Time Machine Folder Sizes

I have calculate folder sizes on but when looking through time machine folders the size is not indicated. Anyone know why?
Rachael

Time Machine keeps one big backup of your whole drive. Then from there, it stores hourly backups for the past 24 hours plus daily backups for the past month and weekly backups until your drive is full.
iTunes libraries are probably the biggest culprit in rapidly filling Time Machine drives. You can go into Time Machine Options to exclude certain folders to help. But in general, the design of Time Machine is that it will use up all the space you give it. Once your drive is full, it will dump the older data (I believe it will prompt you when that happens).
If you want to limit what Time Machine can use, you may want to partition your external drive using Disk Utility. That will basically 'block off' a section of the disk drive to use for Time Machine, leaving the rest available for whatever you want. Be careful, though - while partitioning a drive isn't that difficult to do (especially under Leopard), making a mistake could cause you to lose the data on the drive you're working on.

Similar Messages

Why does Time Machine folder sizes exceed physical capacity?

I have a MAC G3 Server Serving multiple MACs as a Storage, Media Server, and Time Machine storage. These other external MACs are all running Version 10.8.3. Only the Storage server is running 10.5.8.
All of the extenal Macs use Time Machine to backup to the served Storage media volume called "Time Machine".
The physical size of the "Time Machine" volume is 2.0 TB.
Yet when I am on the G3 Server, and perform a "Get Info" on the "Time Machine" volume, and also the folder that contains the Server's backups, the stored capacities exceed the physical capacity of the drive to which the volume resides.
The single physical drive is 2.0 GB and only has one partition called "Time Machine". In the root directory of this volume there is the one folder called Backups.backupdb, and a .sparsebundle DMG file for each of the remote systems that are bing backed up by Time Machine.
Each of the sparsebundles are well below the dirve's physical capacity, but both the local server's backup folder (Backups.backupdb) and the G3 server's local volume "Time Machine" show a used capcity that well exceeds the physical capacity of the drive on which it resides.
For example, here is the information from "Get Info" on the Backups.backupdb folder on the "Time Machine" volume when viewed from all systems:
Kind: Folder
Size: 3,456,930,478,415 bytes (3.46 TB on disk) for 122,254 items
But the Physical Volume "Get Info" shows this:
Kind: Volume
Capacity: 2.0 TB
Available: 169.92 GB
Used: 3,456,930,478,415 bytes (3.46 TB on disk) for 122,254 items
(NOTE: this is identical to the size
My guess is that there is some sort of deduplication involved.
If so, I would like to know the type of deduplication is performed?
Is it File Level deduplication, Block Level, or Content Level?
Also, is the deduplication inhererant on the volume (File System) level, or only specifically for Time Machine, via symbolic links?
Thank you in advance.
Jeff Cameron

This is due to the way Time Machine stores files. While there is only one copy of each version of each file stored, there are multple links to that file, and each link is reported in Get Info at its restored size.
How Time Machine Works its Magic

