Frequently Asked Questions About Time Machine (MacMost
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2024
- macmost.com/e-1934 Time Machine is the part of macOS that allows you to easily back up your Mac to an external or networked hard drive. Here are some of the most asked questions about Time Machine, such as what size hard drive do you need, can you exclude files from the backup, and how do you restore files from the backup.
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I love your tutorials. I get all my questions answered -many thanks.!
Excellent video, thank you! Clear, concise, informative.
Great video -- you make everything crystal clear & logical. Thank you!
Gary, Thanks for sharing your expertise with the world!
the best and most clearest breakdown of time machine. greatly appreciated.
Wow! Thank you! We didn't know how to restore files after backing them up to Time Machine. Thank you!!! So helpful. We've saved this video for later in case we need to see it again
Thanks. Been a mac user for 20yrs. Never bothered with Time Machine. Your vid has changed my mind. Thank you. 😁
I love you with all my heart Gary don’t you ever stop making Mac videos. Please ❤️
Very helpful video. Thanks for taking the time to make and upload this.
Thanks Gary. You didn’t discuss encrypting the TM backup drive. That’s really important for me.
Gary, you are the absolute best and my first stop on all questions Mac. I have bought over 40 and I go back to the 2E with Apple. I still own a perfectly functioning 2GS with an Applied Engineering 8 Mhz. accelerator card, and a Mac 7600 with a G3 accelerator card.
Great video my friend! I'm new to a lot of this and I found this very concise and helpful
This was one of your best informational videos, i love time machine and time capsule and apple, iPhones, Apple TV and MBPros, when i got off Hewlett Packard in 2012 it was the best thing i ever did and i never looked back.
Hi Gary. I want to back up my mac mini and an external drive, your video gave me the answer I wanted Many thanks
Super helpful!!! You answered all my questions. 🙏
Very helpful video - it answered the questions I had about Time Machine. Thanks very much!
Thank you Gary very well explained with sweet voice 😊🇨🇦
Great explanation. Thanks!!
Very helpful video for me, a new user!
Very useful, thanks so much!
How long did it take you to backup your Mac mine has been taking 5 days 😢
Very informative. Thank you!
How long did it take you to backup your Mac?
I used to use Time machine but quit doing it as the old drive was suspect after many years. I think I will get a drive and set it up again. Thanks for prompting me on this,
Great info - thanks!
Great explanation. thank you
The revelation happened at minute 6:30! Thanks, Gary.
Great info!!!!! Thank you!
I am commenting on your video mainly because it is so well done and easy to go through the questions. You probably have a video on how to do that and I would love to find out how.
My problem was that I had an older Mac Pro and a 4TB SSD that I used as a Time Machine. That drive was accidentally disconnected for quite a while and when I purchased a New Mac Pro, I needed to use it, but it just wouldn't back up my files, so I used a different 4TB drive and created a new Time Machine.
Here was the problem. I tried everything to reformat the drive using the advice of TH-camrs and couldn't get it done on the old machine and thought to install it along with my larger SSD on the new Mac Pro where I would reformat everything and then install everything new. Still, the drive was bulletproof as it was labeled Master Boot.
So, I just restarted my Mac Pro with everything installed now and have left the Time Machine drive installed where you are given a choice of "eject," "initialize," or "erase."
After so many failures I just chose "eject" and then opened up Disk Utility and tried to erase it and reformat it any way other than "Master Boot." It worked and it took seconds. You have to understand that I had done everything including things said in passing like attaching it to a Windows machine and even then that machine would not do anything.
There you go. The question and answer that I was looking for but could not find. Now I can actually use a good and fast 4TB SSD that I was about to toss.
I'm on windows but this was a super simple breakdown. I have a 256gb hard drive computer with a 8tb HDD running every 10 minutes. Thanks
Wow very informative , love it
Bravo Gary awesome tutorial
Excellent!
Never could figure out how to restore an old version of a file…thanks so much.
Great video, thanks
Great video! Thanks
Hi Gary - thanks for another terrific video. Can you tell me whether I should back up Parallels using Time Machine, or will it quickly fill up my external hard drive? Thanks for your help
Very useful video!
thanks, man!
