Why Time machine don't exclude folders?

I use time capsule for backup, when i exclude some folder on time machine preferences this folders don't skip the backup, i have same problem with an usb hard drive.
I was formatted my Time capsule but the problem remains. I was deleted com.apple.TimeMachine.plist but nothing....
I don't understand...

Same problem here. I can exclude folders on the root but not inside users' home. Things I've done:
- multiple time machine full reset
- os reinstall
- create a new users from scratch.
No way!
I have a macbook pro 2011 with Mac Os 10.6.7 (case insensitive installation).
I've tried to install 10.6.7 combo update but system refuses to do because not compatible.
During backup TM reaches the expected backup size and after it continues counting GBs over the expected size. If I don't stop the backup it reaches 220 GB despite I've excluded everything but the Desktop folder that has only some files.
Log is following:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Untitled/Backups.backupdb
2011-05-28 00:53:06.742 FindSystemFiles[2390:907] Looking for system packages
2011-05-28 00:53:10.533 FindSystemFiles[2390:907] Using system path cache.
Backup content size: 229.8 GB excluded items size: 228.8 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.18 GB requested (including padding), 232.27 GB available

Similar Messages

Why Time machine don't backup my server ?

I am trying to use Time Machine to backup my server (Mac OS X server 10.5) on an external drive.
Time Machine keeps "preparing" forever and does not backup.
Anyone knows why ?
Thanks

bouffepain wrote:
I am trying to use Time Machine to backup my server (Mac OS X server 10.5) on an external drive.
Time Machine keeps "preparing" forever and does not backup.
Anyone knows why ?
Thanks
is this the first backup? Preparing sometimes takes up to an hour on large systems.
There is much indexing, etc. to do before the first backup.
Check the console logs for any information.
It might be performing a "deep traversal" which the logs would show.
Be sure the backup drive is at least 3 times as large as the drive you are backing up.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

Time Capsule Ignoring my 'Excluded' Folders

Hi,
This is my first time backing up with Time Capsule / Time Machine. I excluded quite a lot of stuff that I have backed up elsewhere -- I have a 140 gb drive and the TM settings say "Total Included: 75 gb." However, when I start my backup, the progress bar always says "XX out of 131 gb."
It could be that the progress indicator is wrong, and it will quit once it reaches the needed 75 gb. But it's going REALLY slow - like 8 gb in an hour - and I don't want to wait that long. If it's going this slow, I've read I may want to re-format the drive. But it's my friend's TC and I don't want to mess with her files already on the drive so I'm not going to do that.
Is there any way to just get it to pay attention to my settings?
Thanks,
Josh

I'm having exactly the same problem. I have a brand-new 1TB Time Capsule, and the first time I tried to back up to it I excluded some folders and ran Time Machine. The Time Machine menu was initially correct, saying
"Backing Up: x of of 40GB"
Unfortunately, it didn't stop at 40GB, and the menu eventually said
"Backing Up: 50.53GB of 50.53GB"
"Backup Up: 80.02GB of 80.02GB"
etcetera, until it had backed up my entire computer. I went into Time Machine ("Enter Time Machine") and confirmed that it had indeed made backups of the folders and files that I had excluded.
After that, it made incremental backups (I assume it was still ignoring the exclusions). However, when I changed the excluded files, it thinks it has to back up virtually the whole computer again, the Time Machine status now reads
"Backing Up: 15.53 GB of 89.16GB"
This, again, looks like the correct calculated amount, but it will probably continue to back up past that all the way to 105 GB (my whole hard drive) again. I'll know tomorrow.
I know this problem is related to this Time Capsule, as previously I was using Time Machine with an external hard drive with no problem.
I searched for solutions to this problem and found Pondini's suggestion of deleting the Time Capusule .plist file. I did this, and deleted my whole sparsebundle file as well for good measure, but it didn't fix the problem.
I can't let Time Machine back up my whole computer because I have a VMware Windows virtual machine and Time Machine would try to back up the whole ~15 GB file every hour every time I go into Windows.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

How can I get my time machine to allow me to recover files again? After upgrading to OS X, the time machine still backs up the files; but, I'm not able to navigate within the time machine or select any folders or files for restore.