Limiting Time Machine backup Size with WD MyBookLive and 10.8

I cannot take credit for the any part of this solution; merely for merging and clarifying how the solutions discovered by 2 Apple Support Communities contributors much smarter than I (namely “Pondini” – Florida and “himynameismarek”) - worked perfectly for my situation. All cudo’s to these two!
I have about average or better PC skills, but am an absolute newbie with Apple. This week I got a new iMac. Having a number of home PC’s all sharing files and back up space on a Western Digital MyBookLive (“WD MBL”) 3TB network drive (NAS), naturally I wanted to use it to backup the new Mac rather than rushing out to buy an Apple Time Capsule.
There are hundreds of threads on limiting size of a Time Machine (“TM”) backup, many of which required entries in “Terminal” or were devised on older versions of OSX. I’m running OSX Mountain Lion 10.8, so was concerned they may not work.
The issues I wanted to resolve were:
Time Machine will use up all of the space on my WD MBL if left to it’s own devices.
The WD MBL is compatible with Mac and PC’s… which is good… but unlike a back up in Windows 7 Pro which will allow you to make backups in a mapped “share” you create yourself, Apple TM Backups will not; they end up in a hidden folder on the NAS (much like PC backups done with WD Smartware)
At first I thought maybe I could limit the size of a share created in the MBL, but not possible, at least not that I've seen and I have searched for days.
The solutions:
First make sure you have the latest firmware for the WD MBL as of today it is MyBookLive 02.11.09-053. From what I’ve read Western Digital fixed the compatibility issues with 10.8 Mountain Lion just recently.
Next you need to start TM so that it starts to create a back up. You can stop the back up once you see files being copied. Do this before you walk thru the video tutorial by my Marek below. WD MBL will create the hidden folder you need to find for TM Backups. This folder is called “TimeMachine” but it is not visible even in the “MBL_NAME-backup” folder in Finder.
Open safari and type “ afp://xxx.xxx.x.xxx ” but use your own ip address of your MBL. Mine was 192.168.1.120, yours will be different.
It will ask how you want to connect. CHOOSE AS A GUEST even if your MBL is protected… I’m not sure why it works but it does. Then a window will come up asking which share you’d like to mount. You will see all of your own shares plus one called software and now one called “TimeMachine”. Choose that one.
Now in “Finder” you will see a mounted shared item called “YOUR_MBL_NAME-“ (the same as the one that is probably already there but with a dash(-) at the end). You’ll also see a new “device” in the device list called “Time Machine Backups” (If you already have watched the video tutorial by Marek, you’d know you are looking for a file called “YOUR_MACHINE_NAME.sparsebundle”. Well if you browse the folder “Backups.backupdb” in the Time Machine Backups device you won’t find it… again I don’t know why but you won’t. It resides in the hidden folder called “TimeMachine” that is now visible in the thing you just mounted in step 4)
NOW watch this video tutorial http://youtu.be/Nq7mSizqUSI and follow it step by step.
Voila... issues resolved. Thank you Pondini and Marek!

Try Use Terminal to limit Time Machine sparcebundle size on timecapsule,
should work to limit Time Machine backup size on any NAS or external disk (or not...)
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize 500000
to return to ilimited
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize
if you want to reclame deleted files space shrink it use
hdiutil resize -size 500g -shrinkonly /Volumes/TimeMachineYOURNAME/YOURNAME.sparsebundle/
Regards

How to share more than one Time Machine folder

Hi,
With Snow Leo Server I found how to find how to share more than one Time Machine Folder but I can't see how to do the same with Lion Server, could you help me with that ?
The goal of that is to offer one TM folder per user which is located on a dedicated partition in order to limit the size of TM backups per user (150Gig).
In Lion, in can only share one TM folder for everybody and I didn'tfind if I can set a limit size per user...
Thank you in advance,

I have figured out a way to enable multiple backup targets.
However, it's one of these things I wouldn't want to describe to anyone except true programmer types, because everyone else has a 90%+ chance of messing up their system if they do something wrong.
It involves turning off file sharing, and then editing the plist files in /private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/sharepoints/
The gist of it is this:
a) first create all the share points you later want to use for TimeMachine, and set them up for afp-only file sharing, also create one TM target, which you can either use later, or have there so the system has one entry it knows how to handle. I just made a bogus one that I'm not actively using.
b) turn off file sharing in Server.app
c) turn off TimeMachine in Server.app
d) now you can edit the files, the easiest is with Xcode, so you may want to install that first
e) for each sharpoint you made in a) there will be a corresponding .plist file in the location indicated, these are the files that need to be edited.
f) for each of these files
     1) the item0 string property in the timeMachineBackup array must be switched from 0 to 1
     2) a new key of type array with the name timeMachineBackupUUID must be created
     3) in the newly created array an item of type string must be placed with the value of a UUID, which can be created with the shell command uuidgen
g) make sure all the edited plist files are saved
h) turn on TimeMachine in the Server.app again
If all went well, you now should be able to go to one of your networked client computers and see all the time machine share points just created as options for being a time machine target.
Anyway, if you go that route: be careful, don't blame me if you muck things up...

MAC OS 10.7 Trying to Delete from TRASH Time Machine FOLDER (file)

Trying to delete time machine Folder(files) from TRASH. even used secure option, goes through ok. but will not delete from TRASH. files delete from
Time Machine Drive ok, deletion gives you more space on TM DRIVE Time Machine runs ok, How to Delete the Folder (Files) From TRASH?

Hello Mtaff,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
For more information, take a look at:
You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1526
press Shift-Option or Option key combination while emptying the Trash
Have a nice day,
Mario

My Final Cut Projects folder were missing some files, I went to my time machine backup to restore and it said I don't have permission to access the time machine folder "Final Cut Projects". Why?

