What is in Time Machine's older back ups?

Okay, so Time Machine keeps a weekly version after a few weeks, rather than a daily or hourly version.
Which files is it keeping? Is it the last version of document that week? If a file was trashed and deleted early in the week, does it show up in that week's backup?
Is there a document somewhere that says how Time Machine makes these calls?
Thanks

Time Machine progressively deletes the hourly backups it makes, keeping the first backup (if any) of any day for about 30 days and then the first backup of each week thereafter until the disk is full.
Knowing which backup will be held as the 'daily' is easy enough but, in my experience, if Time Machine doesn't make a backup on the day that would otherwise represent the 'weekly' backup, the following 'weekly' backups become a little unpredictable for a week or to as to which 'daily' will be retained.

Similar Messages

HT201250 must I keep the computer on all the time for time machine to do back ups

Must I keep my computer on at all times to get the time machine to do updates ? If not how do I go about updateing time machine on a regular basis

It depends on how much backing up you want. Time Machine will do backups if you have it turned on (in Time Machine Preferences), and if you have your computer connected to a backup drive (either wired or wirelessly, like a Time Capsule), that is specified in TM Preferences, and is also turned on. So, for example, I keep my two macs turned on all the time, and I keep Time Machine turned off. When I am not using my macs they sleep. I have external USB drives for backup via Time Machine, but I don't keep them on and connected all the time. When I think of it, which is about once a week, I'll hook them up, power them on, and do a manual backup: I turn Time Machine on and tell it to backup. When I have more critical documents, I keep them backed up on Dropbox, or iCloud, so I know that every time I finish using them and close them they are backed up. If you want to have more complete backups, then you would keep your computer always connected to your backup drives, and the drives would always be powered on and time machine would always be turned on. You could either have all of these turned on all the time, or just when you are using them and power them all down when you are not using them, or have them powered on all the time, but set the computer to sleep when you are not using it. It just depends on what you are comfortable with in terms of backups.

Time Machine short term back ups?

HI
I've had some Time Machine problems for a while now - I have a 2 TB drive I use and I back up to this using TM. The problem is when I enter Time machine it only shows back ups up to about 2 or 3 weeks ago...? Why would it do that - where are my back ups from a month or two ago???
Any help is much appreciate.
thanks
Rob
iMac 24 running Lion.
2.4ghz intel core 2
4gb ram

I've got to say figuring out what hardware to purchase for original archiving AND Time Machine backups—for that and one laptop have been a nightmare. First we went the NAS Synology route as recommended by an Apple Store employee. Then last week found out that this would corrupt our huge 150 gigs iPhoto library (if not now at some point). So, have been reading boards, calling apple and spent another two hours in the Apple store today. Two hours (with my family)! Far too many hours wasted on what should be a simple user experience to explain/help users with.
Unfortunately this is what I learned...
Every Apple employee has a different take. I've spoken in person with four Apple Store employees on two different occassions, read the board "experts" here and phoned Apple but get different insight/answers each and every time.
We were prepared to walk out with a Time Capsule (for Time Machine) and one HD for our need—but two employees today said we didn't need a Time Capsule. Instead they both suggested two HDs (with one acting as a dedicated Time Machine) because we had an Airport Extreme. And we could do wifi backups no problem—and the HD would be accessible via wifi (when plugged into the Airport Extreme). So, we walked out with the a 2T and 3T Seagate HDs—and have spent hours on reorganizing yet again.
And now I am reading that not only does Mountain Lion not support this usage—and I must manually plug in both HDs (the Time Machine and original archive) for backups on a laptop. Or rather to ensure Time Machine backups (that contain the external HD content) are not deleted.
THIS RATHER MANUAL SCENARIO DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF A LAPTOP (free of teathering and wires—it's stored on a coffee table not desk). I don't get it?!? So-so annoyed.
There should be a way to "lock" the external HD data so this doesn't happen.

