Time Machine: Where are my documents?

Why does Time machine not back up my documents. I used for the first time yesterday but the documents don't appear on my backup drive.
John Newell

I think I found them. In Time machine > Backups.backupdb > John Newell's iMac > 2012-10-28-124523 > Macintosh HD > Users folder! There are all my documents, downloads, etc.
Right?

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Time machine - where are my applications?

I'm fairly new to the Mac and I just got a Time Capsule, setup my backup (excluded the 2nd partition of my harddisk, the 2nd partition contains Mountain Lion while the first one has Mavericks) and now I'm not able to find my applications anywhere in time machine.
I tried to follow those instructions: Select Applications in Finder, then enter Time Machine. After it loads go to the backup you want to restore from. Select the applications you want to restore.
I see my applications only in TODAY, no matter to what I go back in time, the applications folder is not shown. I did not exclude it from the backup, so why doesn't it show? It's grey on the left side (under favorites) and when I go to Macintosh HD it doesn't show at all.

Thank you for the link Eric. In 15 hours (estimated backup time) I'll know more and let you know.
@etresoft: Sorry, I was not very precise (I'm not a native speaker), I have the TC now for about 3 weeks and there are multimple backups (my computer is running 12-13 hours per day and TC backup is always on).

How can I tell if my Time Machine backups are encrypted?

Hi - I would really appreciate it if someone could help me find out if my Time Machine backps are actually encrypted.
I know that there is an 'encryption' option when choosing a disc for Time Machine to backup to, but the problem is I cannot remember whether or not I actually ticked it (as it was a couple of years ago).
Other info that might be helpful:
- The disk I use Time Machine to backup to is actually a Apple Time Capsule
- I do have FileVault2 enabled on my mac
- I have never encrypted the Time Capsule disc itself (via Disk Utility or anything similar)
- One possible clue might be: When I go into Time Machine preferences, and click on 'Select Disk...' (as if to choose another disk to back up to), and select the disc that Time Machine currently backs up to (i.e. the Time Capsule disc), it does show an 'Encrypt backups' checkbox at the bottom of the window... however this checkbox is unchecked and also greyed out.
Thanks in advance
a_quinn

a_quinn wrote:
- Because I originally created this Time Machine Backup (to the Time Capsule) back in my 'OS X Lion' days,
I wondered; you posted in the Mountain Lion forum, but your profile still says Lion.
that means that my backups now (and moving forward) will continue to be un-encrypted
Correct (as of now, anyway). You cannot encrypt existing network backups. I doubt that will be available in the future, and would take forever.
- The only way to encyrpt my backups now, moving forward, is to remove this Time Capsule disc (from Time Machine Preferences), and start all over again ensuring that I check the checkbox next to 'Encrypt Backup' when selecting the Time Capsule's disc to backup to.
Well, in theory it's possible, but would take forever, squared.
You could archive the TC's contents to a USB drive connected to it, per #Q6 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule).
Then delete the original, start a backup with encryption, and as soon as the encrypted sparse bundle is created, cancel the backup.
Mount the sparse bundle, open the disk image, and delete the Backups.backupdb folder inside it.
Connect the USB drive to your Mac, mount that sparse bundle, open its disk image, and copy the Backups.backupdb folder to the one on the TC.
Depending on how large the sparse bundle is, that could easily take a couple of days, at least, even connected via Ethernet.
Just for testing one day, I encrypted a very small set of existing test backups on a F/W 800 drive - 6 dated backups using a whole 12 GB. Took an hour.
An alternative would be, just do the "archive" and keep the USB drive "on the shelf" for a while. You can always connect it to your Mac and access those backups via the Browse Other Backup Disks option.
Trying to keep a couple of years worth of backups usually isn't a good idea. It's a very complex structure, so the odds of damage increase, it takes much longer to populate the TM browser, and it works slower and slower, and if you didn't need something for 6 months, are you really going to need it in 2 years?

How best to save photos? I want to protect my photos (15,000 of them) by putting them on a portable drive and storing it in my safety deposit box. Is it better to export them all, drag the Photo file, use Time Machine – or are there better alternatives?

I am a 'newby' to the discussion world. Hope I am doing this right. How best to save photos? I want to protect my photos (15,000 of them) by putting themon a portable drive and storing it in my safety deposit box. Is it better to export them all, dragthe Photo file, use Time Machine – or are there better alternatives?

