Will my files i saved using time machine still exist if i delete from my computers hard drive?

I recently had a problem with my computer. I bought an external hard drive and used time machine to back up my 15in mac book pro before sending in for repair.
I have gotten my computer back and needed to delete files from the hard drive on the computer ( close to capacity). Was I safe to do so knowing that everything is saved on my external?
My concern is that if I plug in the external hard drive it will now see those files have been deleted from my computer and delete from the external as well.
-David

Just wanted to add to this conversation - Time Machine will keep copies of your files for some time. It is a backup system, after all. Deleting the files from your main hard drive will not cause Time Machine to go and delete them from your backups.
However, eventually, Time Machine is likely to run out of space on your hard drive, and it then does some cleaning up so it can continue working. A file that is not on your hard drive will not exist on your Time Machine backup forever. Eventually it will be deleted to make room for more recent backups. I can't predict how long this will take, but if you have bought a 1TB or so drive for your Time Machine backups, I would suggest that you might be able to keep some months of backups online - after that, old files that you no longer have on your Macbook Pro will be cleaned away.
So Glenn is spot on - if you want an archive copy of those files, you should make a separate backup - Time Machine does not keep your files forever!
Hope that helps.
Ivan

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How to use Time Machine to back up and restore from 2 external hard drives

Hi I need some help
I am about to switch internal hard drives and kept a time machine back up to an external hard drive until I had filled it up. That was a few months ago and in order to make space I deleted some files from my internal drive. In the last few months I have filled that space (About 50GBs)on my internal drive. Needless to say those new files aren't backed up.
What I want to do is after switching internal hard drives restore everything including the new files apps and updates etc via time machine
Can I back up my most recent computer situation as it is to a new external hard drive using TM and then restore that to the new internal hard drive and then restore specific folders from my first external TM hard drive?
Thanks a million
Rotang

I am sorry, i am confused about what exactly you are trying to say here.
well, Time machine works on very simple concept. it backs up either all the data from your computer or only selected data(customized) from the computer.
to restore you can follow these steps as mentioned below
To restore files:
Open a window for the item you want to restore.
For example, if you accidentally deleted a file from your Documents folder, open the Documents folder. If you want to recover an email message, open your inbox in Mail.
If you’re missing an item from the desktop, you don’t need to open a window.
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock.
If Time Machine isn’t in the Dock, look for it in the Applications folder.
Use the arrows or the timeline along the right side of your screen to browse through all the backups Time Machine has created.
If you need more information about an item, double-click to preview it.
The windows behave just like Finder windows, so you can open folders, click items in the sidebar, and use the search field in the upper-right corner of the window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it and then click Restore.
You can restore individual items, multiple items, folders, or your entire hard disk.
If an item you restore has the same name as another item on your computer, you’re asked if you want to keep the current item, the restored item, or both.
The restored item is returned to its original location. For example, if it is found in the Documents folder, it is returned to the Documents folder. Time Machine may ask if you want to re-create one or more folders in order to return a restored item to its original location.
And with regards to your question,
Can I back up my most recent computer situation as it is to a new external hard drive using TM and then restore that to the new internal hard drive and then restore specific folders from my first external TM hard drive?
yes, you can do that but but this can be done only by navigating into the Time machine restore folder and then copying the uptdated folder to the destination folder(drive) manually..
http://mac-support.blogspot.com

How do I use time machine to make a back up of my external hard drive

I'd like to use my AirPort Time Machine to backup from an external hard drive. How do I do that?
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2) When I connect my LaCie 500 GB EHB to my new MacBook Pro, it cannot get it removed from the 'ignore' list in the Time Capsule
Looking forward to any suggestions and I researched other questions but unfortunately unsuccessful until now.
Michiel

The drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and connected to the computer for Time Machine to be able to back it up.
(94266)

I am trying to restore my old Macbook Pro data using Time Machine on a new Mackbook Air from external hard drive, but when I install I get two different loggin accounts and I only want one loggin account

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This web site might answer all of your Time machine questions:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Ciao.

I have recently changed from a macbook to macbook pro and all my files were saved on time machine but some won't open. It says I need permission.. How do I open them?

I have recently changed from a macbook to macbook pro and all my files were saved on time machine but some won't open. How do I open them?

Are you trying to open the backup files via the Finder or an application? If so, that's not how you should access your backups -- use the "Star Wars" display, per #15 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
How did you get your stuff on the new Mac?
It sounds like you may have skipped the offer to transfer it when your Mac first started up, created a user account, then used the Migration Assistant app instead. If so, that may be the problem; doing it that way means you end up with an extra user account, and can lose permission to files on other volumes, especially backups.
Please clarify just what you're seeing, and whether you still have the old Mac.

How can I restore files from a time machine back-up of my iMac to an EXTERNAL hard drive connected to MacBook Pro. Using Migrat

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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
OS X can only restore data to the drive where Time Machine backed up files from.
If you want to restore files from the Time Machine backup onto an external drive, your only option is to access to the Time Machine drive manually (open a Finder window and choose your Time Machine drive in the Finder sidebar), navigate through its folders and copy the files you want to the external drive

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Regards.

