Why are my log files not getting backed up?

Question

I just tried to get some files from ~/Library/Logs but found that the entire Logs directory was not on Time Machine - looks like every thing else in ~/Library was there. I checked the exclusion list and it was not on there.
I know that some ~/Library stuff gets backed up because I was recently able to find and restore some iCal events from about 4 months ago.
Anybody know what gives? Is there any way to change this?
Thx

Answer 1

frankinmelrose wrote:
I checked and both /Library/Logs and ~/Library/Logs are on the exclusion list - now why doesn't Apple's help file discuss that?
Now, that's funny! Apple's Help, while improved over the last few releases, is nowhere near complete. That's why some occasional tips turned into my 120+ page website, mostly about Time Machine, and several others have written entire books about OSX.
By all means, tell them about it at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html
Maybe if enough of us do that, they'll reconsider.
My problem - as a software tester, I occasionally would like to ensure that logs for a particular app stay around during my test period - in this case, the app under test did an archive, but kept only the previous 5 logs as backups (and without a setting I had access to) - and, of course, I was looking for an earlier log.
So, is there any way to tell Time Machine at the start of my testing period to save logs in specific ~/Librarary/Log subdirectory and then at the end of my testing period, tell TIme Machine to stop backing them up?
Not directly, other than periodically copying them somewhere else. But the schedule and handling of the "rotation" of some can be altered, if you're comfortable with UNIX and Terminal. See the MAN pages for newsyslog and newsyslog.conf.