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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 .
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,
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!!
@@macmost thanks a lot . I am finally buying a NAS for the same based on your recommendation in lesson 13 I think . Also for my 2 TB Mackbook pro , I think 6TB would be enough for time machine or should I increase the capacity?
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).
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 need to use an empty drive. First, you can't back up data from the same drive -- that doesn't make sense for local reasons. Second, you want to let Time Machine control the entire drive. Just get a drive that is dedicated to your backup and nothing else.
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
can I use the very same external HD to back up 2 Mac OSX systems...? in my case my MacBook runs Mavericks (1/3) and High Sierra (2/3) ... if yes how should I proceed...? maybe I have to apply 2 partitions and Time Machine back up Mavericks to one and High Sierra to another... right...?
If you are talking about a networked drive, then yes, people do that all the time. But if you have to physically move the drive from one Mac to another, then just get another drive for each to make it easier. Of course if you are using iCloud Drive and storing everything in there, you may only really need to backup one Mac since they would all have the same files on them, right?
@@macmost well, by now I'm using the same external HD (1T) divided in 2 partitions (500) to Time machine back up both systems ("Mavericks" & "High Sierra") I mean one system one partition ... thanks for your reply...! actually "work in progress", 6 hrs remaining...! for High Sierra...!
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, your videos are great! Question: I've never had much luck with Time Machine. When I look at it in System Preferences it says "Preparing backup...", but the 'progress bar', as it were, is a blue line that bounces back and forth, so I have no idea if it's actually making progress on preparing the backup. Nor are there any numbers displayed, nothing like, 'XX files scanned, XX files remaining'. How can I tell if it is actually preparing backup and not spinning its wheels? Thanks!
Hey Flap Jack. I understand where you are coming from. When it is preparing the drive, there is nothing to indicate how long it will take or if it is actually doing something. How long it takes to do this depends on how much data you have on your system and how often you do the backups. If you leave the drive plugged in, after the initial Preparations are done when you first plug the drive in, the rest of the backups should go pretty quickly and the Preparing backup should not be on for long. However, if you are like me where I can't keep the drive plugged in all the time, then when I do plug the drive in it can take a couple of hours for the preparing drive message to go away and actually start the backup procedure. The only way I know it's doing something is by looking at the hard drive light and see that is flashing so something is happening on the drive. It would be nice to have something showing that something is happening and how long it will take to run the process but it may not be possible because it doesn't know itself how long the process is going to take.
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?
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?
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).
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.
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?
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.
Question: Time Machine backup way back from 2014 Snow Leopard onto a 1TB WD drive... I didn't understand "backups" at all then and rather than formatting it via Disk Utility, the drive self formatted when I used Time Machine. My goal was to backup .jpg and .mov or .mp4 on my system to the hard drive so I could view and copy files with any other computer (Windows, Mac)... any way to retrieve the files now to see and copy them as usable to another computer or external drive?
Gary - how does Time Machine handle files and folders that are within a Cloud service that is supported on the Mac, such as Dropbox and OneDrive? For example, what happens If you do a Time Machine restore to set up a new computer and your old computer includes cloud storage files and folders that are available “on demand” which appear in the Finder on the old computer with an icon next to them indicating that the file needs to be downloaded? Are then any guidelines and/or additional steps that should be taken when migrating cloud storage files and folders to a new computer? Any help is appreciated.
Time Machine can only back up files that are present on the local drive. But it probably backs up most if not all because of how that works. I did a video on this: th-cam.com/video/6WvwfapIYxE/w-d-xo.html
@@macmost Thank you for the response, Gary. The second video was helpful. I think the problem is most apparent when you migrate to a new computer and your old computer is set up to use both local files/folders stored on the hard drives but has also offloaded other files/folders to the Cloud. As you indicated, you can still “see” those offloaded items (marked by the Cloud and down arrow) in Finder and easily pull them down when needed.