Retrieve Time Machine old deleted back-ups

Hi,
My disk was running out of space as time machine was backing up but it also 'deleted old back ups' Is there any way to retrive these ?
Thanks
Ken

I've got to say figuring out what hardware to purchase for original archiving AND Time Machine backups—for that and one laptop have been a nightmare. First we went the NAS Synology route as recommended by an Apple Store employee. Then last week found out that this would corrupt our huge 150 gigs iPhoto library (if not now at some point). So, have been reading boards, calling apple and spent another two hours in the Apple store today. Two hours (with my family)! Far too many hours wasted on what should be a simple user experience to explain/help users with.
Unfortunately this is what I learned...
Every Apple employee has a different take. I've spoken in person with four Apple Store employees on two different occassions, read the board "experts" here and phoned Apple but get different insight/answers each and every time.
We were prepared to walk out with a Time Capsule (for Time Machine) and one HD for our need—but two employees today said we didn't need a Time Capsule. Instead they both suggested two HDs (with one acting as a dedicated Time Machine) because we had an Airport Extreme. And we could do wifi backups no problem—and the HD would be accessible via wifi (when plugged into the Airport Extreme). So, we walked out with the a 2T and 3T Seagate HDs—and have spent hours on reorganizing yet again.
And now I am reading that not only does Mountain Lion not support this usage—and I must manually plug in both HDs (the Time Machine and original archive) for backups on a laptop. Or rather to ensure Time Machine backups (that contain the external HD content) are not deleted.
THIS RATHER MANUAL SCENARIO DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF A LAPTOP (free of teathering and wires—it's stored on a coffee table not desk). I don't get it?!? So-so annoyed.
There should be a way to "lock" the external HD data so this doesn't happen.

What happens to Time Machine if my backup drive isn't connected?

I've got Time Machine set up to back up a MacOS Leopard Macbook to an external drive. Because of the way this computer is used, it's usually not plugged into the backup drive.
What does Time Machine do in this situation? Does it keep track of all the changes since it last saw the backup drive, or does it only keep one increment between the last backup and the current one? Does it still automatically back up, or do I have to prompt it?
I understand that Lion has a feature that keeps local backups until it sees the backup drive again, but it's not clear to me (because Apple updates the Time Machine support documents to reflect only the latest version of the OS...) whether something like this happens in Leopard.

Sockatume wrote:
***I've got Time Machine set up to back up a MacOS Leopard Macbook to an external drive. Because of the way this computer is used, it's usually not plugged into the backup drive.***
Time machine will recommence back ups from the last point backed up.
***What does Time Machine do in this situation? Does it keep track of all the changes since it last saw the backup drive.
Apple updates the Time Machine support documents to reflect only the latest version of the OS.***
It should scan and pick up alterations to previous back ups as a matter of course.
For all matters dealing with Time machine Google 'Pondini' and a variety of options about it will appear.
For trouble shooting ...Time machine. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

I recovered my back up via a wired connection. now Time Machine does not recognise older back ups wirelessly and wants to do a first back up

I recovered a back up from my time machine via a wired connection after getting the 'white screen of death'. Now Time Machine does not recognise any back ups on the time machine when connected wirelessly and wants to do a first back up of the whole machine. How do I get my mac to recognise these older back ups? It connects to the wifi network the time machine creates fine, with the same name and password.

