Why is the backup twice as big?

I scanned the Freeagent drive with Grand Perspective and it was 417 GB, almost twice as big as the iMac scan (Macintosh HD): 221 GB. As far as I can recall, I've only ever used that drive for Time Machine backups. The biggest item is the iPhoto library: 131 GB becomes a 195 GB backup. I've got way too many photos, I'm trying to get rid of the also-rans. It bugs me that Time Machine is evidently backing up these photos that I don't want. There's a colorful phrase in Japanese for someone you're trying to get rid of but they keep tagging along: kingyo no fun (goldfish crap). That's how I feel about those photos.
Is there some way, with some other software or something, that I can just get an exact copy of what's on my iMac? I appreciate the safety-net function, but I'd like to be able to tell Time Machine, thanks, but you can get rid of that stuff now, just keep the 221 GB, and spread a new safety net.

Yeah, TM keeps copies of any changed files.
I don't use TM at all, I use these...
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the external one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/tribackup.html

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Iphone 4s update stopped, then the backup was too big!

I was installing the latest update on my fiances iphone 4s. Then it stopped and I got some text saying the update wouldn't go. The phone was then locked with and I was prompted to connect it to itunes. Also hade a message about the simcard not being correct, that disappeared though. Then I had to do a backup and reset the phone. "Ok", fine I'll use the backup I just made - but no! Now the back up was too big! Bit above 14 Gb which I after som googling understand is more than "the basic" package? Anyway, I didn't have any recent backups so now I got the evil eye from my fiance as I write… is this solveable? What happened? Did the update get mixed into the backup thus making it a bigger file? The phone was almost full when I started the update… I do have a backup from september which is abot 12 Gb. Can I use this somehow?

Well, the update was aborted. Can't remember the exact error message and I can't produce it again obviously. But what happened next was that I was prompted to connect it to itunes and restore it, there was this symbol on the screen with a wire going to itunes.
Now it's just telling me there isn't enough space to backup from the one I want. I know what folder it is in, the application, mobile sync, backup. That folder is more than 14 Gb.
I cannot be more specific I'm afraid… But I mean, the info is there, in that folder bigger than 14 Gb. I can access the pictures, look at every one of them… Frustrating…
Haha! That's a good link!
cheers!

Why is the backup so long?

I am using a Macbook Air, and the hourly back ups are taking very long. Seems like 10-15 minutes every hour. I have excluded my Mail folder which I have read changes frequently and has large files but I don't know what else would require so much time. Is there a way to find out? Seriously interferes with use as it slows everything down.
Thanks,
Richard

It wouldn't surprise me that during "preparing" there was a lot of data received as Time Machine and the Time Capsule "discuss" what needs to be backed up.
But as to why that (preparing) is now taking so long and why so much data is being backed up each time has me puzzled to say the least.
All I do most of the time on my MacPro is some browsing (mostly FireFox) and Mail.
I looked st the system.log file (accessible vis the Console app (Finder: Applications/Utilities/Console - On the left is a list of many log files, the system.log is the 1st when expanding LOG FILES)
Here is what it reported as the size in MB of each hourly backup for 4 days last month:
5/25: 10.3, 3.8, 97.3, 107.9
5/26 47.8, 4.8,4.4,3.8
5/27 14.9, 10.6
5/28 23.6. 5.6, 4.5
Certainly a lot smaller than you are seeing...why - I don't know.
I don't know about the structure of iPhoto. If it maintain some kind of database that is updated every time you do something with a picture this could be an issue. I know that Adobe Lightroom is that way and I exclude all things photographic from Time Machine and back them up via different scheme. I also exclude the Downloads folder as well as the folders of Firefox, Parallels(for Windows) and .Trash (I think this is automatically excluded.)
Things downloaded - explicitly or implicitly - in Safari or Mail could be large and if not cleaned up could be contributers.
I don't know of any way to directly determine what is in each backup. The information in the system.log file is a total. (actually it breaks it into 2 totals one of which is very small, but no indication of the constituents.)
If you had any suspicions, you could, in theory, enter Time Machine in Finder and poke around to see if any thing obvious changed in terms of a new file in the backup, but this is certainly tedious and hit or miss at best.
If you search the discussions you'll find some discussions (and the web) of what to exclude - I did at the time of installing the TC in April, but didn't keep the pointers. Search the Time capsule discussions for "exclude" and "file" - you'll get a lot of hits.
Sorry I can't offer any better suggestions at the moment.