Thanks Gary!
As always Gary, Thank you for the great video! I just received back my Late 2016 Macbook Pro w/ touchbar from Apple and want to completely restore it from my Time machine backup. Do you have a video on completely restoring from Time Machine? Thanks again and Happy New Year!!
I don't have a video on that particular subject. When you restore a Mac it is basically one of the options you get in migration assistant.
thank you for the information it was excellent.
Thanks
Hi Gary! Thanks for this amazing video! Just wondering f you have a video (or if it's even possible) about backing up (time machine) multiple macs with just one drive. Would love to know! Thanks so much!
You can do that with no extra steps needed. Just use the same drive. But if these are stationary Macs, then get them each their own drive so they can be connected all the time. Even if they are laptops, if you are connecting them manually, just get each its own drive. But using one (big) drive is handy when it is connected as a network drive and you are using it backup laptop Macs .
Thank you.
Best in class content
I am new to MAC so thanks for all the great videos. A tech guy suggested I disconnect external drive so it can't be attacked and connect only for backups. How would you address the ransomware attack issue?
Hi Gary,
Another splendid video! Thank you.
I really appreciate your style of delivery and the quality of your content.
At 1:52, you mentioned the option of connecting an external drive to a WiFi router. I like that option as I have an aging NAS (a 10 year old WD My Book Cloud drive). I want to replace it before it goes ka-put. Do you have a video with steps for that configuration? Or should I go for a replacement NAS kit. My apologies if this is a duplicate question (I might've overlooked it the comments).
Hi Gary,
I would love any instructions for this too! Any help? 😀
Superb video. Would time machine also back-up everything related to Parallels, if installed on a Mac? Thank you very much.
Yes
@@stanleynowak9325 Thank you very much, Stanley. Definitely something that has been frequently was on my mind. I am much more relaxed now.
Gary, thanks for this material. I have subscribed and support you on Patreon. I am a newbie in every sense of the word. Here's my dilemma: I use two time machine backups as you mentioned... one at home and one at work. The one at work can be ejected easily by going to Finder, locating the drive and ejecting. The drive at home will occasionally work in the same way, but usually no matter how often you push on the eject symbol, you are told something is using the drive. If you Force Quit, there is a warning the drive isn't being ejected properly. Thoughts?
Gary - Love your channel! I'm still trying to figure out how to best backup my MacBook Pro using Time Machine. I'm running both Catalina for legacy programs and Monterey for current apps. It seams that I need to run separate backups for each OS. Is there a better way to do this? Also, any tips on restoring a drive with dual operating systems would be appreciated. Thanks!
You mentioned that you can use a single drive for multiple computers at 3:48. Do you need to partition the drive or do anything to it to allow it to separate the computers? I haven't been able to get a straight answer online or via Apple Tech Support - but when I plug in my drive to the router I'm only able to select a single one of my partitions to use for Time Machine. Can I remove the partitions all together an backup multiple computers over the network to the same disk without any additional partitioning?
I’m having an issue... On an ext HD, Time Machine has run out of space and thus stopped backups entirely. I get a pop up that say something like “Time Machine doesn’t have enough space to back up etc..” Why is this happening? I want Time Machine to ditch older files that aren’t needed and then continue to backup my recent files. This issue has been a huge blunder and time waster. I’m spending weeks researching how to fix this issue and wether or not I should ditch TM for different backup software? Beyond frustrating!
FYI there are other files on the drive that TM is on. And why can’t I just delete old TM files? I have ZERO use for backups from 2 months ago, let alone 2 years ago, makes no sense.
Gary, thank you for sharing your knowledge. I have a MacBook Air that is shutting down by itself periodically. I had not been using time machine. However now that I know the computer has a problem, I purchased a new external hard drive to attempt to record a time machine copy. I found that even in “safe mode” the computer would shut down after about five minutes. I learned that if the computer was kept very cold I could extend the on time in safe mode for a few hours. So by keeping the computer very cold, I was able to make it run for about 4 hours, which was about 20 minutes from getting a full time machine backup. I repeated the following day. I expected time machine to start the previous incomplete backup all over. But it appears that time machine remembered what was left to back up and completed the previously failed back up. So do you believe the above is true, that I do in fact have a comolete backup?
