space, I recommend you to get at least a 3 or 4 TB external drive to make backups, and even with this, don't think you will have more than four backups. Another thing you can do is to remove folders from the backup in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options

Time machine backup too big for empty disk??

So I restart my MacBook Pro a few minutes after completing a full Time Machine backup. When it restarts it goes through the grey startup screen, then gets stuck on the blue screen just before the desktop normally appears. This happens whenever I startup. I am still able to hit the power button and get the Restart/Shut Down dialog, so I restart using my Snow Leopard boot disk, run Disk Utility, repair permissions, and repair disk, but the problem still remains. I decide to Restore from Time Machine Backup, so I erase my disk (80 GB, had only 200 MB free), go to the Restore screen and connect my backup disk. Now the weird part -- it says my latest backup is too big for the disk, even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free. All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless. Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.

dgordon412 wrote:
(80 GB, had only 200 MB free)
That's likely corrupted your system. You should have a minimum of 10% - 15% free at all times. That's almost certainly why it wouldn't restart.
even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free.
There must be something else on the drive; if you erase it, it should have just under 80 GB free. Is there another partition?
Did you erase with a Leopard Install disc or a Snow Leopard disc? If you used a Leopard disc, that might explain showing only 74.2 GB free (it counts differently).
If so, use your +Snow Leopard+ install disc to do a complete reformat, and try to restore the backup. A Leopard disc cannot restore a Snow Leopard backup. Even the Snow Leopard disc may not work, as it's just too full and/or your system was damaged by getting too full.
All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless.
Having an OSX drive that full will make your Mac extremely sluggish, cause data corruption and/or loss, apps to crash, etc.
Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.
If you can get your Mac running, you need to make several GBs of space immediately.
If all else fails, reformat the internal HD and install OSX from your Snow Leopard Install disc, then use +Setup Assistant+ after the Welcome video to transfer +*most, but not all+* of your stuff from the backup. Omit the contents of one or more large sub-folders in a home folder (such as Photos, Music, or Movies).
See #19 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for details.

Timew Machine - Backup Too Large

One of my computers has stopped backing up to Time Capsule, so I deleted the backup sparse file on Time Capsule, and attempted to initiate the Time Machine backup process all over again. Although I have 440gb of free space available, and the Mac is only 110gb, I get a Time Machine error saying the backup is too large for the backup volume. In fact, it says the backup requires 669.5gb !! Any ideas?

If you do not have other data on the disk, I would recommend you reformat the hard disk in the Time Capsule again.
Go to Airport Utility --> Manual Setup --> Disks --> Highlight "Time Capsule Disk" on the left --> Click "Erase" on the right.
Rename the disk and select the level secure erasure. You're done and ready to begin backing up again.
It may be that while you are convinced you deleted files, Time Machine hasn't registered the free space and still thinks there is data on the disk.
Let us know if this helps.

Time machine backup to large to migrate to MBP

Hi everyone,
I really hope someone can help me with this problem.
A while ago I took a time machine backup of my old macbook pro, which I no longer have. Now I want to use migrate assistant to get all my old files, applications, settings etc. onto another macbook pro. The problem is that the backup on the external hard drive is 339 GB, but the hard drive on the "new" macbook pro is only 320 GB. Is there any way for me to retrieve my files from the time machine backup without getting another computer with a larger hard drive? I don´t mind losing 20-30 GB of my old files, as long as I can get most of them back.
Ingibjörg Högna

With a new MBP you want to use Migration Assistant instead of TM Restore, that should eliminate a few GB, like the OS, which may not work on the newer one anyway.
If you are restoring a backup made by one Mac to a completely different Mac
Important: If the backup you are about to restore is from a completely different Mac, use theMigration Assistant to transfer data from the backup, as described in the next section.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4413

Why is my time machine backup to large to install from?

