Time Machine - deleting older photos and files

I've been through ~10 pages of discussions and haven't found an answer, though it's probably out there. Here goes.
Wife and I haven't used Time Machine yet but would like to begin. When using TM, if we delete some photos/files from our iMac after using TM several times, will TM keep those files on the hard drive forever (allowing us to free up some space on our iMac)?

Kpoi wrote:
I've been through ~10 pages of discussions and haven't found an answer, though it's probably out there. Here goes.
Wife and I haven't used Time Machine yet but would like to begin. When using TM, if we delete some photos/files from our iMac after using TM several times, will TM keep those files on the hard drive forever (allowing us to free up some space on our iMac)?
Not forever. Older files will be deleted to make room for newer files.
If the TM drive is 3 or more times as as large as your internal drive, your files will remain for a long time, but eventually will be erased to make way for new files.
TM is best thought of as a recovery tool. I have files on my TM drive from when I first installed Leopard, but only because the drive is very large and not even close to being full.
I use both TM and CCC.
The best way to preserve material is to partition the TM drive and use TM in one partition and use the other partition for permanent storage to off-load your internal HD.
You can also use SuperDuper! or CCC to backup material you wish to keep.

Similar Messages

Exposé hot keys disabled after Time Machine "Delete all backups of file"

I have been having the same problem that was initially mentioned in this topic:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5850265#5850265
Namely, sometimes after I restart all of my Exposé and Dashboard hot keys have been turned off (but not the Spaces hotkey, just F9-F12). My hot corners for turning off or on the screensaver work just fine, but I have to manually go in and turn back on my Exposé hot keys. Some people said it was associate with WoW, but I am not running World of Warcraft. This last time it happened (this morning), I had removed all backups of a few files in Time Machine (what's the point of having a backup of a rented movie after the 24 hour viewing period has expired?). I have been looking for a way to report this to Apple, but have been unable thus far.
I just tested it to see if you have to restart, and you do not. About thirty minutes ago I turned all the Exposé hot keys on, and just a minute ago I deleted a backup of a file on my Desktop in Time Machine (by selecting, "Delete all backups of file ______") and the hot keys had been disabled again.
Does anyone know if there is a way to fix this?

Mechanist wrote:
At some point I told Time Machine to get rid of backups of a particular file using the "Delete all backups of ..." option. Time Machine duly deleted the backups of the file and stopped making new ones.
Not exactly. It did delete the existing backups, but didn't make any new ones because the file hasn't changed since then.
The easiest way to get it to back it up is to make a minor change to it (the name or something in the contents), then change it back. Time Machine should back it up on the next backup.
Alternatively, you need to force a "deep scan," where Time Machine compares everything on your system to the backups. Usually, just starting up from your Recovery HD will do that, although sometimes you have to start from it and Repair your internal HD to trigger it.
If you're not sure how to do that, see Using the Recovery HD and/or #6 in Using Disk Utility.

Time Machine deletes older backups after restore...

Yesterday I took the plunge to replace a failing 4TB RAID0 on my MacPro running ML 10.8.3. The RAID volume contains two non-admin user accounts for everyday work that together are about 2TB.
I installed the two new HDDs, RAIDed them and gave them the same name as before. Then I ran a restore of the two accounts from my Time Machine backup. This took about 4 hours.
Not everything was fine at the end (particularly some permissions in Documents were wrong), but by and large the accounts worked. Today it was time for Time Machine to backup the new changes, but this failed miserably: TM completely deleted the earlier backups even though 99.99% did not have changed. Later TM complained it did not have enough space even though the earlier backup fit on exactly the same volume and there was definitely enough space.
Conclusion: Don't trust TM to keep older backups after a restore. This extremely stupid behaviour fits my impression of ML being unusable for serious Mac users.