I realize you must have enough hard drive on your new computer to match your old computer. But what happens when you do a restore of Time Machine on the new computer? How does the restore handle the on-demand files? Do the offloaded items still appear in Finder on the new computer? Or are these folders must missing on the new computer and you have to set them up again using the Cloud service? How do you safely get back to where you were on your old computer? It gets worse when you have multiple cloud services involved in the setup. I use OneDrive primarily because it provides 1TB of free storage plus I have other files on Dropbox. It gets very complicated. I ended up in this situation when I got a new M1 Mac Mini which had more limited hard disk space than my old iMac. If I did it again, I would just pay for extra hard disk storage!!
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..
Thanks Gary, very informative, I do have a specific question. I recently downloaded the latest version of Sonoma 14.6.1 on my iMac and found an issue with one of my programs, I've contacted Apple but they were unable to solve. Just curious, I do have a Time Machine backup prior to downloading this new version of Sonoma, Can I go back to that date and time and restore the old Sonoma version which was working just fine. Appreciate your comments. Regards Tony
Not easily, no. Did you contact the maker of that app about the problem? That would be the thing to do. You can't stop updates and leave your Mac frozen in time and with security updates and compatibility issues just to keep one app going.
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.
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.
I strongly recommend a dedicated drive for this. Get a large HDD (cheap per TB). If you use the drive for other purposes, then those files on the drive won't really be backed up (one drive = one point of failure).
Thanks for the video. I know TM is supposed to erase oldest versions when drive fills up, but mine is now saying it cannot complete backup because of lack of disk space. Why will it not just erase old versions? 500gig MacBook - 1tb dedicated external time machine drive.
There is a limit. It removes older versions of each file, but keeps one copy at least (otherwise it wouldn't be a very good backup). So as you delete files and replace them with others there is one copy of the deleted file still around. That's how you fill up a Time Machine drive. How fast that happens depends on the type of things you do on your Mac. 1TB is definitely much too small of a drive for Time Machine in your case.
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.
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 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.
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!!
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
@@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.
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?
Great job! And I know this is 3 years old, but I'm reaching out in case you still check messages on this video! In time machine, the "little" lines (before "today" or "right now" are not available to click on unless I click and hold down "Today," but once I let "today" go, I am unable to click on the little lines I see that are for yesterday. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!
Hi Gary, thanks for the Great Video. I am new to Apple eco system & I have a dumb question.. Can you please help me understand if multiple users with separate Apple IDs use the same Time Machine? Example, can myself and my roommate use the same time Machine drive to take backups of our iphones and MacBooks without sharing our Apple ID credentials with each other?
Time Machine is for the whole Mac. Once you start the backup it will back up the entire drive (unless you exclude something manually) including all users. But Time Machine is for Macs, not iPhones. It won't do anything for your iPhone. If you let your roommate create another account on your Mac then it would back up their account too.
@@mediashare7021 Nothing similar. You can connect your iPhone to a Mac and use the backup function in the Finder to back up the iPhone's data. But that doesn't work very well as it relies on you manually connecting the iPhone. Using iCloud backup is best.
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
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..
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
You strongly suggest dedicating a drive for Time Machine. Can I partition a large drive and dedicate part of it to Time Machine? Do you see any downside to this strategy?
@@macmostThanks for the quick reply. i was thinking about ready to use image with all Apps its related to corporate IT not home use unless their are other tools ? any way thanks for the fast reply. Happy new year. love you channel!!
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.
Time Machine will back up everything on your drive unless you have specifically excluded it. You should really consider using iCloud too, as it is so amazing to have all of your photos available on other devices, like your iPhone. Probably one of the best features of the Apple ecosystem.
@@macmost the reason that I do not want to use iCloud is when it stores things in the cloud and I turn off iCloud it's difficult to download my pics. I am not sure how to select just 1k pics at a time. And I don't want to have to click on them one by one and then have several files that I then have to combine. And no matter how many I select it always seems to fail to down from iCloud. I just find not easy to work with when you want to make backups of files or not use it t all. This is my first Mac. I have had other apple products for years. iCloud has always ucked for me. If you have a tutorial to help, let me know. Thanks
@@macmost Fair enough. 😀 I use mine regularly and they are frequently in use. Would like to ensure they’re backed up. Will their being included in my Time Machine backups be a problem? FWIW, I’m hoping to configure TM to back up to my NAS.