Why are the backups to iCloud much smaller than those to my PC? I subscribed to extra iCloud space expecting for the backups to be the same size. Now I have more unused iCloud space I don't need, can I get a refund?

Backups to my PC were almost 30 G bytes each time, backup to the Icloud is only 1.4 G bytes. Expecting the backups to be about the same size I subscribed to extra Icloud space. Can I stop my Icloud pace subscription amd get a refund? I have all this extra space and have no use for it. It does not appear there is a way to use this space for other storage purposes.

You can't merge iCloud backups. You could create a current backup of your phone, then restore the backup of your old phone to it and save any data you want to keep, the restore it again to the current backup. Some of your old recovered data could then be synced back to your new phone (such as photos), but other data cannot (such as text message conversations). You may not want to save any of your old data but restoring the backup would be the only way to see what's there.

Time Machine from 2 computers to one HD - why are the backups different?

I have an external HD linked by fire-wire from one PowerMac. I have an iMac linked by ethernet to the PowerMac. I make the links, so the iMac and its Time Machine can 'see' the external HD.
Both machines run Time Machine, backing up onto the external HD.
HOWEVER:
the PowerMac creates a backup folder, then puts the backup into that folder, as another folder. I can see the contents.
the iMac creates a "sparse Image disk bundle," a single file, that I can't see inside of.
Have I set up Time Machine wrong? Am I really backing things up to the external HD?
Additional info:
The "old" MacBook (10.4.11) puts a Silverkeeper backup file on the external HD also.
There is plenty of available space on the external HD.
Whatever Time Machine does to announce completion of a back up, I don't know what it is. There ought to be 2 modes of operation for it - (1) for beginners, to hear & see when things happen, and (2) for comfortable users who trust this near miracle software to do its job. [How does one become comfortable with something that never explains what it does/did? Appears like a Window 95 network printer.]

Jay Warner wrote:
The "old" MacBook (10.4.11) puts a Silverkeeper backup file on the external HD also.
Are those backups in a separate partition? If not, that's eventually going to be a problem. It would be best in this case for your TM drive to have at least 3 partitions (see #3 and 4 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum):
The PowerMac's TM backups.
The iMac's backups.
The Silverkeeper backups.
Whatever Time Machine does to announce completion of a back up, I don't know what it is.
As Mr. Boyd says, you can see this from the TM icon in your menubar, and also in the TM Preferences pane. Both will also contain an indication of a problem (although the one in the menubar is a bit hard to see).
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
and perhaps browse the rest of the FAQ Tip.

Why do the backups do not become obsolete even if they are out of retention

Hi,
I'm reading 'Frequently asked questions on Rman backup retention policy [ID 463875.1] ' and found
>
We can have different conditions due which the backups would not become obsolete. They are :
1) There is an offline datafile in the database because of which the all the archivelogs or the archivelog backups needed to recover the datafile will not become obsolete.
>
Question is how to deal with that situation .
I've dropped offline datafile which belongs to tablespace , so my retension policy is not working anymore .
I dont care about that tablespace and datafile but still have to deal with them being offline every full backup .
Regards
GregG

That's a problem with the iPhoto book and it's handling of the photos. One user worked around it by arranging the photos in the order he wanted in an album and use the Photos ➙ Batch Change ➙ Date menu option to set the date of the photos sequentially so the book would list them in that order when added to a bookl.
Send a feature request/bug report to Apple via http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html.
OT

Why is the backup disk unavailable?

"Backup delayed".
When I open Time Capsule I get "An unexpected error occurred (error code -6584)"

The backup is corrupt.. you need to verify it.
See A5 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Why is the file size very big when I add captive runtime?

I have a game that is 2.56 MB. When I package it up for a captive runtime apk it becomes 12.2 MB. This is very reasonable, but my problem is that when I add this apk on my phone through debugging, the size of the game jumps from 12.2 MB to 30.7 MB! I am using Air 3.9 and I don't understand why it is that big, can anyone help me please!

IPA and APK are .zip files in disguise. Your app is simply unzipping all or a portion of itself when it is installed, depending on OS. For example one of mine is 35MB (APK) and it goes to 50.2MB after install every time.
The captive runtime has little to do with it besides it's just one more compressed item. If you added any other random ~10MB of assets instead of captive runtime, depending on the content you'd end up with around the same size app anyhow.