My Final Cut Projects folder were missing some files, I went to my time machine backup to restore and it said I don't have permission to access the time machine folder "Final Cut Projects". Why?

Yes, I've done all "the ususal suspects.." repaired permissions, zapped pram, "reintroduced Time Machine to the backup drive by turning it off and on... etc

Time Machine Folder

After installing Yosemite my entire Time Machine Folder is now in the trash. I tried to return this to my new Time Machine DB folder, but I get a message that it cannot be changed. OK, so how do I return my backups to my backup drive. I cannot afford to loose the backups.

Click here and follow the instructions.
(111523)

Limiting Time Machine backup size onto external drive

I have a 6TB RAID LaCie external drive that I would like to use with Time Machine. My mac has a 1TB HD which is not full. I do not want Time Machine to fill up my external drive with multiple backups. Is there some way to limit how much space Time Machine will use on an external drive? My understanding is that Time Machine will fill up the drive completely, then start overwriting the oldest files.
I do not think that I could partition the drive. But I am not sure how to do that, if it works with mac, and if I can do it now without reformating the drives. I am looking to see if there is a solution on the Time Machine software side.

Try Use Terminal to limit Time Machine sparcebundle size on timecapsule,
should work to limit Time Machine backup size on any NAS or external disk (or not...)
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize500000
to return to ilimited
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize
if you want to reclame deleted files space shrink it use
hdiutil resize -size 500g -shrinkonly /Volumes/TimeMachineYOURNAME/YOURNAME.sparsebundle/
Regards

Time machine calculating size

Time machine calculation size forever (at least all night) and never concludes. Have to force reboot to recover. MAC os 10.7.4.

This simple procedure will clear your Time Machine settings, including both overt and hidden exclusions. The backups won't be affected. If you have a long exclusion list that can't be recreated easily, you may prefer a more complicated procedure that preserves the exclusion list. In that case, ask for instructions. Otherwise, do as follows.
Triple-click the line below to select it:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu. A Finder window should open with a file selected. Copy it to the Desktop. Then move it (the original, not the copy) to the Trash. You'll be prompted for your administrator password. Reboot, recreate your settings in the Time Machine preference pane. It will show that you have no backups. Don't be alarmed; that's expected. Run a backup to test. If TM now performs as expected, delete the file you copied to the Desktop.

How to reduce the size of my Time Machine folder.

My Time maching folder is extremely large with backups that go all the way back to june 2011. I obviously don't need anything from way back then. Is there any way I can limit how far back Time Machine will go too? And is there any way I can reduce the size of the folder currently?

My Time maching folder is extremely large with backups that go all the way back to june 2011. I obviously don't need anything from way back then.
Just to add to what has already been said, let me say that this is not at all obvious. It may seem to you now like you don't need anything from way back then, but suppose that you discover tomorrow that a very important file that you haven't thought about in some time is missing, and suppose that it turns out that it was accidentally deleted in August 2011. Those kinds of situations are what backup systems like Time Machine are designed to help protect against.
There is no such thing as unnecessary backups, and in fact, you probably need more, not less. You should have a minimum of two separate backups, and any data that you would consider irreplaceable should be not only backed up twice but also backed up in an archive that gets put away in a closet or in a safe somewhere every so often and not touched again, to protect against corruption or accidental deletion that affects the backups as well. Multiple points of redundancy are required for true long-term data integrity!

Time Machine backup size almost 1T for two months worth of archives. How to minimise space consumed by Time Machine short of starting over?

I have an MBA mid-2012 wtih only 250GB of internal SSD space. I have run my back up since last year, but have subsequently removed my older back ups through Time Machine. I now have only two entries one day each for December of 2012 and January this year. The backup space consumed seems to have grown to 900GB. My external drive is 2TB large, but it seems that the Time Machine back up space has grown over large.
How can I trim it to size short of starting from scratch? I actually don't have problems starting my backup over, but if a more elegant solution is available then I am all ears (or eyes in case of the internet and my screen).

Thank you for the link. It helped immensely. Attached is a screenie of my disk usage. So I didn't realise earlier that my virtual machines (save for Boot Camp) could be eating up a sizeable chunk of the back up space. I think I'll do a complete redo of my Time Machine back up, I keep a copy of each VM I use as a pseudo snapshot anyway. I've added a number of exclusions too, since I only really use several folders in my home directory as temp (e.g. watching a movie I copy it to my Videos folder so I so I can disconnect my external HDD).