Welcome to the discussions! You can use Time Machine and I would also recommend for you to manually copy your iPhoto Library (on your Pictures folder) to an external drive/thumb drive so you can restore it from there should you loose your TM backup. Exporting them from iPhoto would not preserve the libraries' integrity neither your originals, should you choose to edit them in iPhoto.
Regards.

Where are my documents?

I just watched all of my documents in Pages disappear on my iPad, now I'm left with a blank new Pages start-up.
Here is what might have happened: I got a new MacBook and downloaded Pages yesterday. Since both of these devices share iCloud, did it replace Pages on my iPad with the new one from my MacBook? If so, WHERE ARE MY DOCUMENTS from my "old" Pages on my iPad? HELP!

No pages on your new Mac is NOT linked to the icloud storage system, hwever if you have connected your iPad to the your new Mac via the USB cable then you may have reset your IPad as a new device in iTunes.
Prior to this did you have the iPad sync'ed with another PC/Mac ?
If so did you back up the IPad on that ?
If you did then you should be able to recover some of the files from that back up.

Time Machine options are not working. I am unable to schedule automatic backups.

Time Machine options are not working. I am unable to schedule automatic backups. The On-Off button is grayed out. I can perform a backup manually.

Thanks for responding. I have an external disk with plenty of room. It is used only for backup of my computer. I get a backup by clicking on the Time Machine icon at the top of the page and select "Back Up Now." When I click on Time Machine Preferences, there is a box labeled "Options" which allows me to exclude items from backup and notify after old backups are deleted. There is no option to schedule a backup. The "OFF/ON" box is gray. For "Next Backup:" it says "Automatic backups off." I would like to turn it on.

Since upgrading to Lion, my time machine backups are failing - error message: The backup disk image "/Volumes/Jackie Scanlon's Time Caps/Jacqueline Drabczynska's MacBook.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1). Any ideas?

Since upgrading my Macbook to Lion, the time machine backups are failing - error message: "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Jackie Scanlon's Time Caps/Jacqueline Drabczynska’s MacBook.sparsebundle” could not be accessed (error -1)." I have rebooted the TIme Capsule and it worked OK, but don't want to do that every time. Any suggestions? Thanks

Any new info on this?
I had the exact same problem and went crazy and spent a hecka lot of time trying to deal with my brand new 2TB Time Capsule and almost brand new MacBook Pro. Then I thought I fixed it...and I tried SO MANY things, I don't really know what did it...except taking out any apostrophe's in names of stuff that Apple puts in there...BUT...now it's back.
Grrr...

When I try to set up Time Machine, there are no back up disks displayed. Therefore, I cannot turn on Time Machine. How can I fix this?

When I try to set up Time Machine, there are no back up disks displayed. Therefore, I cannot turn on Time Machine. How can I fix this?

Thanks - let it finish, but zero out data is unnecessary. That option is intended to thoroughly erase previously recorded data so that it cannot be recovered without sophisticated data recovery techniques.
Case sensitive is OK but I suggest you simply select Mac OS X Extended since "case sensitive" may complicate things for you in the future, should it be necessary to restore files to a case-ignorant volume.
Once it finishes, make sure it appears as a selectable option in Time Machine. If it does your problems are solved, but consider using Disk Utility and reformatting it. This time don't worry about zeroing unused space, and select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). It will only take a few seconds this time.
For a more thorough description read Apple Support Communites contributor Pondini's FAQ: http://pondini.org/TM/5.html Read the pink box regarding the subject of case sensitivity.
Also: Mac Basics: Time Machine

Where are my documents after conversion?

Where are my documents after conversion?

After conversion you will be prompted to download the converted file. We do not store converted files on our servers with the ExportPDF system.

HT1391 I purchased 3 new tv episodes on iTunes and downloaded them on my iPad, from iCloud. They don't appear on my iPad Videos app and I've tried downloading them several times. Where are they?

I purchased 3 new tv episodes on iTunes and downloaded them on my iPad, from iCloud. They don't appear on my iPad Videos app and I've tried downloading them several times. Where are they?

The question is not only how to to hide them, but also how to mark them as watched!

Time Machine on Windows Shared Documents?

I have a PC upstairs, it is on a home network. I have a macbook that has leopard installed on it. I can connect to the shared documents from my mac. But I was wondering if I could use time machine with the Shared Documents.Is it possible? And if so, could you tell me any details that I may need to do.
Thanks.

no, it's not possible. TM can only back up directly attached drives and they have to be formatted Mac OS extended.