How can I get my time machine to allow me to recover files again?
After upgrading MBA to OS X, the time machine still backs up the files; but, I'm not able to navigate within the time machine or select any folders or files for restore.
I've searched and can not find a solution to the problem that's being encountered.

Yeap that all makes sense now.
Do you only have the current backup showing in the TM display?? Won't it fill in the rest?
Over wireless are you waiting for the indexing to finish.. ??
Previous backup may not show for a couple of hours.
Long short of it.. Mavericks version of TM is a pain.
Sometimes it is easier to completely ignore the TM backup and do the restore manually.
I have posted the details here. See if this helps.
Can't access old files on time capsule

Time Machine has been excluding items for hours... and counting!

I have been using time capsule for several years now. But today I brought a new hard drive to use with Time Machine. It's a Western Digital My Book Network drive.
Plugged it in selected the new disk and started to back up. For hours now it has been 'Excluding items..'. It has apparently excluded over 5 million items! Why is it doing this?
I've checked the list of files to exclude and it's just set to exclude the desktop and the Downloads folder.
I don't understand why it has been excluding items so long. Nothing had been copied to the external disk yet. If anyone could help me I'd be much apreciative!
Thanks, George!

georgeShawkins wrote:
Well now I have this new hard drive
You may avoid some confusion and/or problems by not calling it that. It's a +Network Attached Storage+ (NAS) device, or +network drive.+ Yes, it contains a hard drive, but OSX handles it very differently for many purposes. You've already seen that you can't format it via Disk Utility, for example.
I'd rather not have erase the whole disk and put the wanted data back onto it.
If you can copy that 50GB elsewhere temporarily, erase the drive, then copy it back, that may be much faster and easier than deleting the Backups.backupdb folder. It contains at least several hundred thousand, perhaps over a million items, that OSX must delete one at a time. It may also have permissions or other problems.
Erasing, however, takes only a few moments.
This is why we recommend giving Time Machine its own, exclusive space. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Are you putting other things on the network drive? If so, you may have problems there, too, as Time Machine will eventually use all the empty space available to it.
Those backups will be inside a rather odd container called a +sparse bundle.+ If you're really on Leopard, as per your signature, you can limit the maximum size of the sparse bundle, per #A8 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
But since you've posted in the +Snow Leopard+ Time Machine forum, if you're on 10.6.3 or later, that won't "stick," so you may want to see if you can partition the network drive via WD's software (another thing you can't do on a network drive via +Disk Utility,+ unfortunately).

How do I make sure files backed up by Time Machine don't get deleted?

About 2 months ago I backed up about 50GBs worth of family movie files with TM to a 1TB WD hard drive so that I could access them to watch without them clogging up my iMac hard drive. Once they were safely backed up I removed them from my computer after about 3 days. (I also backed them up to DVDs so luckily they are not gone for good). After 2 months I decided to access them to watch through TM only to find they were no longer there. I also went looking directly into the sparsebundle...no luck. I still have about 450GB left for back ups. My questions are this... is TM deleting files that have only been on my computer short term? If so, how long do I need to keep files on my computer to ensure that TM keeps them for good? I believe TM deletes a lot of weekly and monthly back ups after a month, but this seems to put a lot of 'short term stay' files in danger of being lost completely. Am I right in assuming this?

Hi Peter and a warm welcome to Discussions!
RedPeter505 wrote:
is TM deleting files that have only been on my computer short term?
TM is designed to delete files. Seems conterproductive for a backup application but then again TM is not designed to be an ordinary backup solution that you can rely upon it to keep your files until you as the user decides to delete backups because you find that they are unnecessary. Incidentally, note that the TM preferences tick box says "Warn when old backups are deleted" not "are about to be deleted". There may be warnings before deletion but in my experience one can't count on that.
I can't say why those files are no longer on your backup. Download the Time Machine widget and have a look if there's anything in the TM log for the relevant time the files disappeared. TM shouldn't delete when there's a lot of space left on the drive. However, unfortunately it does happen that TM loses track of what has been backed up and so begins a full backup to ensure all's backed up. In such a case and where the full backup is big, it may have deleted the oldest files to make space for the new backup. Ironic.
If so, how long do I need to keep files on my computer to ensure that TM keeps them for good? I believe TM deletes a lot of weekly and monthly back ups after a month, but this seems to put a lot of 'short term stay' files in danger of being lost completely. Am I right in assuming this?
You can't (afaik) ensure that TM will forever keep files that it has copied because of how TM is designed. If you want a proper/ordinary backup solution look elsewhere. Because of TM's design, I actually stopped using it and instead set up SuperDuper to run a daily backup of the drive where I save all my stuff. Sure, I won't have the extra security that TM offers by backing up every hour (thus minimising the amount of data that may be lost while working on a file) but I don't need that because I am very careful to save regularly.
/p