Time Machine is so underrated/overlooked by so many people. It's also more powerful than a lot of people realise.
When I first got a Mac back in late 2010, Time Machine and it's ridiculous ease of use was the thing that actually encouraged me to start backing up. It is so easy to get going that there is literally no reason not to. Just set it and forget it.
One thing that's only lightly brushed upon is this video is that Time Machine is more than just simple file backup/restore. It backs up your entire system including your OS in its current state. This means that you can also use Time Machine to restore full system snapshots onto a new or reformatted drive. This is done from recovery mode by hitting cmd+R at boot. Apple's Time Machine is the ONLY free/inclusive utility I have ever encountered that seamlessly performs both file backups and full system snapshots in one single piece of software. Windows has File History and System Restore. Neither of which work as well. Linux has the likes of Deja Dup for file backups and TimeShift for system snapshots. While both work well, TimeShift works conditionally and both are separate pieces of software. Apple has Time Machine and it does it all with no setup beyond adding the drive and forgetting it exists until you need it.
short, crisp and really useful. Excellent video. BUt have one question. What if your macbook runs out of power or battery or for some reason, you need to stop the backup and put off your laptop. Can one resume the back up again the next day? Please advise
It will just stop the backup and continue them the next time. But this rarely happens because if you have your MacBook connected to your external Time Machine drive, then why not have it connected to power at the same time?
i use my old time capsule to back up two macs.
Hi Gary... I'm truly fan of your videos and content presentation..
Can I back up my SD card permanently inserted on Mac with Time Machine and same drive?? If yes, how..
Gary, the drive on my 3t Time Machine stopped working about a month ago, and ordered a 4T 3.5 Sata replacement. how would I copy the data from the old one onto the new one. (I haven't replaced yet). Love your videos..
Hey Gary! Thanks for this video. Just purchased a new MacBook Pro M1 and want to restore from my older MacBook (2015), both are running BigSur. You showed in this video how to restore individual files, but do you have a video that shows how to restore ALL user data to a MacBook that currently has an iOS installed? If so, please point me to it when you have a chance. Thanks so much. Jeff.
...and btw, I do have a Time Machine backup.
Hey Gary. Always useful information. thanks. I'm wondering if Time Machine can be used to back up non-OSX work drives to an external i.e. my photo/video drive to an external back up. Can I have Time Machine back up multiple sources to multiple targets? So, a basic OSX backup as usual but also a photo drive to its own back up drive, a video edit drive to it's own back up drive etc...
Thanks fro your help
No, it isn't configurable to that level. It is meant to be easy to use, but you want something more pro level.
Thank you, I was looking for a solution to back up my video files. I was wondering If my time machine drive could be the second drive in a daisy chain (first drive hooked up to my computer, second time machine hooked up to my first drive)?
do you know of any way to compare time machine backups? So like a list of differences between them where we can see which files have been added, deleted or modified between 2 or more backups on our external disk so we can quickly check the differences between all our backups and change back any files that were mistakenly changed before it's too late and the oldest backup gets replaced as time passes as we may not have even noticed a change (deletion, addition or modification) on certain files that we may not want to remain as such? That would be a VERY VERY useful tool!!
I’ve made bad experiences with time machine several times. It happened more then once, that the Mac was unable to use the backup any more although the hdd wasn’t full or damaged. I had this on several hdd. I switched to Carbon Copy Cloner, a fantastic program with much more options. CCC works reliable since years on my computers.
Do you have any videos regarding searching for files on an external drive? I'm having issues there. Files I know are on that drive are not present in the Finder search.
Thanks for the video! If I do a full back up of my laptop and for some reason I go back to restore from time machine …does it also restore that backups iOS that it was created at that time or just restore files on current iOS? If I go to restore point that was older iOS will it restore how,it looked back then files and iOS version?