I'm trying to setup my new MacBook from a time machine backup of my old IMac. My backup file is 250gb and there is over 400gb of space on the hard drive but it keeps coming up with a message saying there is not enough space to do the install.
I've had to leave my IMac at home interstate and need my iBook setup the same - unfortunately doing another backup with only the essential files and configurations is not an option. The situation seems strange though - is there another way?

lplex wrote:
I need help with TM, too, as it tries to do a full backup after I restored my Macintosh HD from TM as suggested by Disk Utility.
If you're on Snow Leopard or Lion, and did a full system restore by starting from the Recovery HD (Lion) or your Install disc (Snow Leopard), Time Machine should have figured it out and done an incremental backup.
If it didn't, and you're on Lion, and your backups are on a local disk (ie, not on a network), you may be able to tell TM to "associate" the restored disk with the backups manually, per #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. That usually works, but not always.
If you're not on Lion, or your backups are on a network, there's no way to force it.
Message was edited by: Pondini -- omitted the link!

Time Machine backups are LARGE

Practically every time TM is backing up, it is a LARGE backup, like 12.2 GB or 11.7GB. Then, sometimes it will be a 1.7 MB backup that takes 8 minutes going 1 KB/second or so.
Ant input would be appreciated.

I have been having the same problem with my backups. I have two 1 TB external HD's in addition to my 185 GB internal HD. I use one of the TB HD's to store alot of my media fies (along with other things). I use the second TB HD as my time machine volume (back's up my internal HD and the other TB HD.).I've been spending all day trying to figure out why my hourly backups were reaching sizes as large as 39 GB when I hadn't added any new data to my computer. I have been using PARALLELS all day and now I'm hoping that that is what is causing my hourly backups to be as large as they are. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do if anything?

Time machine backups too much

I recently started using time machine, backing up automatically wireless to timecapsule(1TB). I noticed that every hour, time machine is backing up approximately 20GB (while i only use 100GB in total of a 250hard drive). is it possible it has something to do with running Windows in VMwarefusion at the time the system is backing up? why would time machine make such huge backups and how do i prevent that from happening?

Thomas is entirely, 100%, correct.
Besides taking up a huge amount of space, Time Machine will sometimes choke on those VM files (as it's one monster file to OSX).
If you want, you can delete all the backups of it, per #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

Time machine backup 4x larger...

hello.
I recently erased an external HD using disk utility.
And now i'm trying to use this external HD to back up my 2 machines, my mac book air (snow leopard), and power pc G5 tower(leopard).
(By the way, this external drive is 300 gigs, and it's from my old ibook G4. And it was used for time machine before, but i wiped clean.)
And so, i used time machine to first backup my mac book air, and for some reason, it used up 150 gigs for this backup, yet my mac book air's HD has only 36 gigs being used.
Also, when I 'get info' on the external drive, it says 232 gig capacity. I know that when a drive is advertised as 300gigs, it's not actually a full 300, but i don't remember this drive being only 232gigs.
Any help?
thank you!

Well, to partition properly, we need to figure out the max size going to be needed by these 2 or 3 backups.
The MB Air throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the works with it's lack of ports & boot options, do you know if it can boot off an external or network drive?
The tiny, (by todays standards), 250 GB drive complicates things also.
Basically I'd consider Partitioning like cutting boards, measure twice, cut once, because re-partitioning while possible is about the most dangerous thing you can do on a drive.
We also need to know if you need to keep versions of the backups.
Right know I'm thinking we need a basic bootable backup of the 2 Macs, (assuming the MBA can boot off another drive), then have either updatable or copies of Home folders, & then an iPhoto backup folder.
As far as utilizing all the space on the 250 GB we'd be better off NOT partitioning it at all.
My normal backup recommendations are...
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/products/tribackup.html
But in my latest test with backing up 10.7.x to an APM partitioned disk was that only CCC was successful, SD said Permissions failed, TB5 I don't recall, but it was the 1st time in 12+ years it let me down. (SD & TB5 wanted GUID partition scheme to backup Lion).
Still, with all 3 there are ways to copy DATA or Folders like your home folder, or iPhoto folder.
Soooo... with just One Partition on the 250, we could say clone the G5 for a bootable backup, then add folders for the MBA & iPhotoBU, & copy the Home Folder from the MBA & the iPhoto folder, or we could make a Disk Image of the MBA on the 250 GB with the G5 clone on it.
Sorry for my lack of knowledge.
Naw, no need, I'm sorry for my lack of knowledge on how to relay the simplicity of this.