I recommend the following.
1. Reset the TC to factory.
Universal Factory Reset.. any model TC or AE.
Unplug your TC/AE from power or turn off at the power point.
Hold in reset. and power the TC/AE back on.. all without releasing reset and keep holding in for about 10sec. (this is often difficult without a 2nd person or a 3rd arm).
Release it when the status light flashes rapidly. If it doesn’t flash rapidly you have missed it and try again.
Note..
Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel.. add no more pressure after that.
TC/AE will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations of the router.
No files are deleted on the hard disk in a TC.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.
2. Rename the TC to SMB standard.
That means short names.. 2-20 characters but less than 10 is excellent. eg TCGenx (use number for x that is actual generation of the TC)
No spaces.
Pure alphanumeric. No apostrophe.
3. Ensure IPv6 is set to link-local..
Do the same thing for ethernet if that is used.
4. Manually mount the TC disk in Finder.
Use Go in the top menu.. connect to server.
Type in
AFP://TCname.local (where TCname is your new short name for the TC and local is default domain .. it helps using the domain I found).
You will then find the computer either can or cannot find the network resource.. if it fails something else is wrong with the actual network and you will need to fix that.
It will request the password if it is found.. password is public by default unless you changed it.. type in the password and check to keep it in your keychain.
5. Delete current TM setup and redo it with the newly named TC.
See A4 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
If your backups cannot be found, try B6 again, now that you actually know that the disk has been properly discovered.

My Time machine won't back up. Recently updated to OS x 10.7.5. Error message is as follows: "The backup disk image "/Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Scott's MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use." What is wrong and how do I fix it? Thanks.

My Time machine won't back up. Recently updated to OS x 10.7.5. Error message is as follows: "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Scott’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” is already in use." What is wrong and how do I fix it? Thanks.

Have you tried restarting the computer? Also, see Time Machine Error from this pages sidebar under More Like This.

IMac freezes while Time Machine updates the back up. What to do?

Ever since I upgraded to Lion my iMac freezes or nearly freezes for 5 - 10 minutes every hour while Time Machine updates the back up. What to do?
I have tried everything I can think of but its only improved from total freeze while Time Machine backs up to freeze with an occasional few seconds of activity.
I am really fed up with this.

When I first updated to Lion everything was a mess with freezes happenng constantly like every two or three minutes. Then when looking at the app store I noticed in purchased items that Lion was showing install instead of installed so I downloaded and installed again.
After this install every time Time Machine updated a backup my iMac froze for about 5 or 10 minutes while the backing up was in progress. I was getting really fed up and started this thread. Then one morning I got up and the iMac would not start up. It just sat there with the progress thingy spinning. I started in T mode to look at it from my MacBookPro and two copies of the HD appeared. Both showing zero files. I ran Disk utility on the MacBookPro to try to fix the disk. It showed 8 copies of the disk and all not reparable.
I then created a startup USB drive using my MacBookPro, used it to start up the iMac and restored everything from the previous day's backup. Since then it has been running smoothly with no freezes so maybe the answer is simply to restore a recent backup.
I am using Imation external drives and I don't believe the problem is drive specific.

I ereased my external drive now time machine doesn't back up. What should I do?

I ereased my external drive now time machine doesn't back up. What should I do? the reason I ereased was because backups wouldn't finsh because of disk error. I did disk repair. Still wouldn't back up so ereased the back up drive. Now nothing appears on it. On the internal drive of my imac in Appllications Timemachine is still there. When I click on it it goes to a screen that looks like a night sky and nothing more happens. Do I need to download some software?

Time Machine doesn't work on 10.4.7. It didn't become available until 10.5. Use a different backup software if you are going to use 10.4.7*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

Time Machine isn't backing up. I have a WD 1.74TB of memory. My Book hooked up to automatically back up. It stopped working in March. The backup disk doesn't initialize, it doesn't show up on my desktop. What to do?

Back up problem.
Time Machine isn't backup. I have a WD 1.74TB external backup machine. My Book (the name of the backup disk) stopped working in March and thme My Book iocon disappeared from my desk top.The backup disk won't initialize. How can I get it working again?
Actually it stopped working around the time that their were a lot of system upgrades.

