One of the things you'll love about your Mac – especially if you have recently switched from Windows – is Time Machine, the built-in backup feature. To use it you’ll need an external storage solution such as an external hard drive (or SSD) connected via the USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire port on your Mac, the Time Capsule or macOS server on your network, or the external hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme base stations on your network. It is recommended that you back up before every major action, but as you start using the feature you'll see that you don't really need to back up your Mac on a daily basis. But that, of course, varies by user.
Understanding Mac’s Time Machine
Click on Time Machine icon in the menu bar and click on Back Up Now to start back up manually. How do you cut a video in imovie. If the automatic option is enabled, then the backup will start in one hour. You can always when the next backup will start from the Time Machine Preferences. Choosing between Automatic or Manual backups. Jul 21, 2010 Click on the Time Machine drive icon (it must be shown on the desktop, or you can choose it from Finder view) Right-click the drive icon and select “Back Up Now” from the pop-up menu This will perform the exact same function as a manual backup initiated through Time Machine system preferences or the menu bar. Learn how to set up Time Machine on an external storage device to back up your Mac. To learn more about this topic visit the following article:How to use Tim.
Time Machine has its own scripts for housekeeping, but sometimes (such as when you see the “Time Machine could not complete the backup” error message) you may need to intervene to clean up space on your Time Machine drive. Space can always be saved on your backup if you delete junk, cache and temporary files before you back up the computer. That's particularly true if you haven't set up any exceptions in Time Machine preferences, and everything is saved, even applications.
If you want to run a Time Machine backup right away, on a Mac that either has Time Machine disabled, or, say, just before updating to a new version of OS X, you can run this command: tmutil.
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Since every external storage device has its own physical limits, if you are going to keep that drive in the long run then it's good to optimize your backups so that they occupy less space. For that it is possible to compress Time Machine backups, but before you start deleting and compressing backups you need to understand how Time Machine works.
Time Machine uses File System Event Store, a hidden log macOS keeps of changes made to the data on each HFS+ formatted drive or partition. But this won't list every file that has changed; instead, it will list the directories affected. Time Machine uses this log to find out what's changed and what needs to be backed up.
When Time Machine does the first backup, it copies everything (except trash and system work files) and creates a dated backup folder (year-month-day-hhmmss) in the Backups.backupdb folder, placing hard links in it to all the backup copies it has just made. Another dated backup folder is then created with the second backup, and this repeats each time. There is a trick, however: the second backup folder contains hard links to the items that remained unchanged.
Compressing Time Machine Backups
There are notable differences between the normal (or local) Backups.backupdb folder and a backup made over a network. Local backups are stored in a single Backups.backupdb folder at the top level of the external hard drive.
If you are backing up your Mac over a network (be it wired or wireless), you'll find the Backups.backupdb folder inside a container called a “sparse bundle disk image”. While it works just as well as the local backup version, an extra step is needed to actually recoup the space gained by deleting earlier backups due to its format. Unlike a normal folder or disk image, when you delete a file in a sparse bundle, it won't change the container size. To recoup the space, run the following command in Terminal (replacing the ‘Yourbackup’ entry with the necessary backup name):
% sudo su - root
% hdiutil compact /Volumes/TimeMachine/YourBackup.sparsebundle
What you’ll then see is:
Starting to compact…
Reclaiming free space…
……………………………………………
Finishing compaction…
Reclaimed X.X GB out of XXX.X GB possible.
Reclaiming free space…
……………………………………………
Finishing compaction…
Reclaimed X.X GB out of XXX.X GB possible.
Removing Old Time Machine Backups
Old backups can be removed in many ways, but here is the simplest.
- Enter Time Machine.
- Navigate to the backup you want to remove.
- Right-click on the backup in the Finder window of Time Machine, and select Delete Backup.
Time Machine will prompt for the admin password and then delete the required file.
That's a bit clumsy if you want to delete multiple backups, so here's a Terminal command for this, which is very useful when deleting old backups:
That's a bit clumsy if you want to delete multiple backups, so here's a Terminal command for this, which is very useful when deleting old backups:
tmutil delete /TimeMachine/Drive/Path/To/OldBackup/
Or, if you want to remove a backup from a specific date:
tmutil delete /Volumes/BackupDriveName/Backups.backupdb/MacComputerName/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS/
Deleting Old Time Machine Backups Automatically
If you don't mind speaking with your Mac via Terminal commands, then it’s even possible to automate the removal of old Time Machine backups by running the following batch script. Note that this will find the oldest and newest backups and display a prompt to delete the oldest, which then requires you to enter “Y” and the admin password to finish.