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.
It seems clear that Time Machine is backing up my iMovie content twice, that is seeing the old iMovie Events and iMovie Projects folders (which are still present in my Movies folder), and the new iMovie Library package, as separate things even though they cannot be separate as they are not taking up any more space on the disk.
The backup is also taking much longer than usual, though I'm not so worried about that.
Any ideas about the cause or how to fix this?
I'm running Mavericks on a late 2008 MacBook 2.4 GHz Unibody with 8GB RAM and 250GB SSD, backing up to Time Capsule with 2TB hard drive

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.
They should be nearly identical in size. You can confirm this by right clicking the "iMovie Events" folder (iMovie 9) and the "iMovie Library" package (iMovie 10) and selecting "Get Info" and their respective sizes should be nearly identical. The reason for this is unclear other than you retain the ability to run iMovie 9 which will continue to access the "iMovie Events" folder. iMovie 10 will access the newly created/duplicated "iMovie Library" package. Any new video you add using iMovie 10 will also be stored in the new "iMovie Library".
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.
At some point I presume you have the option to delete the "iMovie Events" folder if iMovie 9 will no longer be utilized or, better yet, back it up on a separate drive if like me you don't like deleting files until you're absolutely sure you don't need them. Otherwise, from what I have found, you are in fact backing up two sets of files.
For now I had to exclude the "iMovie Events" folder from my Time Machine backup because, like you, my back up nearly doubled in size (videos take up a lot of space) otherwise I got an error message from Time Machine indicating that my external drive did not have enough space for the backup file.

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.
The backup status shows xxx-of 37gb backed up. What's the deal, I only have 27gb on the source drive.
Thanks,
Kevin

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.
They should be nearly identical in size. You can confirm this by right clicking the "iMovie Events" folder (iMovie 9) and the "iMovie Library" package (iMovie 10) and selecting "Get Info" and their respective sizes should be nearly identical. The reason for this is unclear other than you retain the ability to run iMovie 9 which will continue to access the "iMovie Events" folder. iMovie 10 will access the newly created/duplicated "iMovie Library" package. Any new video you add using iMovie 10 will also be stored in the new "iMovie Library".
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.
At some point I presume you have the option to delete the "iMovie Events" folder if iMovie 9 will no longer be utilized or, better yet, back it up on a separate drive if like me you don't like deleting files until you're absolutely sure you don't need them. Otherwise, from what I have found, you are in fact backing up two sets of files.
For now I had to exclude the "iMovie Events" folder from my Time Machine backup because, like you, my back up nearly doubled in size (videos take up a lot of space) otherwise I got an error message from Time Machine indicating that my external drive did not have enough space for the backup file.

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:
Oops! You're right, I meant Spotlight (you use a Mac for 25 years and you get confused sometimes!). Anyway, I checked the entire log folder and it's less than 100 MB. Could the other things you mentioned (temporary files, swap files etc.)
yes, they could although it's somewhat uncommon. swap files are in /var/vm. DO NOT delete those by hand. restarting the computer will reset them to the default size. sleepimage is in the same directory too. you can delete that one but if you have safe sleep enabled then it will be recreated next time you sleep the computer. also check your Trash size.
account for that big a difference, and if not, should I be worried that my TM backup is incomplete?
no, I wouldn't worry about that. check your TM exclusion list in TM system preferences->options. if nothing is on it and nothing is obviously missing you should be fine. but i would be worried about having a lot of stuff that's abnormally large and takes away space. for example, if it's the swap files that take so much space it means that you need more RAM.

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

Hello,
Today I used Time Machine to backup the computer. It completed the backup and now I want to *make sure* that the backup files and the local machine files are the same size; don't want to leave anything up to some program when so much is at stake.
The problem: On the External HD, the size of the account I *MUST* have backed up is 20Gb. When I look at the /Volumes/Mac HD/Users/##### I see the user account as being 45GB.
I'm pretty sure that Time Machine doesn't compress any of the files. I am also aware of the changing nature of ~/Library and other similar files.
What is going on here? Can I be sure that my backups are truly complete backups?
Other than looking at the folder size, how can I really know what the actual size is?
Any info would be great.
Thanks,
Allan

There is a wealth of Time Machine information here:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
AC

Time Machine Folder Sizes

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