@@ChrisWaters I don't know how well it would work. Time Machine, I assume, would see your Windows drive as one huge file and have to back up the entire thing every time you do anything with it. I would think a better way would be to use a Windows-based backup inside of your virtual machine for Windows and only backup Mac files with Time Machine.
Still after two years a great video. Question: what happens to my photos when the original is only in iCloud to save space on my iMac? And other documents also get pushed into iCloud Drive after some time when the hard drive gets too full (“optimize Mac storage”)Do I still have a backup of my fotos in original size or do I need to find another solution for backing up my originals including files?
Depends on what you mean y "backing up." The photos are still there in iCloud, always. This is more of a "backup" than most people had (sad to say). But if you want to back them up locally you should have Photos "optimize" off so you have everything locally and can back up to another drive.
@@macmost I mean Time Machine does not hold all my picture in full size if I switch on "optimise Mac storage" in iCloud section. In this case iCloud IS the backup of all my (full size) Fotos and not Time machine. Time machine only has the possibly smaller versions backed up, because it will also delete older files/fotos if the HDD is full, correct?
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 ?
Sorry if this is a beginner question, I am replace my current external HD drive that I use for backups for a larger Capacity one, can I still plug in the old one and get a file from it after its not being used as the timemachine backup drive? Thank you.
Yes. You can actually have multiple Time Machine backups. So when you start the new one, it is like you have two going. You can always bring in the original and grab a file from that (hopefully you don't need to, unless there is an emergency). I have done this, just keeping the old one around for a month or so.
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
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.
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?
What if you are a person that uses a laptop just to listen to music, and send emails, just basic things like that. Do you really need it? Because I’m trying to help my grandma out cuz she is running out of storage, the “system storage” is taking up a lot of space. And I found that backup time machine is probably mostly part of the system storage. So, do you think I could delete some of the stuff that’s backed up? She just needs the laptop for listening for songs on chrome, and send emails, or letters.
Is there a problem though? It would use extra storage for backup "snapshots" but only if there is room. If she only uses it for these things, and there is no problem, don't worry about "system storage" and let macOS manage that.
@@macmost The problem is ... "she has reached the storage limit". Specs: 121 GB, Macbook ari 2020. In the Desktop: there is only 1 file, which is less than a Mega byte. Applications: about 14 GB. there was other stuff too, but the one that stood out the most was the system storage. It took almost half her storage. about 50 GB. I tried looking in the library, but I don't see any big files, and I'm afraid to delete any files in the library, cuz first of all, there aren't any big files to delete (some of them or 0 bytes, some 2kb, 5kb...). And i'm kinda afraid that i might delete some important file. So after doing some research, about how to manage, delete files from system storage, on most of the videos/articles I read, they mentioned time machine "snap shots", and deleting those might help.
@@Ginfio Don't worry about "categories" like system storage. Look in her Home folder. Which folder there is biggest? Look in Documents, same. Look in Applications. Do an inventory on a folder-by-folder basis to find out what is taking up space.
@@macmost hmm, ok. I looked everywhere. but I WILL look again. Do you think deleting older snapshots would be a bad idea, or do you think that could be something we could do? too.
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)?
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?
Hi Gary-I have a question regarding Time Machine and emptied trash stored on the hard drive. Firstly, regarding the trash process, I understand when you “move to trash”, then “empty trash”, the trash gets “strewn” onto the hard drive where it will sit till it is overwritten with other trash. My question is: when you use Time Machine, does it copy ALL the files on your computer, including that “empty trash” strewn on the free space on the hard drive? Or does Time Machine only copy the non-trashed files, apps and folders? I’m hoping Time Machine does not copy those emptied trash files. My goal is to reformat my computer so as to zero out all my sensitive emptied trash (I will set disk utility to erase and rewrite my hard drive several times). After that, I want to reinstall my latest Time Machine copy. I want to do this so all my sensitive data I’ve emptied over the years (bank info and personal IDs etc) can never be “disk drilled” or otherwise retrieved off my hard drive. Thank you so much if you answer.