Time machine backup too long.

I use an ethernet connection to backup to my time capsule - wireless takes too long. I am backing up 292.6 GB onto a time capsule with 602 GB available (Airport 5.6). The backup is crawling. The time to backup shows 7 days. This has never happened before. Any ideas?
MacBook Pro
OS X 10.7.3
Thank you.

Update: The backup time is now down to 13 hours. However still incredibly slow.

Initial Time Machine backup is larger than the HD it's backing up?

Howdy,
I started the initial backup of my MacBook Pro to my TimeCapsule, and it now says that it has backed up 4.1 GB of 159.5 GB. But the internal HD of the MacBook Pro is only 80 GB, and 31.4 GB are free!
Does anyone know what's up with this?
My primary user account is encrypted with FileVault.
Mikael

Mikael Behrens wrote:
Howdy,
I started the initial backup of my MacBook Pro to my TimeCapsule, and it now says that it has backed up 4.1 GB of 159.5 GB. But the internal HD of the MacBook Pro is only 80 GB, and 31.4 GB are free!
Does anyone know what's up with this?
My primary user account is encrypted with FileVault.
I don't use FileVault, but I suspect that is the culprit. Since FV can only be backed up after you log out, it might be causing the problem. I know from reading the posts that FW and TM do not play very well together. It might be calculating your home directory twice. Just a thought.

Restore using Time Machine to new hard drive, but last "full" backup was 2012. how do I restore the rest of the Time Machine backups, particularily IPHOTO libraries for each user?

Restore using Time Machine to new hard drive, but last "full" backup was in 2012. How do I restore the rest of the Time Machine backups, particularily IPHOTO libraries for each user?
I entered Iphoto for my user and only photo up until 2012 were in the library. I thought the restore would do the incremental Time Machine backups too.....
Running 10.8.2

It usually means you are running Mavericks but have an earlier version of iPhoto. Open the App Store and upgrade your version of iPhoto to the Mavericks version.
The iWork apps are free with a new iOS device since 1 SEP 2013. They are free with a new Mac since 1 OCT 2013. They are also free with the upgrade to OS X Mavericks 10.9 if you had the previous version installed when you upgraded.The iWork apps are free with a new iOS device since 1 SEP 2013. They are free with a new Mac since 1 OCT 2013. They are also free with the upgrade to OS X Mavericks 10.9 if you had the previous version installed when you upgraded.
iWork and iLife for Mac come free with every new Mac purchase. Existing users running Mavericks can update their apps for free from the Mac App Store℠. iWork and iLife for iOS are available for free from the App Store℠ for any new device running iOS 7, and are also available as free updates for existing users. GarageBand for Mac and iOS are free for all OS X Mavericks and iOS 7 users. Additional GarageBand instruments and sounds are available for a one-time in-app purchase of $4.99 for each platform.

TIme Machine backup grows too large during backup process

I have been using Time Machine without a problem for several months, backing up my imac - 500GB drive with 350g used. Recently TM failed because the backups had finally filled the external drive - 500GB USB. Since I did not need the older backups, I reformatted the external drive to start from scratch. Now TM tries to do an initial full backup but the size keeps growing as it is backing up, eventually becoming too large for the external drive and TM fails. It will report, say, 200G to back up, then it reaches that point and the "Backing up XXXGB of XXXGB" just keeps getting larger. I have tried excluding more than 100GB of files to get the backup set very small, but it still grows during the backup process. I have deleted plist and cache files as some discussions have suggested, but the same issue occurs each time. What is going on???