When a startup drive is replaced Time Machine creates a new backup because the new drive has a different UUID than the old one -- it is a different disk.
When this occurs, TM does not delete the older backup sparsebundle, which is still taking up space on the backup drive. This is a safety feature.
You can access the previous backup using Browse Other Time Machine Disks from the TM icon in the Dock.
Lots of good info can be found here.

Time machine deleted all my HD files

Hey,
So im pretty new to mac so bare with me..
I have a 2TB hard drive that i used to store my files from my PC and when i plugged it into my mac for the first time it asked me if i wanted it to be used for my time machine. Thinking that it would just save my back up into the Hard drive i clicked 'Yes'.
Then after completing the back up i noticed all my files on the HD have dissapeared and its only my files from the time machine..
Is there anyway that i can access these files again? Or use my HD as a normal HD again? My PC wont even recognize it anymore.
Plleeaassee heellpp mmee.
Thanks Muchly.

I'm not going to be able to fully answer your question however perhaps I can offer some advice. As a general rule of thumb it's not a good idea to share a backup drive to do double duty. The reason being is if that drive does crash you will have lost not only your backup but other valuable data. External HD's are inexpensive enough these days where it's viable to have multiple HD"s connected to your system.
Also I'm going to direct you to the Time Machine forums where I'd recommend you start by reading the TM FAQ's, there is a lot of valuable information. I would also recommend reposting there. The link to the TM forums is:
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard then click Refine This List and choose Time Machine
Finally I would correct your profile, it indicates you have a Mac Pro, I suspect you are using a MacBook Pro which is a totally different machine. Also input the version of OS X you are on. If you purchased your machine new recently you should be on 10.6.x. You can find this information by clicking the Apple symbol in the upper left of your keyboard and choosing About This Mac.
Best of luck.
Roger

Time Machine deleted all the files on my external HD

I have started a new Time Machine backup on a larger external HD.
Time Machine deleted the folders and files stored in that HD before starting the backup procedure.
How can i recover the files i had on my HD?
Thank you!

This means that the drive was formatted incorrectly for use with TM and it had to reformat it. it warns you before doing so. your chances of recovering your data are not great as it may have been overwritten by TM backups. stop using the drive ASAP (turn TM off) and try data recovery software like Data Rescue II or Filesalvage.

Can I use the new Time Capsule to backup my mid 2010 Macbook Pro? Also can I want to free up my hard disk, can I save my photos and files on the time capsule and later access through wifi?

Can I use the new Time Capsule to backup my mid 2010 Macbook Pro? Also can I want to free up my hard disk, can I save my photos and files on the time capsule and later access through wifi?

Can I use the new Time Capsule to backup my mid 2010 Macbook Pro?
Yes, if you are asking about using Time Machine to backup the Mac.
Also can I want to free up my hard disk, can I save my photos and files on the time capsule and later access through wifi?
You are not thinking of deleting the photos and files on your Mac, are you? If you do this, you will have no backups for those files.
Another concern is that Time Machine backs up the changes on your Mac. At some point, Time Machine will automatically delete the photos and files from the Time Capsule.....you just don't know when this might occur.
In other words, only delete files from your Mac that you can afford to lose.

IMac 20-inch on OSX 10.7.4 running iphoto 11, my photos from my iphoto library have been deleted. I have time machine but the iphoto library file is missing when I access time machine, help please.

I have an imac 20-inch Late 2006 model on OSX 10.7.4 running iphoto 11, somehow the application ccleaner has deleted my photos from my iphoto library. I have time machine but the iphoto library file is missing when I access time machine.
To restore photos I have followed the steps below
Quit iPhoto.
Connect your Time Machine drive.
In the Finder, open the folder containing your iPhoto Library. Unless you've moved your iPhoto Library, it can be found in Home/Pictures/iPhoto Library.
Enter Time Machine. (Time Machine can be found in the Dock or in the /Applications folder.)
Choose your desired backup. The timeline on the right side of the screen displays a purple tick mark for each of the backups stored on your Time Machine drive.
Select the iPhoto library you would like to restore, and click the Restore button.
I dont get the option in step 6 as I dont have an iphoto library file to choose? Does anyone know why?

