What is Time Machine really Backing Up?

I have two internal HD's one 750gig that has Leopard on it, & a second HD that is 500gigs.
I have Time Machine backing up everything. I have noticed this for some time now, & have watched it
very carefully what is new on my system this month, beside a few texted emails, I have nothing new, no new programs, no new photos or no new music or videos. So what is Time Machine backing up?
I plugged in my external HD & let Time Machine start backing up, it stated it was backing up 5.2gigs of WHAT! is my question.
Thanks

If you have photos, then editing any photos will also require an update. You didn't mention which email client you are using. Are you using VMWare or Parallels? To see what folders/files are being updated, you can try:
www.charlessoft.com/timetracker.zip

Similar Messages

Does Time Machine *really* back-up everything?

I've run into some problems with my computer and will have it repaired tomorrow. They will be replacing the hard disk, so I need to make sure I have everything before I give it to them tomorrow morning. I used Time Machine to back up things, so all should be fine. Theoretically, I guess... ;-)
I've now restored from Time Machine back-up to a different computer - this is the one I'll be using while my own is being fixed. But: About 40GB (of about 300GB in total) seems to be missing! The file number reported by Disk Utility is about the same (I've been using the "new" Mac for a day, so I expect it to be different), and I've used "du" in terminal to find out whether there are any major discrepancies but haven't found any. Maybe a few massive swap files that are ignored? Or what could it be?
Any idea what's going on???
Sebastian

No one is an idiot.
It is worth going to Apple's website and reading all the info on their pages about these products. They tell a lot and there are usually links to tutorials.
Time Machine backs up everything the first time. Then it only backs up changes. When you enter time machine you will seethe series of what ever folder you are in running back into space. You can go to a specific date and the version of say a letter will be in the state it was in at the time of that back up.
The same is true for the contest of a folder. If a back up runs at 2:00 pm and the you delete the file at 3:00 the file will remain in the 2:00 pm back up.
There is an option to exclude files from the back up. My opinion is that backing up the system files all the time isn't worth it. I find if there is a system problem I want to reinstall the whole thing fresh.
This works if you don't mind sitting through software installs.
Time Machine if left alone will back up the entire system and keep it current. Once the back up drive is full however it will start deleting old back ups. It will let you know it is going to do this. You can choose to let that happen or add a new drive. It isn't the best system for a permanent archive.
I have excluded everything but my home folder. I expect to get at least a years worth on my drive and at that point a new drive wouldn't be that big a deal.
Hope this helps.
Greg

HT201250 I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was?

I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was? I want to make sure I will still have various important files on my new computer, like my songs in iTunes, my photos in iPhoto, etc, etc. Thanks so much in advance!

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
When you turn on the new iMac for the first time, Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so connect the external disk and follow steps to restore all your files to your new iMac. Your new Mac will have the same settings and programs as your old computer.
In other cases, I would recommend to restore the whole backup without using Migration Assistant or Setup Assistant, but a Late 2012 iMac uses a special OS X build, so the OS X version that you're using on your old Mac won't work on the new one. For more information, see > http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

HT201250 What does time Machine back-up?

I would like to use Time Machine as a back-up on an external USB hard drive. However, I am not sure what it actually backs up. I want it to back up only the main Mac hard drive and not all the files and folders on the external drive which I will also use as the destination for the TimeMachine back-up. Is there a way to do this or does Time Machine only back-up the main MacHD and not connected "data" drives like the external one I will use for TimeMachine. Also, how do I make a bootable "rescue" drive or disk if my hard drive fails and I want to install a new one? Will a "rescue USB flash drive" -- bootable with the operating system (Mountain Lion) in it -- in conjunction with Time Machine on the external drive restore a new hard drive (MacHD) to what was on the old one? Finally, how does one make a rescue (bootable) USB flash drive with OSX 10.8.2 on it?
Mike

Try going system preferences>time machine.select disk>highlight the disk, click use for back up (make sure the padlock is unlocked. If this has already been done there might be a problem with the disk. Go to utililites>disk utilities highlight the disk click verify disk.

I am trying to use Time Machine to back-up to an external hard drive and I get the following message.Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder. Does anyone know what I should do?