It copies files, not blocks of data. So any remnants of files left on a drive wouldn't be part of Time Machine. Note unless you are using an older Mac and don't have File Vault turned on, this isn't a problem. Newer Macs have encrypted drives even without File Vault. For older Macs, just turn on File Vault and they have encrypted drives too. Then the problem you are trying to solve doesn't exist anymore since any "strewn" bits of data would be encrypted bits of data and garbage.
@@macmost Thank you so much for clarifying that for me! I do have an older Mac, and I haven’t been using File Vault-so I’ll go ahead with my Time Machine reinstall plan. After that, I’m thinking I’ll start using File Vault until I get a new Mac. Thanks again.
@@macmost One more thing came to mind in relation to our above discussion, hoping it’s ok to ask-When backing up, sometimes Time Machine says it’s full and asks if it should get rid of earlier backups, and I always click OK. When this happens, does Time Machine dump the earlier backups onto my hard drive (with my other emptied trash), or does it simply allot a section of earlier backups to be overwritten, in which case nothing gets "dumped" onto my hard drive? Thanks again if you see this.
@@cpet3589 When this happens, older files are removed. So you don't have a complete backup any longer. For instance, a file you created 6 months ago, then deleted 3 months ago, may no longer be in the backup. Nothing gets moved to your internal drive. If you are getting this, it means it is time to get a new LARGER Time Machine backup drive.
@@macmost That's great to know that the old files on my Time Machine (which is on an external hard drive) don't get moved to the trash on my computer hard drive. Thanks so much again for answering!
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?
It does, but the proper way to finish an SSD replacement would be to boot to restore mode, install the system directly from Apple, and then migrate your user accounts from Time Machine. At least that's the way I would do it.
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
the best and most clearest breakdown of time machine. greatly appreciated.
Great video -- you make everything crystal clear & logical. Thank you!
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 love your tutorials. I get all my questions answered -many thanks.!
Thanks. Been a mac user for 20yrs. Never bothered with Time Machine. Your vid has changed my mind. Thank you. 😁
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.
I love you with all my heart Gary don’t you ever stop making Mac videos. Please ❤️
Excellent video, thank you! Clear, concise, informative.
Gary, Thanks for sharing your expertise with the world!
Thanks Gary. You didn’t discuss encrypting the TM backup drive. That’s really important for me.
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.
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.
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.
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
Hi Gary. I want to back up my mac mini and an external drive, your video gave me the answer I wanted Many thanks
The revelation happened at minute 6:30! Thanks, Gary.
Thank you Gary very well explained with sweet voice 😊🇨🇦
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 .
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.
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,
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!!
Never could figure out how to restore an old version of a file…thanks so much.
Time machine uses full backup or incremental backup ?
Time Machine is incremental. It only backs up what is new or changed.
@@macmost thanks a lot . I am finally buying a NAS for the same based on your recommendation in lesson 13 I think . Also for my 2 TB Mackbook pro , I think 6TB would be enough for time machine or should I increase the capacity?
@@TheICUChannel Hard to know, but the more capacity the longer your backup will be.
@@macmost Thank u . Thanks again for reply . You are a gem 💎
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).
Thanks
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!
Gary what if I use a non empty external hard disk for time machine. Will it delete all the things stored in it ??
You need to use an empty drive. First, you can't back up data from the same drive -- that doesn't make sense for local reasons. Second, you want to let Time Machine control the entire drive. Just get a drive that is dedicated to your backup and nothing else.
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.
Very helpful video for me, a new user!
Very helpful video. Thanks for taking the time to make and upload this.
can I use the very same external HD to back up 2 Mac OSX systems...? in my case my MacBook runs Mavericks (1/3) and High Sierra (2/3) ... if yes how should I proceed...? maybe I have to apply 2 partitions and Time Machine back up Mavericks to one and High Sierra to another... right...?
If you are talking about a networked drive, then yes, people do that all the time. But if you have to physically move the drive from one Mac to another, then just get another drive for each to make it easier. Of course if you are using iCloud Drive and storing everything in there, you may only really need to backup one Mac since they would all have the same files on them, right?