Hi Barry
Thanks but as mentioned all is intact, even at step 3 I can see the current library in Home/Pictures/iPhoto Library which has no photos, but when I access time machine any point before the NOW option the iphoto library in Home/Pictures/iPhoto Library is missing from the finder window.
As you can see here it is
and now its gone. I have no explanantion.
How do I go about moving this question as you suggested.

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down eliminate

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down menu with the gear box symbol to eliminate

I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots. Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
See Pondini's page for more explanation: What are Local Snapshots? http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.
The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library. Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

Time Machine deleted my old backups and crapped out midstream

I had just gotten my failing hard drive replaced, and restored from Time Machine backup. So far so good.
So a week later, I wanted to upgrade to Mountain Lion, but figured I should be responsible and run Time Machine backup again before doing the upgrade just in case something goes wrong.
The Mac has a 4TB drive, which has 2TB free. The backup drive is a 4TB external drive, which has (or had) Time Machine backups going back two years or so. It still had over a TB of space left. I clicked on Backup Now and let it run overnight. I noticed it said "Deleting old backup to make room" or something like that, which I thought was normal.
I woke up in the morning to find that Time Machine had crapped out in the middle, and said that it couldn't complete. I realized that it had deleted all my old backups. It didn't need to do that, since the only files that had changed would have been less than a GB, and it had over a TB of space to work with.
It must have thought that everything on the drive had changed since the last backup, and it wanted to backup the entire drive. As such it tried deleting all my old backups! But it failed, and stopped in the middle.
Now I have a drive that still says there is only 1.2 TB of space on the drive, but I can't see the files! Even with Tinkertool, I can't see anything beyond the one most recent backup.
Can these files be recovered? I am totally ticked that there isn't some kind of confirmation like "Are you sure you want to delete X?"
I actually need to have some of these older backups, as they include files that had been deleted before the latest backup that I may need to retrieve. Any hard drive experts out there? Any terminal commands that can make these files accessible, even if I have to retrieve them manually?

To clarify, this all happened under Snow Leopard as I had said. My profile lists Tiger, since I haven't cared to update my personal profile since using that OS, and in fact I still use Tiger among other versions. I manage a lot of users. And I never got to upgrade to Mountain Lion on this system, as explained in the post above. So I don't see the confusion.
I don't think the model of Mac makes a difference for this type of problem, but in case it does, the incident was on a 2010 Intel iMac with a 4TB hard drive and 8GB of RAM. I would have mentioned that if this was a problem with hardware specific to the model of Mac. But this is more of a universal issue.
But to stay on topic, I'm guessing my old backups are toast. But if anybody has any experience with recovering from Time Machine deleting their old backups, I would be happy to hear from them. In the meantime, I am going to try to do some old fashioned file recovery, and see what I can salvage.

HT3275 TIme Machine deleting files I deleted from my home drive

This seems like a very basic problem but I cant find an answer and am no longer able to use Apple Support. I am trying to erase files from my very crowded home drive. I bought an external drive and backed up all fikles there. However, now when I delete files from my home drive and plug in the external drive, Time Machine delets the files I deleted from my home drive on the external drive which defeats my purpose. Can anyone help a hopelsessly tech savvyless stranger.
Thanks So much

Copy the files to the external drive in the Finder instead of going through Time Machine. If you want that drive to have a bootable OS, you'll need to use software such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper.
Time Machine backups are designed for recovery of accidentally or inadvertently deleted files. They aren't meant for primary storage of files you don't want on any other drive. In any case, drives eventually fail; anything you want to keep shouldn't be on only one drive.
(70364)

Recovering files time machine deleted

Is there a way to recover files from a back up that time machine deleted? I was in the middle of recovering files then the computer just hanged so I had to force shutdown. When I booted up again, I can't find any of my documents in ALL of the time machine backups previously created.
Please help. Thanks

You might be able to use SubrosaSoft FileSalvage to recover the files. You can run it in demo mode first to see what files, if any, it will be able to recover from the disk. With the restricted privileges of the TM disk I'm not sure if it will work but worth a try.
Sometimes it might be best to not force quit but let it run for what may seem a extraordinarily long time. Were you about to use any other application during that time? If it happens again run Activity Monitor to see what's taking up the computer's effort. It just might be chugging along and not actually hung. TM is CPU heavy.

