Tmutil inheritbackup & tmutil associatedisk simplified

The difference between (Terminal commands)
tmutil inheritbackup & tmutil associatedisk
simplified:
Use these command to get you old backup instead of starting new backup when you change either the source of the destination disk:
changed destination: tmutil inheritbackup
changed source*: tmutil associatedisk -a
* The -a option tells associatedisk to find all snapshot volumes in the same machine
directory that match the identity of MyStuff, and then perform the association on all of them.
Examples:
tmutil inheritbackup {machine_directory | sparsebundle}
tmutil associatedisk [-a] mount_point snapshot_volume

Similar Messages

Associate or Inherit backups?

I'm running two drives, one as a boot (with applications), one containing my user folder. I just renamed the drive with my user folder and updated the user home directory path....but now Time Machine won't backup (too large, but whats strange is the size is 180gig, which is about half of my user folder, so its not a full backup, its about a 1/3 backup). My assumption is time machine doesn't recognize that very little has changed since my last backup, except a path; since its looking for /Volumes/Macintosh HD/which is now /Volumes/Optibay/. The strange thing is however I would assume if it can't figure out they are the same, then it should be doing a full backup, or a small backup, but its doing neither. Anyway,
Now I know in terminal you can inherit or associate a TM backup with a new drive, restored drive, etc. but I'm not sure which to use. I've found Pondini's page with the three different commands for inherit, associate, and associate data drive only, but I'm not sure which to use...any help would be appreciated.
Either root command;
tmutil inheritbackup
tmutil associatedisk -a /
tmutil associatedisk -a

If you want to know specifically which files TM considers to need backing up, execute the following shell command:
sudo tmutil compare
Each line of output that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

Can't "inherit" prior Mac's Time Capsule Time Machine backup

It's getting ridiculous. Tried half-dozen times, tried Pondini's instructions, just doesn't seem to work. I never get the "Inherit the backups?" question and my new computer starts a new full backup.
Probably I've screwed up the drive by now.
It's a 2 TB Time Capsule set up as Time Machine with my old MBPro running Mountain Lion. There's lots of space used (the old backup). The new computer has it's own Mtn Lion setup and new applications and a new USER (me). I have tried using Igration Assistant to migrate the SETTINGS only, because I read that would trigger the "Inherit the Backups?" question.
It completeed the migrration successfully, but no question. When I start a new backup I do not get the question either, jsut the beginning of a 95GB backup.
Is this doable? Can someone clarify or simplify?
I want to baack up to the old set, or at least access the old backup set to recover some few files that were not transferred previously (by another non-Time Machine backup)

Using Ponderini's instructions #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting, I don’t succeed in reconnecting an existing time machine backup (time capsule).
The previous TM backup was made from a macbockpro under OS 10.6.8 on a time capsule. I change to a new MBP that run on os 10.9 and I want to use my previous time capsule backups.
With my new MBP I can access to previous backup using Browse Other Backup Disks option, but I an’t succed using the B6 to keep previous backup.
I’ve done first :
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist —> succeed
sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/Data/Macintosh.sparsebundle —> succeed (Filesystem clean, ect..)
sudo tmutil associatedisk -a / /Volumes/Copies\ de\ sauvegarde\ Time\ machine/Backups.backupdb/Macintosh/2013-12-20-133156/MacBookGG1T —> succeed
I reconfigure TM preference by choosing the appropiate Time capsule (« data »)
When I activate TM, the Time Machine preferences do not indicate that any prior backups were available
I reboot like proposed by Eric, same problem.
Then I tried:
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist —> succeed
## Then I mount the sparebundle
sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/Copies\ de\ sauvegarde\ Time\ machine/Backups.backupdb/Macintosh —> succeed
sudo tmutil associatedisk -a / /Volumes/Copies\ de\ sauvegarde\ Time\ machine/Backups.backupdb/Macintosh/2013-12-20-133156/MacBookGG1T —> succeed
I reconfigure TM preference by choosing the appropiate Time capsule (« data »)
When I activate TM, the Time Machine preferences do not indicate that any prior backups were available
I reboot, same problem.
Do you have any idea to overcome this problem ?