@@macmost well, by now I'm using the same external HD (1T) divided in 2 partitions (500) to Time machine back up both systems ("Mavericks" & "High Sierra") I mean one system one partition ... thanks for your reply...! actually "work in progress", 6 hrs remaining...! for High Sierra...!
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, your videos are great! Question: I've never had much luck with Time Machine. When I look at it in System Preferences it says "Preparing backup...", but the 'progress bar', as it were, is a blue line that bounces back and forth, so I have no idea if it's actually making progress on preparing the backup. Nor are there any numbers displayed, nothing like, 'XX files scanned, XX files remaining'. How can I tell if it is actually preparing backup and not spinning its wheels?
Thanks!
Hey Flap Jack. I understand where you are coming from. When it is preparing the drive, there is nothing to indicate how long it will take or if it is actually doing something. How long it takes to do this depends on how much data you have on your system and how often you do the backups. If you leave the drive plugged in, after the initial Preparations are done when you first plug the drive in, the rest of the backups should go pretty quickly and the Preparing backup should not be on for long. However, if you are like me where I can't keep the drive plugged in all the time, then when I do plug the drive in it can take a couple of hours for the preparing drive message to go away and actually start the backup procedure. The only way I know it's doing something is by looking at the hard drive light and see that is flashing so something is happening on the drive. It would be nice to have something showing that something is happening and how long it will take to run the process but it may not be possible because it doesn't know itself how long the process is going to take.
@@DrWho453 Patrick, thank you so much for taking the time to send such an insightful response!
Much appreciated!
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?
Bravo Gary awesome tutorial
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?
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? 😀
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.
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?
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.
Question: Time Machine backup way back from 2014 Snow Leopard onto a 1TB WD drive... I didn't understand "backups" at all then and rather than formatting it via Disk Utility, the drive self formatted when I used Time Machine. My goal was to backup .jpg and .mov or .mp4 on my system to the hard drive so I could view and copy files with any other computer (Windows, Mac)... any way to retrieve the files now to see and copy them as usable to another computer or external drive?
Hi, Did you manage to solve your 'problem' as I too have the same question?
@@PeterCheape no
Gary - how does Time Machine handle files and folders that are within a Cloud service that is supported on the Mac, such as Dropbox and OneDrive? For example, what happens If you do a Time Machine restore to set up a new computer and your old computer includes cloud storage files and folders that are available “on demand” which appear in the Finder on the old computer with an icon next to them indicating that the file needs to be downloaded? Are then any guidelines and/or additional steps that should be taken when migrating cloud storage files and folders to a new computer?
Any help is appreciated.
Time Machine can only back up files that are present on the local drive. But it probably backs up most if not all because of how that works. I did a video on this: th-cam.com/video/6WvwfapIYxE/w-d-xo.html
@@macmost Thank you for the response, Gary. The second video was helpful.
I think the problem is most apparent when you migrate to a new computer and your old computer is set up to use both local files/folders stored on the hard drives but has also offloaded other files/folders to the Cloud. As you indicated, you can still “see” those offloaded items (marked by the Cloud and down arrow) in Finder and easily pull them down when needed.
I realize you must have enough hard drive on your new computer to match your old computer. But what happens when you do a restore of Time Machine on the new computer? How does the restore handle the on-demand files? Do the offloaded items still appear in Finder on the new computer? Or are these folders must missing on the new computer and you have to set them up again using the Cloud service? How do you safely get back to where you were on your old computer?
It gets worse when you have multiple cloud services involved in the setup. I use OneDrive primarily because it provides 1TB of free storage plus I have other files on Dropbox. It gets very complicated.
I ended up in this situation when I got a new M1 Mac Mini which had more limited hard disk space than my old iMac. If I did it again, I would just pay for extra hard disk storage!!
@@tscharlton I'm pretty sure the cloud services handle Time Machine restores gracefully.
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..
Very informative. Thank you!
How long did it take you to backup your Mac?