Michael Birtel wrote:
Here is the log for the last failure. As you see it indicates there is enough room 345g needed, 464G available, but then it fails. I can watch the backup progress, it reaches 345G and then keeps growing till it give out of disk space error. I don't know what "Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD" implies, maybe this is a clue?
No. It's sort of a warning, indicating that TM isn't sure what's changed on your internal HD since the previous backup, usually as a result of an abnormal shutdown. But since you just erased your TM disk, it's perfectly normal.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
2009-07-08 19:37:53.659 FindSystemFiles[254:713] Querying receipt database for system packages
2009-07-08 19:37:55.582 FindSystemFiles[254:713] Using system path cache.
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 309.5 GB excluded items size: 22.3 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 345.01 GB requested (including padding), 464.53 GB available
This is a completely normal start to a backup. Just after that last message is when the actual copying begins. Apparently whatever's happening, no messages are being sent to the log, so this may not be an easy one to figure out.
First, let's use Disk Utility to confirm that the disk really is set up properly.
First, select the second line for your internal HD (usually named "Macintosh HD"). Towards the bottom, the Format should be +Mac OS Extended (Journaled),+ although it might be +Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).+
Next, select the line for your TM partition (indented, with the name). Towards the bottom, the Format must be the same as your internal HD (above). If it isn't, you must erase the partition (not necessarily the whole drive) and reformat it with Disk Utility.
Sometimes when TM formats a drive for you automatically, it sets it to +Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).+ Do not use this unless your internal HD is also case-sensitive. All drives being backed-up, and your TM volume, should be the same. TM may do backups this way, but you could be in for major problems trying to restore to a mis-matched drive.
Last, select the top line of the TM drive (with the make and size). Towards the bottom, the *Partition Map Scheme* should be GUID (preferred) or +Apple Partition Map+ for an Intel Mac. It must be +Apple Partition Map+ for a PPC Mac.
If any of this is incorrect, that's likely the source of the problem. See item #5 of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum for instructions, then try again.
If it's all correct, perhaps there's something else in your logs.
Use the Console app (in your Applications/Utilities folder).
When it starts, click +Show Log List+ in the toolbar, then navigate in the sidebar that opens up to your system.log and select it. Navigate to the +Starting standard backup+ message that you noted above, then see what follows that might indicate some sort of error, failure, termination, exit, etc. (many of the messages there are info for developers, etc.). If in doubt post (a reasonable amount of) the log here.

HT201250 Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller ext

Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?

50maz wrote:
Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in
Yes, it will do a full backup.
and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?
Only if you want to be able to go back in time to those previous Time Machine backups. When you plug in the new larger external drive, you will only be able to go back as far as the first day you plugged it in and ran the first Time Machine backup on it.

Used Time Machine Backup Today- Now This backup is too large for the backup

Hey Everyone!
Some advice please,
My Hard Drive recently crashed. Fortunately, I've been using Time Machine. Apple Store gave me a new Hard Drive (for free), and I came home and restored to Time Machine. I am very impressed, and have lost no data or applications.
So now I have a problem. I can no longer back my hard drive, presumably because there were so many changes to the software today. I am getting This backup is too large for the backup volume. What is the easiest way to delete my old time machine backup and start from scratch with my computer in its current state? Everything seems to be working smoothly, so I don't see any reason to keep my old backups. Any suggestions? Is there any logical reason why I would keep the old backup?
Message was edited by: David Selevan

Thanks Barry!
I called Apple (had to anyway for a new OS Leopard DVD) and he had me go into Disk Utility and choose Erase Disk (as you suggested). I didn't have to do any formatting.
The next step was to go into System Preferences and select Change Disk and set it to None. After that, he had me choose Change Disk again, and select the USB drive, and click Use For Backup.
Now it's backing up the new version of my computer. Problem solved. Thank you.
After having to get an brand new Hard Drive today, I highly recommend that everyone purchase some kind of external hard drive and run Time Machine regularly. Although the backups get large, I've never experienced such a pleasant experience getting my files back after a hard drive failure. This is awesome technology. I can't believe 95% of my applications still worked.
David

Time machine backup too large

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