I am trying to use Time Machine to back-up to an external hard drive and I get the following message.Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder. Does anyone know what I should do?

Hello Drake, I suspect one or more of the Drives needs repairing, but...
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imaging something not being covered there.

Exactly What Does Time Machine Back Up?

I have four mounted volumes on my desktop. One is the vanilla MacintoshHD system volume. Two are external hard drives with lots of photo image files. And one is my Time Machine destination volume.
Am I correct that Time Machine will back up all of the mounted volumes except the destination volume and any other specific exclusions that were specified in Time Machine setup?
Thanks.

It backs up everything on Mac-formatted local volumes except the backup volumes themselves and what ever else is excluded in the Time Machine preference pane. External drives (except Thunderbolt drives) are automatically added to the exclusion list, so you have to remove them if you want them to be backed up. Cache and log files are always excluded.

Time machine stopped backing up due to not enough space. What to do?

On my MacBook time machine stopped backing up and the message said not enough space . What can I do?

Broadly speaking you can supply more space.. or delete the old backups to regain existing space.
You have posted in the TIme Capsule area.. but I am not sure if that is what you are using as people mix up Time Capsule (TC) and Time Machine (TM) on a regular basis. TC is hardware router with a disk in it for backups to be stored.. TM is the software on the Mac that does backups.
So TC is not exactly flexible.. but you can add a USB hard disk to it.
This is not always a great idea.. but can work for people using wireless which is slower even than USB.
The internal disk of the TC can be upgraded.. only do this if you accept the risk and most likely it is no longer under warranty.
You can buy a TC with a bigger hard disk and sell off the old one.. except you might already have 3TB one in which case you will need to run two.
You can use a local drive instead of a network drive.
So buy a USB drive and plug it into your computer.. this is a good solution for desktops.. less great for laptops which are carried around as you forget to backup.
OR
Wipe the current backups and start anew.. You can also archive the old backups wipe the existing disk and start over.
Tell us which you prefer and if it is more difficult than go and buy a new disk and plug it in tell us.

Installed new harddrive and I am trying to restore from time machine external back up. I restarted the computer and held the Command key and the R and the restore utility does not appear. what can I do

I installed new hard drive and I am trying to restore from time machine external back up. I restarted the computer and held the Command key and the R and the restore utility does not appear. what can I do

Command + R keys are for Macbooks running Lion and Mountian Lion only. ( i could be wrong on this)
you have a couple of options:
Do a clean install of Snow Leopard via Install DVD.
Clone your old hard drive to your new hard drive via Carbon Copy Cloner
Or click on the link below to give you a better idea.
Hope you get it sorted out.
http://pondini.org/TM/14.html

What's the trigger for Time Machine to back up a FileVault folder?

Hi,
I have been enjoying the new MacBook pro and the useful FileVault for weeks now. I read quite some discontent with FileVault, which indeed could be better, but still it provides useful and free encryption.
With regards to backup on Time Machine, the Home Folder back up supposedly only happen when you log out of a FileVault encrypted account. Meanwhile, I don't always get how it starts and the rules for the Home folder to be backedup.
I make daily changes on my Home folder and the backup only starts once every other week, maybe randomly? Only few times i see the backup progress bar at shutdown and it seems to happen only after a certain amount of additional data has been added.
Has anyone more insight in how the backup (i.e. at log out, only way to backup on TM with FileVault) is triggered? Is there a way to make it a mandatory operation at log out, when my backup drive is available? As I use a WiFi HD (through airport), is it related that backup only occur once in a while and not at each logout
thanks for any tip
Y.

With FileVault enabled Time Machine only backs up when you log out or shut down, unfortunately And when it does it copies the entire encrypted .sparseimage every time. There is no incremental backup when FileVault is enabled.
Regards,
Michael

Time Machine stopped backing up. What do I do???