Are you backing up your iPhone to your Mac? If so, that backup file is on your Mac and it would be restored at the same time along with every other file. But iOS backups don't back up the operating system, just your data. But what's your goal here? You don't need to restore your whole Mac just to restore your iPhone.
another great video im just not sure when i click options i see two other drives in the exclusions list do i need to delete those drives for backup or are they already excluded. Thanks. Great job as always I'm a big fan
If they are in the exclusions list, then they are excluded.
@@macmost thanks Gary am i able to delete older backups or just get a new drive
@@joeygigahertz Why do you need to delete? If you want to start over again for some reason, you can erase the drive and start again. I you need a bigger drive, get one and start fresh with that.
Great video! Can I ask is it risky to just allow Time Machine to delete older backups? Will I lose files? Should I just delete my backup hard drive and start a new complete backup or just keep on doing what I'm doing. Any help much appreciated!
Hey Stephen, so Time Machine is an interesting type of backup system that is unlike most other backup systems. When it makes the incremental backups, backing up only files that have changed or have been added, it then adds what's called a hard link to previous backups so that no matter which date you select to look at, you will see all available files not just the ones that were backed up on that date. By doing this, it saves space by not duplicating something that is already there, it just links to it. If the file changes later on, then the new backup will have the changed file and will not link to the old file. However, the old file is still there if you go to the older date. So what happens if you run out of disk space, the Time Machine will start to overwrite the old data with the new backup information. Will your old data be erased will depend on how long has it been removed from the system? If it was only a couple of weeks ago, then your data will probably be safe but if it months or years ago then yes that data will probably be gone. There are two types of backups. Archival and non-archival. Archival backups are backups of files that you want to make sure never get deleted. Things like photos or may special documents that you just don't ever want to be deleted. Those should be backed up separately from time machine either on a CD, Flash drive, or another hard drive or partition. I have separate partition on my time machine drive where I have some things stored that I don't want deleted right now. I usually drag and drop them over that partition. Time machine is more of a non-archival backup that is used for disaster recovery should something happen while you are using the system. It will keep old backups for as long as possible but it will assume that if the data is old enough that is not being backed up because it has been removed from the system then it probably isn't important anymore and will eventually delete it when it needs space. So I hope this helps to understand the types of backups and what happens when it runs out of space.
Hey Gary, something not mentioned, something I made a huge mistake of when updating to Monterey from Catalina, I reformatted the Time Machine drive to have it work for Monterey, not realizing the obvious, it would delete everything.
I do have the majority of stuff on my machine already but, there are some ( photo folder ) that I don't.
Right now I tried Easeus 's restore program with no luck ( it found a bunch of unfamiliar file formats ) the company said if they are unfamiliar then it looks like what you are looking for is unrecoverable.
I'm trying Wondersoft Iskysoft's program, heard its able to do better and keep the "tree" of the files, so maybe this would be better?
My question is, do you know of any ways to be able to restore a deleted snapshot/time machine backup?
My macbook has a 250gig drive and after backing up my iphone it already used up almost 200gig. If I have successfully backed up in time machine, can i delete this iphone backup to free up space and get it back in time machine in the future if needed? Thanks in advance.
I think a network drive would be best for me, as I want to have fewer cables.
Great video-I’m leaving my i mac on sleep- should I turn of extender all hd while computer is in sleep mode?(at night) bob
"extender all hd?"
Can you give some more information about using time machine connected to a router as briefly mentioned in the video . Is it possible to use Time Machine in a way whereby once it has filled a drive you can remove that drive and put a new drive in thereby eventually having several years worth of back ups spread across more than one drive
I currently use Time Machine to backup my MacBook. I also do a weekly disk copy with SuperDuper to a separate drive. If I was to use iCloud fully, so all my data and photos were "in the cloud", would Time Machine still have everything backed up as it does now from the hard disk? With iCloud is all the data physically still on my Mac AND in iCloud or is it only brought back to the Mac when I want to update a file?