Why is the backup encrypted when i didn't even check the box in itunes

I downloaded the latest version of itunes, sync my iphone and then upgrade the software to ios 5.
But when i try to restore my backups after the upgrade. It prompted for a password.
My backup file states complete and encrypted when i didn't check the box for encryption.
Any idea what is the default password for it?
Has anyone encounter this situation before and any solutions available?
I need to access a lot of important contacts in the backup

Passos713 wrote:
...I didn't even receive them??.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?..?.?.?.?
Contact iTunes Customer Service and request assistance
Use this Link > Apple Support iTunes Store Contact

Why did the backup option disappear with the newest iOS update.... now I cannot update my phone?!

with the new iOS update the settings > icloud > "back up now" option disappeared. I cannot find a way to back up my phone at all! someone help?
its not automatically updating either.

Read here:
http://help.apple.com/iphone/8/#/iph96b1d67c

Why are the Pages files so big?

I typed a half page document. Just words; no graphics. When you look at file size, it is 5.5MB! What gives?

cooperbrett, I have the same problem; it seems that files that go through iCloud (and then are downloaded back to a Mac) increase in size. My file is only a few pages of text and it's 5.7 MB.
See topic:
Pages 4.2 duplicate bug, huge file size

Why does iPhone backup require access to the Internet?

While syncing my iPhone, iTunes first performed a backup. My firewall reported that the backup phase of the sync required access to the Internet. Why would the backup require access to the internet unless it was sending some information?
This makes me a bit worried that some of my personal data is being sent to Apple without my permission.

Whenever your phone is synced and iTunes recognizes there are new crash reports, a program called MDCrashReportTool sends these reports to Apple. Apple then funnels the reports to the correct app developer's iTunes Connect account. No personal information is transmitted.
If this bothers you(it shouldn't), you can turn off the sending of the crash reports:
Right-click on the phone in iTunes, and click "Reset Warnings." The next time you sync, itunes will ask if you want to send the reports. Un-check the "Do not ask me again" option, hit "Don't Send," and you're good to go.

Why is the ActionForms validate-Method called twice?

Hello forum,
I'm new to struts and want to develop a form, where an internetuser can leave a comment to an article. Just like most sides, an image with an text is displayed, the text has to be written into an inputfield before the comment is commited in order to be saved.
When an user puts in no text or a wrong one, a errormessage is displayed, the old image is deleted and an new one is created and shown to the user. His input still stays in the fields.
I proof the correctness of the word in the validate-Method of the ActionForm and it works fine.
Now I've the following problem:
If the user puts in the correct text, the comment is saved and the side is displayed again including his comment.. But also all the input of the form should be erased. But for some reason, its not and the validate method is called again and since there is a new wordvarifyingimage and a new text to be inserted, it throws an error which is displayed again. Also, all the input of his last message is present!
So, I guess I miss a big point about the ActionForm handling. Why is the ActionForm called twice and why doesn't it erase the old input? I try to do this in the Action class after saving the comment, setting all the formparameters to "" or null.
Can anybody give me a hint?
Would be a big big help since I've not found anything googling about this issue.
If you need code, just tell me which part I put in here (ActionForm, Action, struts-config or jsp-file)
Thanxs in advance,
strutsnewbytopro