Time Machine stopped backing up 3 days ago. Even though the desktop Icon periodically revolves to show a backup is occurring, when I go into Time Machine I see the last time it backed up was 3 days ago. I have it backing up to a 1 Terrabyte drive and there are still close to 300 GB available. It has been working fine up until 3 days ago.
One suspicion I have: I installed a demo version of MacScan which erased all my cookies. I may have done this on the day Time Machine stopped working correctly. Does Time Machine depend on any cookies?
Help

shrink1 wrote:
Time Machine stopped backing up 3 days ago. Even though the desktop Icon periodically revolves to show a backup is occurring, when I go into Time Machine I see the last time it backed up was 3 days ago. I have it backing up to a 1 Terrabyte drive and there are still close to 300 GB available. It has been working fine up until 3 days ago.
One suspicion I have: I installed a demo version of MacScan which erased all my cookies. I may have done this on the day Time Machine stopped working correctly. Does Time Machine depend on any cookies?
Help!!!
Is it possible that MacScan went into your TM backup and corrupted it by removing files (cookies, etc.)? If you modify the contents of the TM backup improperly, you can totally hose the entire backup. In general only TM should be allowed to modify it's own contents via the TM app.

Does Time Machine really restore all files of app?

Hi mac people,
I have done a clean install, then i don't want use migration assistant to move back things, but when i move back garageband 6.0.5, i open it, then i realise that only app is been restore but all the loops and audio is not, then i search online found that i have to move those things by my own,
So this problem make me wondering does time machine really fully restore?
I also wondering how about other apps or files do they really all been restore even they SEEN like no problems?
Thanks for helping !!!!!

then i realise that only app is been restore but all the loops and audio is not, then i search online found that i have to move those things by my own,
If you want everything restored from Time Machine, don't use Migration Assistant but use Setup Assistant - migrate al files when you are first prompted to restore from Time Machine or another Mac, after a clean install.
you can select what to restore - the settings, the libraries, the user data.
Since you do not want to use the assistants - to restore Garageband 6.0.5 manually, you transfer all files and folders in the system library:
/Library/Application Support/GarageBand/
and the loops from
/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/
Your plug-ins from
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/
and the corresponding folders in your user library ~/Library/

Is information stored in Time Machine considered backed up?

Sorry for the newbie questions below - I scanned the threads but didn't find exactly what I was looking for.
1) As far as backing up contents of my computer, is Time Machine (and the external drive it's running on) considered safe? That is to say - if my only back up is Time Machine to feel that my pictures, videos, etc are safely backed up - am I crazy?
2) When the external drive Time Machine is currently running on fills up, do I buy another one and disconnect and store the first one?
3) Getting close to buying a HD camcorder - so - how best to manage the big volumes needed for storage? Can I rig up a big external drive specifically for large files such as high res photos and HD video? Will iMovie and iPhoto reference such an external drive?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers.

Time Machine is currently my only form of overall backup. There are two ways to do a restore.
If you start up from your Mac OS X installation disc, you can run a utility that restores the entire volume. I have actually tried it recently, to make myself feel comfortable with how it works, and it did work as expected. I did do a clone to another volume immediately before, in case the +restore complete volume from Time Machine backup+ process failed.
The other way is to go into the Time Machine archive directly. So if I want to start with a fresh system installation instead, I can go do a system installation onto an erased volume. Then run Migration Assistant and use my Time Machine backup as the data source. Or I can migrate the data manually using Finder (the way I would really do it), by going into the Time Machine archive directly. The folder structure is organized by date/time of the backup. By using something called multi-linked files when Time Machine created the backup, Finder will show a complete backup for any available date/time, even though a file that never changed is stored in the archive only one time. In other words, each date/time folder shows everything being backed up, even though 99% of it did not change from the backup one hour earlier. So I can manually copy the files I want from the archive to the new installation, just by picking which available date/time to use.
Since I have these two options, I feel comfortable with Time Machine being my only backup for most of my personal data. For data that is extremely valuable, I back that up separately to another hard drive. But I would do that second backup (for the most critical data) no matter what backup method I was using.
When Time Machine runs out of space on the drive, it tells you. If you let it continue, Time Machine starts deleting your oldest date/time backup states to make room for the newest date/time backup states. So how far back in time you can go starts moving forward. However, there is no need to get a new drive, if that automatic process is OK and you mostly want the recent backup states. It is a good idea to buy as large a drive as reasonable, so that Time Machine has plenty of space. From my experience, Time Machine starts to take a long time to perform each run once the free space on the drive starts to become low (or gets to a point where it is deleting the oldest backup states).
You can tell Time Machine to back up attached external drives, as long as the Time Machine volume is larger than the total size of the data being backed up. To operate effectively, the Time Machine volume really should be +at least+ twice the total size of the data being backed up. In System Preferences +Time Machine+ pane, the Options button shows a list of what NOT to back up. External drives are put on the list by default. If you want an external drive to be backed up, remove it from this list.
You can generally tell applications where to store data.