Not sure what you mean by "use iCloud fully." There are two options: Not Optimized and Optimized. The first means that every file is stored on your local drive as well as iCloud. The second means that some files are stored only in iCloud, others in both places. In the first instance where everything is also local, then Time Machine can back up everything. In the second case, only the files that are local would be backed up. So it depends on your "Optimize Mac Storage" setting in System Preferences.
Hi. Are you able to use Time Machine to back up everything on my IMac on a Time Capsule, & all so just back up photos
From an external drive to a other external drive
Hallo Gary, I hope you’re doing great. 26 May 2020
I have 2 OS's on my MacBook Pro, 2 volumes on one disc. Mojave is used mostly and I can reboot to Big Sur. If I only use Time machine on Majove bootup, will time machine backup the Big Sur part of the drive? So if I need to restore the disc to a clean drive, I can restore bother Majove and Big Sur volumes of the one drive solely from the Majove time machine backup?
Thanks, Gary. Am I able to exclude different folders for different Time Machine drive backups?
No, there’s no way to do that.
What happens in the following scenario. A file currently on the hard drive that has not changed single it was included in the very first time machine backup and the time machine drive has filled up resulting the oldest backups being removed. Presumably among the oldest backups being removed is that very first one which is the only backup including the file in question.
I would also suggest that people encryt their time machine since if you don't, someone could simply take the hard drive and get your files.
Tony Padgett I tried to encrypt my data on time machine and it’s been stuck in the encryption process for hours with no progress. Any ideas how to pause it? Or stop it?
Thanks for a great insight to how time machine works and I have just completed my first backup. However this was on Catalina. What happens if I refresh my mac and install Big Sur. Will I still be able to get those files back from the Time Machine backup because i'll be using a new os ?
Updating doesn't stop Time Machine from working. You just update and keep going.
Thanks.. I really appreciate your advise
I want to clear my macbook from holiday pictures, etc but still want them on my external drive. Is it possible to delete them from my macbook and still use Time Machine for other files? Or will the photos be synced and deleted this way?
Great video. I would like to buy a 4 TB external harddisk to connect to my network for backing up two macbooks. I already have a WD My passport for mac, but that does not seem to function in a network as it must be connected to a mac directly. Which harddisk could you recommend?
I don't have any specific recommendation as I haven't tried enough of a variety to say that one is better than the other. Just buy one that has good reviews. Why doesn't your current external drive work when connected to your network?
Time Machine is also great for setting up a new mac with all the configuration you have on the mac you're replacing.
The logic board of my 15 month old 16" Macbook Pro died, including zapping the SSD, a few months ago, (Apple doesn't consider this to be a case of poor quality and I had to spend about 50% of the original price to replace it), and luckily I had recently made Time Machine backup, (I hadn't bothered because this was my first SSD computer and I was enjoying the resilience of a solid state drive); I'm not sure what happened during the restore, (maybe because I used the default Mac name?) but the password key chain got messed up and I was no longer able to access stored passwords, at one point I wasn't even able to log into my mac. Not good.
Yo this thing backs up external drives too? OK that makes things way easier for me.
Good video! Just wondering: How do I repurpose an old time machine drive back for use as a regular external hard drive?
.
Use Disk Utility. Erase it and reformat it as macOS Extended or APFS (if you only have Macs running Mojave or newer).
@@macmost Thanks 🙏
Thank you for the video, and maybe I didn't understand correctly but if I get a prompt asking if I this computer to inherit the back up history on my 4TB do I just click on inherit backup history?
If that is what you want, sure.
I’m thinking of using boot camp to use windows on my iMac. I would want to use a drive to turn back the clock, if I decide I no longer want windows on my computer. How would I use time machine for that, would I restart to the full previous stored version? How? You showed us how to go back to an older file, but what about system wide, or what I’m looking for?
Lots of factors there. You should just be able to delete the Boot Camp partition and go back to having macOS have the whole drive. But you'll need to think on your feet when the time comes. I haven't had to do that in probably 10+ years, and a lot has changed. Otherwise, you can always just wipe the drive, reinstall macOS from recovery mode, and then restore your user account and apps from Time Machine (it asks when you set up macOS).