Thanks Gary, very informative, I do have a specific question. I recently downloaded the latest version of Sonoma 14.6.1 on my iMac and found an issue with one of my programs, I've contacted Apple but they were unable to solve. Just curious, I do have a Time Machine backup prior to downloading this new version of Sonoma, Can I go back to that date and time and restore the old Sonoma version which was working just fine. Appreciate your comments. Regards Tony
Not easily, no. Did you contact the maker of that app about the problem? That would be the thing to do. You can't stop updates and leave your Mac frozen in time and with security updates and compatibility issues just to keep one app going.
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.
Thanks, Gary. Am I able to exclude different folders for different Time Machine drive backups?
No, there’s no way to do that.
I saw someone say they partitioned their drive to use as both a time machine backup and additional storage. Will that cause a problem?
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
Very helpful video - it answered the questions I had about Time Machine. Thanks very much!
Does it have to be a dedicated external drive(i.e. just for the backup) or I can use a "used" drive for other purposes?
I strongly recommend a dedicated drive for this. Get a large HDD (cheap per TB). If you use the drive for other purposes, then those files on the drive won't really be backed up (one drive = one point of failure).
Thanks for the video.
I know TM is supposed to erase oldest versions when drive fills up, but mine is now saying it cannot complete backup because of lack of disk space. Why will it not just erase old versions? 500gig MacBook - 1tb dedicated external time machine drive.
There is a limit. It removes older versions of each file, but keeps one copy at least (otherwise it wouldn't be a very good backup). So as you delete files and replace them with others there is one copy of the deleted file still around. That's how you fill up a Time Machine drive. How fast that happens depends on the type of things you do on your Mac. 1TB is definitely much too small of a drive for Time Machine in your case.
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.
Great video my friend! I'm new to a lot of this and I found this very concise and helpful
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
hey Gary any idea how to copy or transfer my time machine backups (apfs) Monterey to a new drive??
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Very useful, thanks so much!
How long did it take you to backup your Mac mine has been taking 5 days 😢
Great job! And I know this is 3 years old, but I'm reaching out in case you still check messages on this video! In time machine, the "little" lines (before "today" or "right now" are not available to click on unless I click and hold down "Today," but once I let "today" go, I am unable to click on the little lines I see that are for yesterday. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!
Hi Gary, thanks for the Great Video.
I am new to Apple eco system & I have a dumb question.. Can you please help me understand if multiple users with separate Apple IDs use the same Time Machine?
Example, can myself and my roommate use the same time Machine drive to take backups of our iphones and MacBooks without sharing our Apple ID credentials with each other?
Time Machine is for the whole Mac. Once you start the backup it will back up the entire drive (unless you exclude something manually) including all users. But Time Machine is for Macs, not iPhones. It won't do anything for your iPhone. If you let your roommate create another account on your Mac then it would back up their account too.
@@macmost thanks so much for the prompt response 🙏
Is there anything similar for iphone backups other than iCloud?
@@mediashare7021 Nothing similar. You can connect your iPhone to a Mac and use the backup function in the Finder to back up the iPhone's data. But that doesn't work very well as it relies on you manually connecting the iPhone. Using iCloud backup is best.
@@macmost thank your so much
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
thank you for the information it was excellent.
I have time machine backups compiled on two drives. How can I merge them all together on one large drive? Dragging them dent work
Best in class content
Good video, thanks. One question, how to I recover a file to a different t Mac?
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..
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
You strongly suggest dedicating a drive for Time Machine. Can I partition a large drive and dedicate part of it to Time Machine? Do you see any downside to this strategy?
Does Time Machine(or any backup service for that matter) capture corrupted files/virus or does it automatically fix it in the process?
Time Machine just backs up files, it doesn't scan them for issues.
Super helpful!!! You answered all my questions. 🙏
Thank you.
Great info. can i use time machine to mount laptop OS with all my Apps ? i mean if i have few Macbooks that i often erase thanks
No, you should just install macOS from Apple. Or, just erase the data and not macOS. There's a function for that in System Preferences/Settings.
@@macmostThanks for the quick reply. i was thinking about ready to use image with all Apps its related to corporate IT not home use unless their are other tools ? any way thanks for the fast reply. Happy new year. love you channel!!