Can Anyone Tell Me Why Time Machine Won't Create A BackUp Folder for a Programed Backup?

Does anyone know why my Time Machine is NOT creating a backup folder on and regular scheduled backup? Just recently I downloaded the Time Machine Editor and it said to turn off the regular Time Machine (ON/OFF) switch, and just run off the TM Editor. However, at 1am in the morning, it comes up with the error saying it can't create a Backup Folder. I'm sure this is a simple solution but I really don't know how to handle this... Would appreciate any and all help in this matter... Thanks, Gary

Were you already backing up with Time Machine - ie, did you have an existing backup folder on the drive before you started using Time Machine Editor? If not, you probably need to do at least one full backup with TM, and then start using TME to schedule backups.
Matt

Why Time Machine stopped working with Time Capsule?

I have my Time Capsule connected via Ethernet to my iMac and wirelessly to my MacBook. Several days ago I got a warning on the iMac saying "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup - an error occured while copying - may be temporary - if persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disc."
Well, first Tim Capsule will not appear in Disk Utility, so that instruction is absurd. I went to Airport Utility but all that appears there is a graphic of T.C. with no buttons to do anything. My Mac consultant, who doesn't use Time Capsule or T.M, told me to hook it up using USB instead of Ethernet and it would appear in Disk Utility. Before I try that, does it make sense? He also suggested trying it wirelesslessly if that doesn't work.
Incidently, during all this time the T.C. wireless backups of the MacBook have continued unabated.
One forum participant urged me to take the T.C. to Apple to get it fixed. I don't think the drive is in that bad shape or why would the MacBook backups to its partition continue without problem?
I cleaned the Ethernet cable, unplugged both ends and plugged back in. T.M. indicated it had backed up twice, but now it has displayed exactly the same warning again, and says the last backup was several days ago. What should I do? I've zapped the Pram, run permissions on the iMac HD, and deleted all the browers' cache files.

My Mac consultant, who doesn't use Time Capsule or T.M, told me to hook it up using USB instead of Ethernet and it would appear in Disk Utility. Before I try that, does it make sense?
Ah, no. The TC's USB port cannot be used for that purpose.
I recommend another Mac consultant - Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini. Start with this: http://pondini.org/TM/C3.html
There are a variety of possible causes for that message, so exhaust all the potential remedies.

Restore with install DVD and Time machine backup that excludes system

Hi, I need restore my PB G4.
I backed up my data using TM but excluding all system files. Is there a possibillity to reinstall the system with the DVD and then rebuild the individual accounts using Time machine?