Excellent video, but I have a question. It looks like the Time Machine stopped doing backups to the external drive 2 years ago on the Mac I am inspecting. It sounds like the external drive is broken (makes noise). However, Time Machine seems to be continuing to do back ups somehow. Does it default to the internal Mac drive for TM backups when the external gets corrupted? I’m confused.
support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015
I just bought a new Mac mini. When I started it up and logged in as an Apple user, I noticed that the calendar and contacts from my old MacBook Pro had already populated those apps. My question is if I use the Migration Asst program from my MacBook Pro to transfer data from a Time Machine backup to my new Mac mini, will there be a bunch of duplicate entries in my calendar and contacts. Thanks
Hi nice video. Do you know if its possible to exclude entire libraries? I only want to backup photos. Thanks.
You can exclude anything you want. But why? Why would you want a lesser backup? I can't think of any good reason for a typical Mac user to not just use the default Time Machine settings. You should really consider it.
@@macmost ok thanks.
hey Gary any idea how to copy or transfer my time machine backups (apfs) Monterey to a new drive??
Gary, are you able to use the external harddrive for both time machine and to store movies and music? Would I partition the external hard drive?
I strongly recommend against that. For one thing, it would mean the stuff on the other partition wouldn't be backed up (same drive, one point of failure). Just get another drive. They are cheap.
Thank you Garry.
I have a question. I have a 3 TB HDD and designated 1 TB partition for my Time Machine backups, and 2 TB for my data (photos, files etc.)
So, now I want to move or transfer the current Time Machine backup into a separate HDD. Is it possible to do so?
Having data and a backup on the same drive is a bad idea. Your photos and files on that drive aren't backed up to another drive that way. Switching to a separate drive is the right way to go. Don't transfer the backup, just start a new one there.
Gary thanks you're been helpful for years. So my Seagate backup filled up. It asked me to make space and I agreed but realized after that many photos were reduced in size?
Can that be rectified?
Also I can buy a another external HS but how do I keep the backup's consistent over from the first drive?
Do you mean your Time Machine backup said it needed to clear out some space? That just deletes old files from the backup. It wouldn't do anything to your photos. What makes you think they are reduced in size? Where do you see that?
If you get another drive, just start a new backup on that. That's the simplest thing. Keep the old drive around for a month or so until you feel you don't need it anymore.
@@macmost ah good to know about the the photo files!
Start a new backup is the thing then.
Will the first backup drive have stored anything that my main drive hasn't saved?
@@MAGICJACKATX Only things that you have previously deleted. That's why you keep your old drive around for a while just in case.
Good video, thanks. One question, how to I recover a file to a different t Mac?
Hi Gary, love all your videos on Macs.I'm not sure if you can help me, but my desk top iMac stopped backing up to Time Machine. I went into settings and found out that Macintosh HD was listed as excluded from back-ups. I highlighted "Macintosh HD" and clicked the minus sign, but nothing changed. Any thoughts?
Not sure what is going on there. I'd call Apple Support to get to the bottom of it.
Thanks, I was afraid of that.@@macmost
How do you back up the apps or software on your mac or does TM automatically backup everything you use on your device? E.G. your entire adobe creative suite.
It does, but that doesn't matter. If your Mac were to die or get stolen, you could just re-download the Adobe apps using Creative Cloud. No need to restore from a backup at all.
Let's say I do a full time machine backup, then upgrade my OS to a new release (e.g. OS X 10 to OS X 14) and certain programs or plugins no longer work, can I restore everything back to the way it was? I.e., revert from OS X 14 back to OS X 10, and all files just as they were before, as if the OS upgrade never took place?
Garry, I have my PC backed up to OneDrive with lot of space for free from MS. Can the Time Machine backup my MacBook to a folder on OneDrive? Will OneDrive automatically backup MacBook same as to a External Drive.
Can't I just make two partitions in the drive so it does Time Machines backups and is used for storage? Also, can I use one drive for Time Machine backups with two MacBooks, an older one and a new one?
Gary, how do I use Time Machine during a clean reinstallation of Big Sur?