@@mosheh800 If you are in corporate IT, then you probably should be using support.apple.com/apple-configurator
Do you recommend encrypting backups? Is it more unreliable for restoring the machine?
I am also wondering about encryption.....
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.
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 🙏
hello, thanks for the video
i have a problem why everything the back up bar stop????
Does time machine back up photos or should i put them on another drive if i do not want to use a cloud service?
Time Machine will back up everything on your drive unless you have specifically excluded it. You should really consider using iCloud too, as it is so amazing to have all of your photos available on other devices, like your iPhone. Probably one of the best features of the Apple ecosystem.
@@macmost the reason that I do not want to use iCloud is when it stores things in the cloud and I turn off iCloud it's difficult to download my pics. I am not sure how to select just 1k pics at a time. And I don't want to have to click on them one by one and then have several files that I then have to combine. And no matter how many I select it always seems to fail to down from iCloud. I just find not easy to work with when you want to make backups of files or not use it t all. This is my first Mac. I have had other apple products for years. iCloud has always ucked for me. If you have a tutorial to help, let me know. Thanks
@@HyperionSun_ If you aren't using the "Optimize" option, then all of your pics are always already downloaded to your Mac.
@@macmost I have pictures on other devices. Which I did download to a SSD. But apple said I only had 30 days to download my pics from iCloud.
Noticed you’re excluding your Parallels virtual machines. Do you use a different strategy for backing those up?
For me,. nothing to backup. I only used them back then for testing things like how websites worked on Windows browsers and such.
@@macmost Fair enough. 😀 I use mine regularly and they are frequently in use. Would like to ensure they’re backed up. Will their being included in my Time Machine backups be a problem? FWIW, I’m hoping to configure TM to back up to my NAS.
@@ChrisWaters I don't know how well it would work. Time Machine, I assume, would see your Windows drive as one huge file and have to back up the entire thing every time you do anything with it. I would think a better way would be to use a Windows-based backup inside of your virtual machine for Windows and only backup Mac files with Time Machine.
So time machine can backup internal and external drive to one big backup drive? or do you have to have 2 backup drives?
It backs up multiple drives to one. Make sure your backup drive is big enough to hold it all, and then some, and then some more.
Great explanation. thank you
Still after two years a great video. Question: what happens to my photos when the original is only in iCloud to save space on my iMac? And other documents also get pushed into iCloud Drive after some time when the hard drive gets too full (“optimize Mac storage”)Do I still have a backup of my fotos in original size or do I need to find another solution for backing up my originals including files?
Depends on what you mean y "backing up." The photos are still there in iCloud, always. This is more of a "backup" than most people had (sad to say). But if you want to back them up locally you should have Photos "optimize" off so you have everything locally and can back up to another drive.
@@macmost I mean Time Machine does not hold all my picture in full size if I switch on "optimise Mac storage" in iCloud section. In this case iCloud IS the backup of all my (full size) Fotos and not Time machine. Time machine only has the possibly smaller versions backed up, because it will also delete older files/fotos if the HDD is full, correct?
@@andreasschmidt553 Yes.
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
Sorry if this is a beginner question, I am replace my current external HD drive that I use for backups for a larger Capacity one, can I still plug in the old one and get a file from it after its not being used as the timemachine backup drive?
Thank you.
Yes. You can actually have multiple Time Machine backups. So when you start the new one, it is like you have two going. You can always bring in the original and grab a file from that (hopefully you don't need to, unless there is an emergency). I have done this, just keeping the old one around for a month or so.
@@macmost Thank you for the help.
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
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.
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?
Hi Gary, can I restore a system disk onto an external sdd attached via thunderbolt? (Internal hard disk failure in iMac). Thanks!
Not sure. Why? What is your goal here?
What if you are a person that uses a laptop just to listen to music, and send emails, just basic things like that.
Do you really need it? Because I’m trying to help my grandma out cuz she is running out of storage, the “system storage” is taking up a lot of space. And I found that backup time machine is probably mostly part of the system storage.
So, do you think I could delete some of the stuff that’s backed up? She just needs the laptop for listening for songs on chrome, and send emails, or letters.