Inherit backups in a unique migration situation

We had two Macs running Snow Leopard. Old Mac A (2006 MacBook Pro 17") was connected direclty to an external drive and used Time Machine there. Old Mac B (2006 MacBook 13") mounted the same drive to use for Time Machine backups by first connecting to Old Mac A across the network, and so its Time Machine backup was stored in a sparsebundle on that drive.
We upgrade both Macs, New Mac A (2012 MacBook Pro 15") replacing Old Mac A, New Mac B (2012 Mac Mini) repalcing Old Mac B. However, because of some changes we wanted to make, the Time Machine backup drive is now connected directly to New Mac B (stationary Mini allowing it to stay connected permanently).
I discovered information in places like http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html and http://simon.heimlicher.com/articles/2012/07/10/time-machine-inherit-backup-usin g-tmutil that pointed me to tmutil which could help me with inheritbackup and associatedisk. However, New Mac A was not able to inherit Old Mac A's backup across the network, and I'm concerned more generally about the fact that the machine's have swapped roles in terms of which one is connected directly and which is connected across the network.
Any advice on exactly what steps I should take to properly connect New Mac A to Old Mac A's Time Machine Backup, and New Mac B to Old Mac B's? Could this possibly include moving Old Mac A's backup into a new sparsebundle (for use across a network) and/or moving Old Mac B's backup out of its sparsebundle to the drive's root directory (for use with a direct-connected drive)?

The pondini.org link says that sometimes the associatedisk command will work over a network. More importantly, the only reason I even disocvered there was such a thing as the possibility of inheriting a backup is that when I first connected the external drive to the Mini, fully expecting to have to start a new TM backup from scratch, TM suddenly popped up asking me if I wanted to inherit the backup. It found it on its own, somehow knew there was an association between the backup set and the data on its on drive (which I had restored via Setup Assistant), even though the backup it had found now direct-connected was the very same one that was in a sparsebundle and used to only be run across the network.
I haven't yet allowed the computer to actually backup, since I wanted to be sure about everything being connected/inherited/associated properly first. However, the fact that TM found that used-to-be-across-the-network backup on its own, asked me to inherit it, and the fact that I did successfully run the inheritbackup command on the Mini, all lead me to believe that there is somewhat more to the story than what you just said, even if that may be the official claim about how TM works.

"Reconnecting" Time Machine Backups on New Macbook Pro

I recently got a new macbook pro and used Time Machine to set it up. Unfortunately, when I attempt to continue to use time machine backups, I get the warning that I don't have enough space.
I next attempted to use the Pondini B6 troubleshoot to reconnect my backups via the terminal (http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html), however upon attempting to execute the "sudo tmutil inheritbackup" command I received the following error message:
The backup "I***Mac" can't be inherited because it would conflict with "I***’s MacBook Pro" (with I***Mac being the name of my old laptop and I***'s MacBook Pro being my new one).
Does anyone have any suggestions? Should I just wipe my backup HD?
Thanks so much

It helps!
After this:
sudo tmutil delete "/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Computername 2/"
sudo tmutil associatedisk -a /Volumes/Mac\ HD /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/Computername/Latest/Mac\ HD
I was able to go into Time Machine and see the backups that were in Computername that I hadn't been able to see via Time Machine (but could see from the command line).
And then I deleted a folder in TIme Machine (a profile inside ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox and the entire old backup in /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/Computername/ was deleted. Perhaps fat fingers? I dunno. I have a volume copy of the Time Machine volume, so I'll try again...

Migrate Time Machine .sparsebundle to DAS

I'm trying to migrate my .sparsebundle off of a 3rd party NAS onto a new Thunderbold DAS but I can't seem to find any documentation to describe how to go about doing this.
Right now, I've mounted the .sparsebundle and I'm doing a Disk Utility restore from it to the new DAS (prompted me to erase the destination as a result). This process seems to want to take one full day by way of the Disk Utility time counter.
Is this the most efficient, fastest way to do it? It only took 5 hours to copy the 800GB sparsebundle over to it's temporary home, so I'm unsure why the restore wants to take 5x longer to complete, unless I'm doing this the hard way. I notice that it seems to be doing a block copy . Would this account for the increase in expected completion time?
Thanks in advance.