Time Machine Problem - Where are my documents?

Help!
I scrapped my OS (10.5.2) due some issues and re-installed it, assuming the whole time that Time Machine had been backing up my hard drive. Instead, it seems to have only been backing up my Applications folder. I can't find my Documents folder anywhere in my Time Machine.
Am I missing something?
Thanks,
Matt in Armenia

That is incorrect
You do not go "into" the time machine disk - you use Time machine to "restore" files or folders - launch TM adn go to the tiem you want to restore from - select the iPhoto library and click restore
TM does not store disk images - it keeps everything and when you restore it reassembles what you are restoring for the time you want
See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
LN

Where are last documents in Mavericks finder?

Hi There
Firsty post on here but looking for advice on where (in the new finder on Mavericks) I can see my list of last documents. Previously it used to list them by day/week etc and it was a really convenient feature when I opened finder to see the actual docs listed in that way.
I know I can change each of my folders to 'arrange by last opened' which goes some way to what I want, but this still has everything categorised within individual folders so I still have to click several times to get a single document.
I basiclally want to open finder then just click once if hte document I am looking for was recently used. I am 99% sure this is how finder used to work before Mavericks??
Thanks in advance for any help with this!
Claire

Folder that don't start with "LabVIEW" are MSI folders. These are defined by Microsoft. The "Program Files Common" refers to the "Common Files" folder inside of "Program Files". You can also see the list here: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/811FACF92E678065862576660077CE21. There is no shortcut for the "Public Documents" folder accessible from the NI installer.

My old backups on the Time Machine disk are not accessible.

Hi everyone,
I installed a fresh OS X Mountain Lion yesterday. I tried to use Migration Assistant (in the Utilities folder) for the first time, to migrate my old data from the Time Machine back-up disk.
After almost 6 hours, my data was completely in place from the backup disk. In fact, the data was gotten from the latest version of backups as I expected. But now, when I go to Time Machine to browse my old backups, it seems that all backups are still there, detected by the Time Machine itself, but it is not possible to access any of them.
In fact, selecting one of the past backups from the Time-Line on the right edge of the screen, has no effect. All the windows behind the current finder window in the Time Machine are also dimmed, seems that no backups are there. But the Time-Line on the right edge of the screen displays several items from the first backup on my disk to the latest which was for the day before yesterday.
This is not what I expected from the Time Machine. I was so glad when the Migration Assistant read all my data from the backup disk and put them in place. But I did not expect to lose my old backups which are still there on the disk, but Time Machine behaviour is like the times where there are no backups.
It is important to note that before migrating data using Migration Assistant, I was able to browse all my backups in the Time Machine. This was also one the great features of Time Machine, since I had a fresh OS installation, and all my data from the past were accessible in the Time Machine.
I could also get my data one by one and restore them in-place using Time Machine but it was some how cumbersome.
Now is there any one to let me know why this has happened? I Appreciate your time to write.
Mani Hamedani

Troubleshooting information:
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Oldest time machine backups are inaccessible

Hi everyone,
I'm running 10.6.1 and have had no problems with Time Machine until recently. My Time Machine has an Oldest Backup of July 28, 2009. It's Latest Backup was done today just an hour before this posting. My problem is, I can access all of my backups except for my oldest backups starting from July 28, 2009 and a few days after that. The most recent ones I can access are from October 4, 2009. The dates are listed on the Time Machine 'sidebar', where you can see dates for all of the backups you have. The problem is, my July backups are grey'd out. The ones that are available are a more vibrant gray with a highlight and those I can take action/view/restore from.
What are some possible things I can troubleshoot this problem with as I'd really like to get my hands on my oldest backups?
Just to further note, my Time Machine still has 185GB available on it. So it's not like it has run out of disk space and had to delete my oldest backup.
Thanks all.
Message was edited by: Steve Finkelstein

Steve Finkelstein wrote:
Thanks Pondini, tip #E2 did the trick. I had to option click TM in the menu bar and select a different disk. I didn't realize that the backups deviated from each other at that point in time. It makes sense because that's around when I installed Snow Leopard.
Appreciate the tip+answer!
Cool! That really shouldn't happen, but sometimes TM has a mind of it's own!
Glad it's sorted out, and thanks for the star!

Time Machine: Where are my documents?

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