Hi VincentMboyko,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
The troubleshooting steps in this article can help if your Time Machine isn't backing up:
Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275
All the best,
Jeremy

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

Time MAchine won't back up due to not enough space, but there is

TIme Machine won't back up. Displays this:
Actual capacity of the external backup drive is 999.68 GB and available is 135 gb .
The imac internal HD capacity is 999.01GB and used space is 636.321 GB.
This problem has occured periodically in the last 12 months or so, so prior to OS version10.8 install in Jul 2012.
I previously called AppleCare, as I have a contract, and tech said I just need to reformat the external drive and start over.
I did that the last time this happened a few months ago, but I don't like that option, as it eliminates all the prior backups,
What if I needed to try to recover something I deleted 3 weeks ago, for example. I couldn't do so as all backups would have been deleted, of course, by me having refomatted the drive and basically starting over. Also, I noted in another post about a person having a problem due to using a partitioned drive. Mine is not partition, as far as I can tell. See this:
Any ideas? Thanks

The solution is essentially "simple." You need a larger hard drive for these backups or you need to use a different backup solution. By this I mean using backup software that does not preserve an archive of old copies of a file, but simply erases old copies in order to replace them with the new copies. By replacing your backup drive can always accommodate the drive it backs up if it is large enough - say the same size. I can suggest:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
All of the above are capable of being scheduled. Synk Pro makes immediate backups of any changed file on the hard drive. You may configure it to archive changes (like Time Machine) or to delete prior copies.

Time machine won't back up

I just got a new MacBook Air with Lion. On my old Mac, I thought I remembered that Time Machine would only backup files that have changed since the last time I backed up my drive. I used Time Machine to transfer my old desktop to my new Air. Today when I tried to use TIme Machine to back it up, it said I did not have enough space.
I'm not clear if it's trying to back up the whole drive or just things that have changed since the install (which is all I need).
What should I do to make more room for my current back up or to instruct Time Machine only to back up items that have changed since the last backup?
Thanks.

FWIW I had this sort of problem which generally #$%^& me off. I had a brainstorm and tried somebody's MBP and it worked just as expected. So I reinstalled Leopard after erasing and formating the drive and using time machine off my external LaCie.
That didn't work worth a #$%^&
So I once again, reformatted the drive and reinstalled leopard FROM THE DVD and then used time machine as part of the migration assistant, and everything worked perfectly, and I can now use TC with my Mac Pro octo.
So something MIGHT be hosed on your system, and if you feel that you have a solid back up, reinstall off the DVD and then migrate with time machine.
Hope this helps. I spent about 2 days getting this straightened out.

Time Machine won't back up after system restore

I just restored my system after a failure, and now Time Machine won't back up my hard drive. It gets about 40 out of 90 Gigabytes done, and then gives me an error message that just says that there was an error while backing up, and doesn't give any other information. I ran a Verify Disk with Disk Utility, and there is nothing wrong with the backup drive, and there is more than 200 Gigabytes of space left on that drive.
Thank You.

zhoffmanster wrote:
Ok, so here's the thing: I tried backing up again today, and it worked just fine. Before, what would happen is a message would pop saying "an error has occurred during backup" (or something close to that). The point is, the message didn't give any detail.
No, the point is, you seem to have ignored this:
See the Time Machine - Troubleshooting post at the top of this forum.

Time Machine Didn't Back Up

I have two hard drives that are both 2 Terrabytes. One is the main and the other is the Time Machine backup.
I just accidentally overwrote a Flash FLA file, so I selected it and ran Time Machine. There is no backup of this file even though it's on the main hard drive and Time Machine has been backing up every hour for months.
In fact, if I select the folder and check out Time Machine, it doesn't have a backup of the entire folder all the way back to the first week of April.
Yes, Time Machine is backing up, I didn't turn it off.
Does anyone have an idea why Time Machine would arbitrarily decide to not back up this folder? What happens if it runs out of space on the backup hard drive?
Thank you!

OK, I just checked the preferences and the Main Hard drive was put on the 'don't back up' list somehow. Weird. I must have accidentally did that. I'm backing up NOW!!

What is in Time Machine's older back ups?

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