Yes, you have several options: (In all cases Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is required as previous OS X versions can not work with Time Machine backups.)
*Full Restore Via Migration Assistant & Time Machine*
You can use the installation DVDs that came with your Mac and reinstall Leopard (Mac OS 10.5). During the installation process you will be asked if you would like to Migrate data over from your Time Machine backups. The advantage here is that you start with fresh system software. The disadvantage is that you may lose many of the personal preferences/settings that had been established with the previous system. But this may be only a minor inconvenience to reestablish these. Depending on whether you choose to migrate your applications over as well, you may be required to reinstall any 3rd-party software or standalone Apple programs. Don’t forget to run Software Update once the initial installation is complete to bring your system up to date. Using Disk Utility at this point to repair any permissions issues is advised as well.
*Full Restore Via Time Machine Only*
Alternatively, you can use the installation DVDs to do a full system restore. Insert the installation DVD. When the welcome window appears, go to the Utilities menu and select “Restore System From Backup…” and choose the drive that your Time Machine backups are on. Then select the date of the backup you would like to restore from. This will completely erase your internal drive and restore your system to a relatively same condition it was in on the date of the backup you choose. (See this article for a list of files that TM does not restore, http://shiftedbits.org/2007/10/31/time-machine-exclusions/) The advantage here is that you retain many of the personal preferences/settings that had been established with the previous system. Additionally, no further installation of 3rd-party software is required. The disadvantage is that BECAUSE you retain many of the personal preferences, settings, and system files that had been present with the previous system, you run the risk of reintroducing problems you experienced with the previous installation, including any issues that necessitated the OS reinstall in the first place. Using Disk Utility at this point to repair any permissions issues is advised as well.
*Full Backup After Restore*
Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338)
Hope this helps.

Time Machine "don't have permission" for old files – do NOT have old computer anymore

So I am trying to retrieve a file from an old time machine backup from my old computer. However, I keep getting a message on all the folders that I do not have permission to view them (they also have the little "do not enter/NO" symbol). I ended up creating a new user when I got my new computer, so I am aware that time machine believes those backups were created by someone else. Problem is, I do not have my old computer anymore.
I have been able to access some of the permissions for the folders via command+i (more information); is there some way I can manipulate this and give my new user access to the files? Or could I use the time machine backups to recreate my old user on my new computer? Or is there some code I can enter into terminal??
PLEASE, someone help me! I really need to access these old files. I've added an image to show my setup and where I am having these issues.

Thanks SilverSkyRat.
I tried the first suggestion, but no luck. My current user is "Daisy" but I also tried another possible name, but was told there is another user with the same name. When I tried to logout and login to the other user to try it out, I couldn't find it. So no luck with that method.
I tried the second one, but when I go to time machine, only my new "computer" is available ("Isabella's Backups" instead of "Daisy's Backups"). I went to the "Star Wars" screen, is there another way that I can choose a different computer for the backup source?
Thanks again.
And don't worry, I've backuped my current computer.

Browse other time machine disks and hidden folders

I recently did a clean install of Snow Leopard, and used the "Browse other Time Machine disks" option to restore my documents from my backup. Now, however, I want to restore a folder that resides in the hidden /usr, and can't figure out how to do so. Normally, the solution would be to open a Finder window go use Go > Go to Folder and type the path to the folder, then enter Time Machine. However, when using Browse for other disks, once it enters Time Machine, it resets the Finder window to Macintosh HD. Does anybody know how to restore hidden folders from a Time Machine backup on another disk (from a different installation of Mac OS X)? Thanks

Shardsofmetal wrote:
The problem I have is navigating to the hidden folder in the Time Machine backup. It resets my Finder window when I enter Time Machine, and I can't figure out how to navigate to the hidden folder within the Time Machine interface.
it should not reset the finder window when you enter TM. open a /usr in finder. enter commandshiftg and enter /user in popup. this will open /usr in a separate window. enter TM from that window. provided you did not exclude system files from backups you'll see past backups of /usr and the view will not reset. if you did exclude system files from backups then the view will reset.

Configuring Time Machine to backup certain folders and files.

Can it be done? I have 3 externals and don't want it to back up one of them. I removed it from the backup list but it still continues to backup that particular drive. Also wondering if I could configure Time Machine to not backup certain folders. I felt like when I first set up Time Machine, I was able to do this.
Thanks everyone.

Hello Warren:
That should be available to you in system preferences>Time Machine>options.
Barry

Time Machine skipping files and folders

Running OS X 10.10.2 on a Early 2009 Mac Pro. System installed on a 256 GB solid state drive. 10 GB of memory.
I'm having a problem with Time Machine where it's not backing up some of my files and folders. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it, but it includes very, very important things like the parent directory for projects I'm working on, arbitrary hash directories in some git repositories, an assortment of emails, Messages attachments, random preferences files, and somehow the entire contents of my Pictures folder. And probably more -- I haven't checked everything.
I've recently forced Time Machine to do a full traversal when it made a recent backup (and confirmed that it was a full traversal by looking at backupd's output in Console.app), but these files are still missing.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what I can do to fix Time Machine? I just want it to do a full backup, not skipping anything.
As a last ditch effort I could blow away my Time Machine drive and start from scratch, but I really, *really* don't want to do that because it contains several months worth of backups, and I occasionally do need to go back and get older versions of files.