Is there a problem though? It would use extra storage for backup "snapshots" but only if there is room. If she only uses it for these things, and there is no problem, don't worry about "system storage" and let macOS manage that.
@@macmost The problem is ... "she has reached the storage limit".
Specs: 121 GB, Macbook ari 2020.
In the Desktop: there is only 1 file, which is less than a Mega byte.
Applications: about 14 GB.
there was other stuff too, but the one that stood out the most was the system storage. It took almost half her storage. about 50 GB.
I tried looking in the library, but I don't see any big files, and I'm afraid to delete any files in the library, cuz first of all, there aren't any big files to delete (some of them or 0 bytes, some 2kb, 5kb...). And i'm kinda afraid that i might delete some important file.
So after doing some research, about how to manage, delete files from system storage, on most of the videos/articles I read, they mentioned time machine "snap shots", and deleting those might help.
@@Ginfio Don't worry about "categories" like system storage. Look in her Home folder. Which folder there is biggest? Look in Documents, same. Look in Applications. Do an inventory on a folder-by-folder basis to find out what is taking up space.
@@macmost hmm, ok.
I looked everywhere. but I WILL look again.
Do you think deleting older snapshots would be a bad idea, or do you think that could be something we could do? too.
@@Ginfio Does hurt too much to try it since she's not storing any data. But I doubt that is the issue.
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)?
Gary, how do I use Time Machine during a clean reinstallation of Big Sur?
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.
Hi Gary-I have a question regarding Time Machine and emptied trash stored on the hard drive. Firstly, regarding the trash process, I understand when you “move to trash”, then “empty trash”, the trash gets “strewn” onto the hard drive where it will sit till it is overwritten with other trash. My question is: when you use Time Machine, does it copy ALL the files on your computer, including that “empty trash” strewn on the free space on the hard drive? Or does Time Machine only copy the non-trashed files, apps and folders?
I’m hoping Time Machine does not copy those emptied trash files.
My goal is to reformat my computer so as to zero out all my sensitive emptied trash (I will set disk utility to erase and rewrite my hard drive several times). After that, I want to reinstall my latest Time Machine copy. I want to do this so all my sensitive data I’ve emptied over the years (bank info and personal IDs etc) can never be “disk drilled” or otherwise retrieved off my hard drive. Thank you so much if you answer.
It copies files, not blocks of data. So any remnants of files left on a drive wouldn't be part of Time Machine. Note unless you are using an older Mac and don't have File Vault turned on, this isn't a problem. Newer Macs have encrypted drives even without File Vault. For older Macs, just turn on File Vault and they have encrypted drives too. Then the problem you are trying to solve doesn't exist anymore since any "strewn" bits of data would be encrypted bits of data and garbage.
@@macmost Thank you so much for clarifying that for me! I do have an older Mac, and I haven’t been using File Vault-so I’ll go ahead with my Time Machine reinstall plan. After that, I’m thinking I’ll start using File Vault until I get a new Mac. Thanks again.
@@macmost One more thing came to mind in relation to our above discussion, hoping it’s ok to ask-When backing up, sometimes Time Machine says it’s full and asks if it should get rid of earlier backups, and I always click OK. When this happens, does Time Machine dump the earlier backups onto my hard drive (with my other emptied trash), or does it simply allot a section of earlier backups to be overwritten, in which case nothing gets "dumped" onto my hard drive? Thanks again if you see this.
@@cpet3589 When this happens, older files are removed. So you don't have a complete backup any longer. For instance, a file you created 6 months ago, then deleted 3 months ago, may no longer be in the backup. Nothing gets moved to your internal drive. If you are getting this, it means it is time to get a new LARGER Time Machine backup drive.
@@macmost That's great to know that the old files on my Time Machine (which is on an external hard drive) don't get moved to the trash on my computer hard drive. Thanks so much again for answering!
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?
Does a Time Machine backup contain the OS as well, on a fresh SSD after replacement? Please reply
It does, but the proper way to finish an SSD replacement would be to boot to restore mode, install the system directly from Apple, and then migrate your user accounts from Time Machine. At least that's the way I would do it.
@@macmost so it better if I reinstall the OS from Apple. Thank you