my jsp:
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/tld/struts-bean.tld" prefix="bean" %>
<%@ taglib uri="struts/html-el" prefix="html" %>
<%@ taglib uri="jstl/c" prefix="c" %>
<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/tld/struts-logic.tld" prefix="logic" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css" title="currentStyle" media="screen">
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<script language="javascript">
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          document.forms[0].submit();
     function saveComment(){
          document.forms[0].formaction.value ='comment';
          document.forms[0].submit();
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</head>
<body>
<html:form action="/blog">
<div id="container">
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               <div id="errors">
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                         <html:messages id="error">
                         <c:out value="${error}"/>
                         </html:messages>
                    </p></div>
               </div>
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               <logic:iterate name="comments" id="com">
               <div class="breaker10" style="clear:left; "></div>
<div class="rowblogcommentdate" style="width:150px;"<a href="<bean:write name="com" property="website" />"><bean:write name="com" property="username" /></a> am <bean:write name="com" property="postdate" /></div>
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               <div class="breaker10" style="clear:left; "></div>
</div>
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                         <logic:notPresent name="savedcomment">
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                              <div class="topbig"><div class="headsmall">enter Comment</div></div>
                              <div id="bginhaltwriteblogcomment">
                                   <div class="breaker10" style="clear:left; "></div>
                                   <div align="center">
                                        <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
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                                                  <td> </td>
                                                  <td><html:text size="50" name="blogForm2" styleClass="inputtext" property="username"/></td>
                                                  <td> </td>
                                                  <td>Web:</td>
                                                  <td> </td>
                                                  <td><html:text size="50" name="blogForm2" styleClass="inputtext" property="webaddress"/></td>
                                             </tr>
                                             <tr>
                                                  <td>Enter Code:</td>
                                                  <td> </td>
                                                  <td><html:text size="66" name="blogForm2" styleClass="inputtext" property="commentword"/></td>
                                                  <td> </td>
                                                  <td >Code:</td>
                                                  <td> </td>
                                                  <td><img src="<bean:write name="entry" property="commentpicurl" />"></td>
                                             </tr>
                                              <tr>
                                                  <td colspan="7">Comment<br><html:textarea name="blogForm2" styleClass="comment" property="comment" /></td>
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                                             <tr>
                                                  <td colspan="7"><html:submit styleClass="inputtext" onmousedown="javascript:saveComment();"><bean:message key="button.save"/></html:submit></td>
                                             </tr>
                                        </table>
                                   </p>
                                   </div>
                                   <div class="bottombig"></div>
                              </div>
                         </div>
                         </logic:notPresent>
                         <logic:present name="savedcomment">
                         <div id="writeblogcomment">
                              <div class="topbig">Comment saved<div class="headsmall">Kommentar gespeichert</div></div>
                              <div id="bginhaltwriteblogcomment">
                                   <div class="breaker10" style="clear:left; "></div>
                                   <div align="center">
                                        <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
                                             <tr>
                                                  <td>Comment saved</td>
                                             </tr>
                                        </table>
                                   </p>
                                   </div>
                                   <div class="bottombig"></div>
                              </div>
                         </div>
                         </logic:present>
                         </div>
</div>
<html:hidden name="blogForm2" property="formaction"/><br>
<html:hidden name="blogForm2" property="id"/><br>
<% session.removeAttribute("savedcomment"); %>
</html:form>
</body>
</html>

Why is the latest up grade preventing me from going on the internet. I have tried automatic upgrade twice and I have both times had to restore my settings to the previous session to get on the internet.

Why is the latest upgrade of Firefox preventing me from getting on the internet. I have tried to upgrade twice and both times I have gotten "Can not display this page please try again later" I have tried to open several different pages. Both times I had to restore my computer to previous settings to get on the internet.

Hi Skydiver119
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my problem.
Yes the purchases were made though my apple id.
I have looked at a few other questions on this topic and I have read that the app data is stored in the backup file but the apps themselves need to be synced back onto the ipad. Someome has mentioned right clicking on sync my ipad but I don't know where to find that to right click on!! Lol.
Again, I really appreciate your time and if by any chance you know where I can 'right click' I would really appreciate you letting me know as I can't get my ipad to sync with my pc at all, although it is being picked up in itunes and it has backed up to itunes okay. GGrrr. Maybe I have something wrong in the settings which is not making them compatible?

Why is the iPhoto Library file so big?

Why is the iPhoto Library File so big?
I cancelled the option in settings that it copies the files to the Library but the LIbrary file grows and grows when I import new photos?
Can someone help me?

You have disabled "Copy items to the iPhoto Library"?
Then the original image files should not be imported; you can check this by selecting one of the recently imported photos and using the command "File > Reveal in Finder > Original File". Does it show you a file outside the library?
Your library will grow in size, when you import and edit photos, even if the originals are not included. iPhoto will store thumbnails of your photos, previews of the edited versions, of the faces, and if you sync your library with iTunes, there will also be an iPod Photo cache, that can be quite large:
iTunes: Understanding the iPod Photo Cache folder
You know, that disabling "Copy items to the iPhoto Library" is quite risky, don't you? Just in case you are not aware of the risks - iPhoto does provide no tools at all, if the connection between your referenced original files and your thumbnails in iPhoto gets broken. Or if you need to move your photos to a different drive, when the drive fails, as will happen one day. You will not be able to migrate the library to a new computer or restoring from your backup will be difficult. You will need third party apps like iPhoto Library Manager to recover from such a situation.
If you need to free space on your mac it is much safer to move the whole library to an external drive, or to split it and relocate the partial library with the older photos to an external drive.
-- Léonie

Why is the backup twice as big?

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