It is a nasty bug of OSX 10.9 and 10.10 . Some workaround is described here: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/170219/time-machine-is-skipping-files-a nd-folders-how-to-fix/170336#170336 by Pete.

Time Machine Restoring files and folders Only on a Clean Install

Hi all
I am getting a new hard drive this week. I have done a few TM backups on 3 different external drives.
Here's my question please and thank you for reading this.
I am doing a clean install. The reason for this I want to get rid of COMPLETELY some Microsoft Office apps and a few more which are headaches.
So I will set up a new machine.
The only items I would like to restore is Mac Mail and my iphotos catalogues.
Q: Will TM backup allow me to or just ask me to restore these certain items or is it the whole shabang.
Q: Some items in my Documents folders as well like letters done in Pages.
thanks

You do not say what Operating System you are running?
There are some caveats.
You will have to format your new drive with Disk Utility. Command R may take you to internet recovery.
I loaded Mavericks on a new machine, Used a Bootclone with the Set up Assistant to move everything over- tried to use the same Time Machine, but it would not recognize the old backups. At that point I had to start over with TM.
In your case you may have the same bad luck, and be left with no TimeMachine backs to get what you want.

Would someone please help me figure out why Time Machine has stopped backing up?

Hi, I am a Macbook Pro User running 10.6.8. I recently moved all of my photos, music and videos over to a 1TB Western Digital HD that I attach via usb. I believe that this is when the problem started. When I enter Time Machine, the last backup was on Feb. 17th, which I believe might have been the date that I moved everything.. Thankfully, I just happened to catch that my 2TB iomega HD that I had been using with Time Machine was no longer working, even though I have received no indication otherwise. I've poured over many queries on this site, as well as many others. I've tried deleting the TM plist file in my main file folder to no avail, reset TM and reselected the backup disc as well, but nothing seems to correct the problem. I have noticed, incidentally (or not), that my first backup date was one day short of a year before the last one. Maybe just a coincidence, maybe not, but worth noting, I thought.
I just tried a backup, and got this from Console:
Apr 18 14:50:07 Doyle-Hinsons-MacBook-Pro com.apple.backupd[1399]: Starting standard backup
Apr 18 14:50:07 Doyle-Hinsons-MacBook-Pro com.apple.backupd[1399]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Untitled 1/Backups.backupdb
Apr 18 14:50:08 Doyle-Hinsons-MacBook-Pro com.apple.backupd[1399]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Apr 18 14:50:08 Doyle-Hinsons-MacBook-Pro com.apple.backupd[1399]: Forcing deep traversal on source: "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: BB64A636-C7FA-3269-9643-D253B36CAEB5 eventDBUUID: 5C700854-D109-4ADA-970E-9DA378F0CBB5), {1, 1, 1, 0}
Apr 18 14:50:08 Doyle-Hinsons-MacBook-Pro com.apple.backupd[1399]: Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|require scan|
Apr 18 14:56:26 Doyle-Hinsons-MacBook-Pro com.apple.backupd[1399]: Error: Flushing index to disk returned an error: 0
Apr 18 14:56:26 Doyle-Hinsons-MacBook-Pro com.apple.backupd[1399]: Backup canceled.
I'm a bit of a novice at this, so explanations in laymen's terms would be greatly appreciated, and I express my deepest appreciation in advance to anyone willing to try and help.
Many thanks!

Thanks for your response, Linc. I have everything important to me i.e. pics, music, files, etc backed up elsewhere. Being that this is the backup drive I've used since the beginning, do I need to worry about losing other data that is on the drive, if I plan on backing up with a different one? In other words, is there irreplaceable data on the drive that a new backup won't be able to replace (data that's imperative to my computer's functions)? Thanks again!

Why Time machine don't exclude folders?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for