There is a way to force the backup history to be inherited, but I consider it too complicated for most users to carry out, and it won't do any good if you've already started using Time Machine with the new setup. If you're familiar with the shell and want to try it, search the tmutil(8) manual page for the terms "inheritbackup" and "associatedisk."
Otherwise I suggest you set the backup drive aside and stop using it until you're sure you'll no longer need the data. Then erase it and start over. Meanwhile, start a new backup on another drive. You need more than one backup to be safe anyway.

Time machine is deleting all my old backups after moving to different iMac

Hi - I had to move my data to a different machine and so I prepared a different iMac (early 2008). This is what I did:
I booted into Snow Leopard from my DVD
erased the HD
installed SL 10.6
booted into SL
ran software update to upgrade to 10.6.8 (to get the App Store)
installed Mountain Lion 10.8.2
used Migration Asistant to restore all my data, apps, and settings from my time machine backup
This all worked fine and at some point time machine asked me whether to inherit the time machine history. I confirmed this and all seemed fine until I noticed that time machine was backing for a long time and a lot of space was being freed on the time machine volume. I found that it was deleting all my old backups. Before I had data going back to 2010 but now I only have backups left from JAN 2012 onwards.
After some searching I found the excellent Pondini time machine site and performed the actions under B6 ("Reconecting" to your backups):
exxi:~ michael$ sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/tm2/Backups.backupdb/exxi
Password:
exxi:~ michael$ sudo tmutil associatedisk -a / /Volumes/tm2/Backups.backupdb/exxi/2013-02-03-150320/exxi_hd
I restarted the backup after applying the command above but it still is deleting old backups. I tried the same comand by associating it with an older backup but still it keeps deleting my backups.
What can I do to stop it from erasing all my backups?
Cheers
Michael

Just found this info in the Backup dashboard widget:
Starting manual backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/tm2/Backups.backupdb
Inheritance scan required for /, associated with previous UUID: [deleted]
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: exxi_hd
Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
First backup after disk inheritance for / - complete scan required
Finished scan
Found 839161 files (154.88 GB) needing backup
188.83 GB required (including padding), 145.37 GB available
Deleted backup /Volumes/tm2/Backups.backupdb/exxi/2012-03-04-160328 containing 2.25 GB; 147.63 GB now available, 188.83 GB required
Deleted backup /Volumes/tm2/Backups.backupdb/exxi/2013-02-05-181442.inProgress/57E7F008-929C-4 DF8-B062-F034FEE7A606 containing 4 KB; 147.63 GB now available, 188.83 GB required
Deleted backup /Volumes/tm2/Backups.backupdb/exxi/2013-01-07-112745 containing 130.8 MB; 147.76 GB now available, 188.83 GB required
Removed 3 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
Deleted backup /Volumes/tm2/Backups.backupdb/exxi/2012-03-11-191620 containing 2.08 GB; 149.86 GB now available, 188.83 GB required
Removed 4 expired backups so far, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
Backup deletion was canceled by user
Deleted 4 backups containing 4.46 GB total; 149.86 GB now available, 188.83 GB required
Backup date range was shortened: oldest backup is now Mar 31, 2012
Backup canceled.

New install, old time machine backup?

I have a 2009 Mac Pro, original HD still inside, Mavericks installed. I just installed Yosemite on a new internal drive. The Mavs time machine backup is on a 3rd internal drive.
My question: how can I get the new Yosemite installation to utilize my estalbished Time Machine backup, and carry forward?
thank you!
ray

There is a way to force the backup history to be inherited, but I consider it too complicated for most users to carry out, and it won't do any good if you've already started using Time Machine with the new setup. If you're familiar with the shell and want to try it, search the tmutil(8) manual page for the terms "inheritbackup" and "associatedisk."
Otherwise I suggest you set the backup drive aside and stop using it until you're sure you'll no longer need the data. Then erase it and start over. Meanwhile, start a new backup on another drive. You need more than one backup to be safe anyway.

HT201250 existing Time Machine backups to a new Mac

how do i migrate existing time machine backups to a new mac from my time capsule?