Time Machine stopped backing up now

Time machine was working well ( i think!) but now takes up an enormous amount of space 180gb. My external drives are too small at 160gb and I feel time machine has multiplied the amount of space it needs as my hard drive only contains 75gb of data.
Help! I have tried removing files and some applications from the back up volume, but it still wants more space than the apparent volume to back up.
Do I need a bigger external hard drive or will it keep multiplying as I suspect it will.
Thanks

Rob,
This might give you some ideas as to why it's filling up so fast.
*_Incremental Backups Seem Too Large!_*
Open the Time Machine Prefs on the Mac in question. How much space does it report you have "Available"? When a backup is initiated how much space does it report you need?
Now, consider the following, it might give you some ideas:
Time Machine performs backups at the file level. If a single bit in a large file is changed, the WHOLE file is backed up again. This is a problem for programs that save data to monolithic virtual disk files that are modified frequently. These include Parallels, VMware Fusion, Aperture vaults, or the databases that Entourage and Thunderbird create. These should be excluded from backup using the Time Machine Preference Exclusion list. You will, however, need to backup these files manually to another external disk.
If you do a lot of movie editing, unless these files are excluded, expect Time Machine to treat revised versions of a single movie as entirely new files.
If you frequently download software or video files that you only expect to keep for a short time, consider excluding the folder these are stored in from Time Machine backups.
If you have recently created a new disk image or burned a DVD, Time Machine will target these files for backup unless they are deleted or excluded from backup.
*Events-Based Backups*
Time Machine does not compare file-for-file to see if changes have been made. If it had to rescan every file on your drive before each backup, it would not be able to perform backups as often as it does. Rather, it relies on a process called FSEvents. This is a system log that records changes that occur with all the directories on your Mac. Moving / copying / deleting / & saving files and folders creates events that are recorded in this log. At the beginning of each backup, Time Machine simply looks at this log to determine what has changed since the last backup. [http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14]
Installing new software, upgrading existing software, or updating Mac OS X system software can create major changes in the structure of your directories. Every one of these changes is recorded by the OS as an event. Time Machine will backup every file that has an event associated with it since the installation.
Files or folders that are simply moved or renamed are counted as NEW files or folders. If you rename any file or folder, Time Machine will back up the ENTIRE file or folder again no matter how big or small it is.
George Schreyer describes this behavior: “If you should want to do some massive rearrangement of your disk, Time Machine will interpret the rearranged files as new files and back them up again in their new locations. Just renaming a folder will cause this to happen. This is OK if you've got lots of room on your backup disk. Eventually, Time Machine will thin those backups and the space consumed will be recovered. However, if you really want recover the space in the backup volume immediately, you can. To do this, bring a Finder window to the front and then click the Time Machine icon on the dock. This will activate the Time Machine user interface. Navigate back in time to where the old stuff exists and select it. Then pull down the "action" menu (the gear thing) and select "delete all backups" and the older stuff vanishes.” (http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html)
*TechTool Pro Directory Protection*
This disk utility feature creates backup copies of your system directories. Obviously these directories are changing all the time. So, depending on how it is configured, these backup files will be changing as well which is interpreted by Time Machine as new data to backup. Excluding the folder these backups are stored in will eliminate this effect.
*Backups WAY Too Large*
If an initial full backup or a subsequent incremental backup is tens or hundreds of Gigs larger than expected, check to see that all unwanted external hard disks are still excluded from Time Machine backups. Time Machine will attempt to backup any hard disk attached to your Mac, including secondary internal drives, that have not been added to Time Machines Exclusion list.
This includes the Time Machine backup drive ITSELF. Normally, Time Machine is set to exclude its’ own backup disk by default. But on rare occasions it can forget. When your backup begins, Time Machine mounts the backup on your desktop. (For Time Capsule/AirDisk users it appears as a white drive icon labeled something like “Backup of (your computer)”.) If, while it is mounted, it does not show up in the Time Machine Preferences “Do not back up” list, then Time Machine will attempt to back ITSELF up. If it is not listed while the drive is mounted, then you need to add it to the list.
*Recovering Backup Space*
If you have discovered that large unwanted files have been backed up, you can use the Time Machine “time travel” interface to recovered some of that space.
Launch Time Machine from the Dock icon.
Initially, you are presented with a window that represents “Today (Now)”. DO NOT make changes to file while you see “Today (Now)” at the bottom of the screen.
Click on the window just behind “Today (Now)”. This represents the last successful backup and should display the date and time of this backup at the bottom of the screen.
Now, navigate to where the unwanted file resides.
Highlight the file and click the Actions menu (Gear icon) from the toolbar.
Select “Delete all backups of <this file>”.
*FileVault / Boot Camp / iDisk Syncing*
Note: Leopard has changed the way it deals with FileVault disk images, so it is not necessary to exclude your Home folder if you have FileVault activated. Additionally, Time Machine ignores Boot Camp partitions as the manner in which they are formatted is incompatible. Finally, if you have your iDisk Synced to your desktop, it is not necessary to exclude the disk image file it creates as that has been changed to a sparsebundle as well in Leopard.
If none of the above seem to apply to your case, then you may need to attempt to compress the disk image in question. We'll consider that if the above fails to explain your circumstance.
Let us know if this was helpful.
Cheers!