HT201250 If time machine puts all of my photos onto my external hard drive using time machine, can I then delete the photos from my computer put view them again from the external hard drive? Basically, can I free up space on my mac but not lose years of p

If time machine puts all of my photos onto my external hard drive using time machine, can I then delete the photos from my computer but view them again from the external hard drive? Basically, can I free up space on my mac but not lose years of photos?

To add to Niel's comment bear in mind that if you have a backup copy on an external HD and later delete the orignals on your Mac HD you will then only have one copy - so no backup.
If the pictures are precious you should have at least two copies, and ideally another copy kept off site,

Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos.

Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos. I wanted to see if I could view them from the hard drive. Thanks

Hello, eco1.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
This sounds like you are wanting to move your iTunes media folder to an external drive and have iTunes this folder from this location. If this is the case then I would recommend taking a look at the article below.
iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
Cheers,
Jason H.

HT201250 I'm using Time Machine. Its Full. Deleting older backups as it goes. My desktop Mini is full. I want to delete all files on my computer. How will this affect Time Machine?

I'm really wanting to make room on my Mac Mini. I have about 70 gb left. I'm not sure what to do. I'm using Time Machine to regularly backup my computer and its already full and deleting older backups. I used to, in the past before Time Machine, just drag and drop files into an external hard drive and empty the file from my computer. Should I follow a similar procedure here? If I have time machine backup up, and I remove all my files from the computer, will Time Machine begin to backup a "clean" machine onto the external drive and begin deleting past backups? What would be the best way to approach my backups, remove all my files from my computer since a variation of them are already on time machine, and not lose viable backups? Thank you.

If you erase the hard disk and you install a new Mac OS X copy, Time Machine will start a new backup and will stop using all backups you made in the past.
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And yes, I will read your links but just wanted to ask those questions. Maybe they'll answer my questions, maybe not.
I was able to discern that within the domain file is a domain folder with all the site folders, each with their own page ".gz" files which expand into ".xml" files. I was trying to figure out if you could simply drag the corrupt pages out that way and replace them with backup copies that are still good. I am having trouble discerning which pages are which as they all have random names like site-page-30F175E3-AE33-4F10-A490-1A096D9B185B.xml and although I expanded and opened each in Text Wrangler, I still couldn't discern which were which for sure, and trial and error proved cumbersome. Also, I did notice some of the later corrupted domain files had one or two more pages than the site itself has, so not sure how they got added or duplicated or what.
Again, I'll look at your links, but do you know about swapping out individual page .xml files this way within the domain file?

Can I recover lost files when not using Time Machine?

Hi,
I have just discovered that I apparently accidentally erased a word file which I very much would like to recover.
I know the original file name, but I am not using Time machine (about time to get a time capsule, I guess).
Are there any means of finding my file? It seems to have disappeared from the waste bin, as well!
Kind regards
Willi Sletten

You would have to buy a file recovery utility, and hope that the file's location on the hard drive had not been written over yet. If it has been written over, it's gone for good. If you plan on doing this, you need to shut your machine down now and don't turn it on again until you've got the file recovery utility in-hand.
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Is there any way to get my files back without using Time machine?

I used CCleaner without knowing it. It erased my download folder totally. I don't have any time machine.
any suggesion?
Sonny

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Can I use time machine to revert to Mountain Lion from Maverick?

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Only if you have a full backup of Mountain Lion on your Time Machine backup drive. Then you can boot to the Recovery HD that is on the Time Machine backup drive, erase your drive, then do a full Mountain Lion restore. But if you have already used Time Machine to backup your Mountain Lion system, then this won't work. You will need to erase the drive and reinstall Mountain Lion separately. Then you can restore your Home folder from the Time Machine backup.
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HT3275 Continue using Time Machine backup history after switching disk from local to Airport Extreme?

I have been using Time Machine on my iMac for backups for quite some time. The disk I've been using is a single disk connected via USB. Now that I got an AirPort Extreme base station, I wanted to switch the disk drive to the AirPort Extreme, but continue to use my existing backup history and not start a new one.
When I did that, Time Machine complaint that the disk does not have enough space left to do the initial backup. Again, I don't want to start a new backup history but rather seamlessly append to and continue with my existing backup history that's already on the disk.
Is this possible and how?
Thanks,
Torsten

torbu_us wrote:
I have been using Time Machine on my iMac for backups for quite some time. The disk I've been using is a single disk connected via USB. Now that I got an AirPort Extreme base station, I wanted to switch the disk drive to the AirPort Extreme, but continue to use my existing backup history and not start a new one.
As the other poster says, that's usually unreliable and not supported by Apple. See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk.
When I did that, Time Machine complaint that the disk does not have enough space left to do the initial backup.
That's because Time Machine stores backups differently when they're done over a network. See the blue box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #17 for an explanation.

Will my files i saved using time machine still exist if i delete from my computers hard drive?

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