It took a little more research, but that link in the end solved my problem. After mounting the Time Capsule and the previous backup sparsebundle, I ran these commands to inherit the old backup (with <capsule> and <machine> representing the names of the Time Capsule and machine/hard drive respectively:
          sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/<capsule>/<machine>.sparsebundle
          sudo tmutil associatedisk -a / /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb/<machine>/2012-12-09-114511/<machine>
          sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/<capsule>/
"2012-12-09-114511" was the latest snapshot that was there. According to the documentation, you can pick any snapshot, since the "-a" in that command will update all of the associated snapshots.

Migrate time machine backup to Yosemite

I bought a new mac. My old mac was backed to an external disk up using time machine. I connected the external disk to my new machine and powered up. The first thing that launches on first power-up is a special piece of software called migration assistant. The migration assistant re-created my files and everything from the backup external disk. It took a while, but it worked great.
At the end of the migration assistant run, it asked me whether I wanted to use the external disk for future backups. Migration assistant warned that if so then it would have to alter the backup files (probably some indexes is my guess) in a way that the backup could no longer be used with my old computer. Well, I was a little concerned about losing things before I tried my new computer, so I told migration assistant to leave the time machine backups alone.
Now I am happy with my new machine, and I want to migrate the old backup files to become the backup set for the new machine. How do I do that?
If I enter migration assistant (it is in the applications folder) it appears to behave as though it will re-init my new computer. I do not want to do that. I only want migration assistant to convert the save set on my external disk into a save set for time machine under Yosemite.
Thanks for your help.

There is a way to force the backup history to be inherited, but I consider it too complicated for most users to carry out, and it won't do any good if you've already started using Time Machine with the new setup. If you're familiar with the shell and want to try it, search the tmutil(8) manual page for the terms "inheritbackup" and "associatedisk."
Otherwise I suggest you set the backup drive aside and stop using it until you're sure you'll no longer need the data. Then erase it and start over. Meanwhile, start a new backup on another drive. You need more than one backup to be safe anyway.

How to set up time machine so it can view old backup after renewal of user rights ?

I am newbie in the mac world but I am very happy to use the devices I have.
I just both and setup time capsule and did firt initial backup with time machine into account I have setup on the TC. But after while I was not able to view my user folder, so I resetup the user rights.
But now when I turn on time machine, I say that I didnt perform initial backup. In finder I am able to see and acces my folder on TC now and there is also a file with backup with name Václav - Mac mini.sparsebundle just in the root of my user folder on TC.
Can you please help me how to tell TM, that there is a initial backup that can be used for other incremental backups in the future ?
Thanks for your help.
Vaclav.

I did that. But and then reopen TM but still I dont see backup performed any suggestions ?
"Inherit" a backup
Copy the following after the prompt, and leave a space, but do not press Return yet:
sudo tmutil inheritbackup
If your backups are on an external HD, locate and open the drive in the Finder window. At the top level of the drive is a Backups.backupdb folder containing a folder named for your old Mac, per the sample. This is what you want the new Mac to "inherit." Drag that folder to the Terminal window.
(If your backups are on a Time Capsule, locate the sparse bundle containing the backups for your old Mac via the Finder, and drag it to the Terminal window):

Time Machine Backup No longer available under Lion

I was having a problem with Time Machine, although I didn't know it until today. It had been going through the backup procedure every day. But today, I decided to go into Time Machine just to look around. It took several tries but it finally came up, however, there wasn't any dates listed on the right side other than today. On the Time Machine Preferences panel, it showed the oldest backup was from August. After reading some comments online, I went into the Select Disk option in the preferences, with the backup disk selected, I set do not back up. I then went back into the Select Disk option and reselected the same disk. Now it shows the oldest date to be none. Other comments said that it would update once a backup is done. When I attempted to do the backup I got an error message that the Backup Disk is not available. Here is the messages:
Dec 1 21:56:09 MacbookPro com.apple.backupd[482]: Backup failed with error: 19
Dec 1 21:58:18 MacbookPro com.apple.backupd[506]: Starting standard backup
Dec 1 21:58:18 MacbookPro com.apple.backupd[506]: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://Becky%[email protected]:548/TM%20Backups%20MacBookPro
Dec 1 21:58:19 MacbookPro com.apple.backupd[506]: NAConnectToServerSync failed with error: 80 for url: afp://Becky%[email protected]:548/TM%20Backups%20MacBookPro
Dec 1 21:58:29 MacbookPro com.apple.backupd[506]: Backup failed with error: 19
This backup disk is mounted on an imac, which is also mounted on my MBP. I can open the disk and see all the backup files, however, Time Machine will not honor it (for some reason).
I have rebooted both the MBP and the imac, thinking that would fix it, but it hasn't. I have turned off all backups for now. Can anyone tell me if I can still use the old backups or do I have to start again? If I have to start again, what did I do wrong?