Difference Time Machine and Back-up

What is the difference between Time Machine and Back-up to .mac or?

Time Machine.. backup software on your Mac computer. (Only 10.5 and after seeing you list 10.4)
Time Capsule.. hardware device which is an Apple Airport Extreme plus a hard disk wrapped into a bit bigger box than the AEBS. Dumb as a board.. it is a router with hard disk hanging off. Entirely unsuitable as external storaage as it has no backup method for itself. It is a target for Time Machine, so Mac Laptops can back up wirelessly.
TownMouse33 wrote:
I want to store pictures on an external hard drive. They told me in the Apple store I could do this on time machine.
I am not sure if the Apple Store folk told you the wrong thing misunderstanding you.. but you cannot use Time Machine as a store. It is backup and files inside it are not usable.
Moving your iPhoto library to the TC is also a really bad idea. If you simply want to store raw photos.. which is a good idea btw.. as iPhoto kind of consumes them, yes, you can put them on the TC.. but use another location, external drive to back them up. In fact do it the other way around.. use the external drive to store them and stick to TC to work as backup since that is what it is designed for.

Time machine not backing up user home directories

Hi All,
I set up my users to have their home directories on a seperate partition: /Volumes/Data/homes/<name>.
I confogured time machine to back up to an external USB hard drive. The exclude list is empty, exept for the backup disk, of course.
When i do an initial backup with TM, i notice that /Volumes/Data/homes is skipped, whereas /Volumes/Data/kits is backed up.
I also see a console message:
8/15/13 3:21:29 PM
com.apple.backupd[621]
Backup content size: 119.8 GB excluded items size: 113.6 GB for volume Data
Why is this? How can i force TM to backup all files?
Thanks for your help,
Heinrich

HeinrichFromBremen wrote:
Of course not. But there is a difference between lack of perfection and deliberately building bugs into the software.
It's not really deliberate. The number of folks who do what you are is very, very limited.
How can i know that homeis the only omitted directory?
It isn't. As noted in the other thread, dev and net are also omitted. Many other things, are, too - see the tan box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #11 for details.
With this behaviour, i simply cannot trust TM backups.
A bit of an overreaction, I think, but your choice.
What would be the alternatives? tar? ditto? dump does not seem to exist.
See #27 in the FAQ link above. As far as I know, they all omit some things.

What is Time Machine really Backing Up?

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