COMPUTER_NAME=$(/usr/sbin/scutil --get ComputerName)
NBACKUPS=$(/usr/bin/tmutil listbackups |
/usr/bin/grep '$COMPUTER_NAME' |
/usr/bin/wc -l)
OLDEST_BACKUP=$(/usr/bin/tmutil listbackups |
/usr/bin/grep '$COMPUTER_NAME' |
/usr/bin/head -n1)
LATEST_BACKUP=$(/usr/bin/tmutil latestbackup)
echo Latest backup: $LATEST_BACKUP
if [[ -n '$LATEST_BACKUP' && '$LATEST_BACKUP' != '$OLDEST_BACKUP' ]]then
echo -n '$NBACKUPS backups. Delete oldest: ${OLDEST_BACKUP##*/} [y/N]? '
read answer
case $answer in
y*)
echo Running: /usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/tmutil delete '$OLDEST_BACKUP'
/usr/bin/sudo time /usr/bin/tmutil delete '$OLDEST_BACKUP'
;;
*)
echo No change
;;
esac
else
echo 'No backup available for deletion'
fi
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Time Machine is a built-in feature on your Mac. It’s one of the most important ones as it automatically backs up all of your files on an external drive (and restores them if they’re ever deleted).
What to do if Time Machine won't back up
Unfortunately, many Mac users have reported that they’re having difficulty backing up with Time Machine after upgrading their computers to macOS Mojave. If you’re one of those users, check out our tips for troubleshooting when Time Machine won’t back up your files.
Make sure your external hard drive’s file system is compatible with Time Machine
One potential problem that may prevent Time Machine from performing backups is that your external hard drive is formatted incorrectly, making it incompatible with Time Machine.
While Windows FAT and NTFS are used as the default file system for many external drives, Time Machine can’t use them — it requires a native macOS format. However, there is one macOS format that doesn’t work, either: APFS. While it’s fine that your Mac uses APFS, Time Machine can’t.
How to get minecraft on a different computer. To determine the format of your external hard drive:
- Connect your external drive to your Mac.
- In Finder, select the drive from the left sidebar and click Get Info. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Command-I.
- Your drive’s format will appear in the list of general information next to Format:
If your external drive is in one of these unsupported formats, you’ll need to reformat it correctly before it’s used to back up your Mac. In order to work with Time Machine, your external drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID Partition Table (GPT).
Here’s how to format your external drive using Disk Utility:
- Connect your external drive to your Mac.
- In Finder, go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
- In Disk Utility, select your external drive from the list on the left.
- Select Erase from the top of the window.
- In the pop-up window, you have the option to rename your drive and change its format. Change the format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and click Erase.
Now that your external drive is in a compatible format, you should be able to back up to it with Time Machine.
Check your external hard drive’s free space
If reformatting your external drive didn’t work, you need to make sure that your external hard drive has enough available space to back up files (go to Disk Utility to check how much free space is left). If it doesn’t, you’ll need to delete some unneeded files to free up space or start backing up your Mac to a new hard drive.
If you’re having trouble backing up your data with Time Machine, you can try performing some basic tweaks to resolve the issue. There is a dedicated app to help you out. CleanMyMac X is a Mac cleaning utility that also runs a set of maintenance scripts that rotate system logs, remove temporary files, and perform other optimization tasks.
It can help you fix the issue with Time Machine and additionally speed up processes on your Mac. Try CleanMyMac X now.
What to do when Time Machine backup fails repeatedly
Clean up Time Machine and back up again
Time Machine uses some extra files to help it work. Sometimes, when Time Machine fails, it leaves some files around that it was using temporarily to help it work. Safely deleting these files and “cleaning up” Time Machine may fix any issues you’re having with backups.
To do this, you’ll need to first turn Time Machine off:
- Open System Preferences and go to the Time Machine tab > deselect Back Up Automatically.
Next, clean up Time Machine’s working files:
- Open Finder.
- Go to your external hard drive.
- Open the “Backups.backupdb” folder and move the file ending in “.inProgress” to the Trash.
- Empty the Trash.
- Restart your Mac.
After this, turnTime Machine back on and start a new backup.
Check if other processes are causing problems with Time Machine
In some instances, malware (malicious software that can be installed without your knowledge) can prevent important applications from running properly.
It’s almost impossible to detect malware on your Mac without special tools. My personal favorite, thanks to its sleek UI and intuitive features, is CleanMyMac X. Its Malware Removal quickly checks your Mac for malware, including trojans and worms, and allows you to delete them if found.
To run a malware scan on your Mac:
How To Start Time Machine Backup Now
- Download CleanMyMac X – it has a free trial.
- Install and launch the app.
- Go to Malware Removal and press Scan.
- When the scan is complete, you can delete the threats if any are found.
As you see, Time Machine backups can fail for various reasons. The first thing you should try when that happens is to make sure your external hard drive format is compatible with Time Machine. Then check whether your external hard drive has enough free space. In some cases, running maintenance can also solve the problem for you. You can use CleanMyMac X’s Maintenance module for that.
Time Machine Backup Now
Hope it was helpful!