Daniel Wieder wrote:
This backup disk is mounted on an imac, which is also mounted on my MBP.
Try connecting it directly to your MBP. To see the backups, you'll have to manually mount the sparsebundle they're in (since Time Machine isn't expecting that), and use the Browse ... option, per #E2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
You may want to try repairing them, per #A5 in that same article.
If that either finds no problems, or fixes whatever it does find, re-connect it to the iMac and go through the setup procedure again, per #22 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
Here's the next thing I tried, with no luck.
MacbookPro:Volumes dwieder$ sudo tmutil inheritbackup
That only works when you get a new Mac, don't use the normal ways to put your data on it, but want to continue using the same set of backups. See #B6 in the Troubleshooting article.

How do I transfer files through time machine from old macbook to new macbook pro?

I have Lion on my old macbook and I have saved all my info through time machine. How do I transfer my files to my new macbook pro?

If you want to restore all you old machine to your new MacBookPro, simply restart you computer in Recovery mode (Hold option key while restarting), select restore from Time Machine Backup, and select the latest or whatever date you like.
On the other hand if you want your new MacBook to use your old TM back, just inherit that backup using the following command in Terminal:
tmutil inheritbackup {machine_directory | sparsebundle}
You will find detailed instructions for inherit backups here: http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html

OS X Mavericks time capsule issue.

After the OS X Mavericks upgrade, my time capsule keeps failing to back up. Anyone else having this issue?

I solved the problem I was having with Time Machine backups. I used the info at http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html, in particular the final section, "If your backups are on a network". In terminal I used the command "sudo tmutil inheritbackup", spedifying the sparsebundle on my backup disk. (I may have created the problem in the first place and I don't believe this was caused by Mavericks.)

Migrated old back-up to new MacBook Pro, but now new machine doesn't recognize old back-up

So last night I migrated my old back-up to my new MacBook Pro, but this morning my new machine doesn't recognize my old back-up. I'd rather not erase and back-up from scratch for numerous reasons (losing the old data, time, etc).
Any suggestions? I'll bet this is a realatively common issue?
Thanks in advance for any help!
-Ron

Looking back, at your original posts....it said it needed 774 GB?? is that at all reasonable for a full backup of your system??
Maybe there's something more than meets the eye?
Also maybe we can figure out what went wrong with the tmutil command. It is possible that you may have to use additional options.
But first le's see who owns the old backup....
From the terminal command line try this:
sudo xattr -l "path to your backup"
Where "path to your backup" is tha same path exactly as used in the tmutil command, that is:
/Volumes/"Backups Device Name"/Backups.backupdb/"Backup Name"
You should get something like this for output:
com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress:
00000000 30 30 3A 31 64 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. |00:1d:..:..:..:.|
00000010 34 00 |4.|
00000012
com.apple.backupd.HostUUID:
00000000 41 34 32 30 43 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. |A420Cxxxxxxxxxxx|
00000010 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. |xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx|
00000020 32 37 37 42 00 |277B.|
00000025
com.apple.backupd.ModelID: MacPro3,1
The "BackupMachineAddress" is the MAC address of the Ethernet port your mother board.
You can find the MAc address in About this Mac-> More Info. -> System report -> Network -> Ethernet 1
The "HostUUID" is the identifier of your mother board.
You can find it in About this Mac-> More Info. -> System report ->Hardware Overview [that's the first thing that shows when you select System report]
These are the way the connection of the backup to a machine is made.
Now the tmutil inheritbackup comand should have set them to the correct values for your new machine.
But let's' see if any of them match the new machine and then see of we haveany more options.
Steve

Tmutil inheritbackup & tmutil associatedisk simplified

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