HT201250 Does Time Machine delete files in back-ups that are deleted on my Mac?

Does Time Machine delete files in back-ups that are deleted on my Mac? IOW....if I need to restore a whole back-up, I don't want to restore previously deleted files.

Does Time Machine delete files in back-ups that are deleted on my Mac?
Not immediately. When space starts to get tight, Time Machine will start to delete the oldest file(s) to make more room, but this won't occur for some time.
if I need to restore a whole back-up, I don't want to restore previously deleted files.
You won't if you choose to restore from a backup that occurred after the date that you deleted the file.
If you absolutely do not want to keep the file in your Time Machine backups at all, you do have the option to go into Time Machine, find the file, and manually delete all versions of the file from past dates.

Has time machine deleted the other files on my external hard drive?

i used a la cie external hard drive for time machine and now i can't find the files that i had stored on the drive previously, there is only the time machine bck ups - are the files gone forever?

V.K. is entirely correct.
For future reference, the way to keep "other" files on a TM drive is to partition it. TM will, eventually, fill the space provided to it with backups.
Also, if other data is in the same partition and you ever need to delete all your TM backups and start over, you'll be in something of a pickle (technical term). If it has it own, exclusive partition, all you have to do is erase the partition with Disk Utility.

Will Time Machine delete files on external hard drive?

I have all my itunes music and videos on my external hard drive. Will Time Machine delete these files. The hard drive is already formatted for mac.

Note from Time Machine Help files:
Time Machine works best if you use your backup disk only for Time Machine backups. If you keep files on your backup disk, Time Machine won’t back up those files, and the space available for Time Machine backups will be reduced.
So it will not overwrite the files but it also will not back them up.

Has time machine deleted my files?

I'm a Windows user and plugged my external hard drive into my friend's MacBook the other day. They speak a different language, and so I didn't understand anything on the Mac.
Anyway, as soon as I plugged it in, the standard "Time Machine" message popped up, asking me if I wanted to back up the Mac files (I can only assume it said that). So I tried pressing No thank you, but obviously made a mistake! I think it started doing something, so I stopped the process.
Now when I plug my hard drive back into my PC, I get the regular "chime" suggesting it has been plugged in, but Windows will no longer recognise it!
I'm not a techno expert, but I have heard MAC use different partitions that cannot be read by Windows. But my question really is: has my data been lost, and is there a way of getting it back?

I'm using root as the lowest level of the directory. In Windows you have to start at "My computer" and then navigate to the external drive vs. Macintosh which will mount the external drive on the desktop. I asked what OS you are running, because if you are running Vista, Time Machine would not merely have asked if you wanted to use the drive as a backup volume, but also that Time Machine would need to re-format the drive in order to use it as the backup volume. Not knowing what flavor of Windows you are using, and you not remembering how you formatted your drive, I can't say whether or not you may have also instructed Time Machine to reformat the drive. At this point, you may want to go back to your friend, turn off time machine in the system preferences and then plug the drive back into his machine. From the Finder (indicated in the upper left corner of the menu bar) hit shiftcommandU on the keyboard and open Disk Utility. Select your drive in the left window and check the format at the bottom of the window. If it is Mac OS Extended, then you instructed Time Machine to re-format and your material was erased. If it is still formated as FAT32 then your files are still there and you can access them from the Mac, and if need be move them to Optical Disc, so that you can re-format the drive on your computer if it still can't see the drive and them move them back. I'm sorry about the trouble.
HTH
-P

Time Machine - deleting older photos and files

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