Does Time Machine Backup Everything

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Use Time Machine, the built-in backup feature of your Mac, to automatically back up your personal data, including apps, music, photos, email, and documents. Having a backup allows you to recover files that were deleted, or that were lost because the hard disk (or SSD) in your Mac needed to be erased or replaced. Learn how to restore your Mac from a backup.

Create a Time Machine backup

To create backups with Time Machine, all you need is an external storage device. After you connect the storage device and select it as your backup disk, Time Machine automatically makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup disk is full.

Feb 21, 2017 When to Verify Time Machine Backups You probably don't need to verify backups every time Time Machine runs. But verifying Time Machine when you first set up the backup system, change backup drives, or make some other type of change to your Mac or its backup system may be a good idea. Time Machine is Apple's built-in, set-it-and-forget-it backup system. Time Machine makes hourly snapshots of files and copies them to a backup drive. It keeps older revisions and deleted documents so it can restore them or an entire computer to any point in the past. When the backup drive is full it automatically deletes the oldest backups. They back up every bit as well as Time Machine does, but they are neither easy to learn nor easy to use for those who haven't boned up on backup concepts. Simple concepts versus IT jargon. The bummer now is Time Machine wants to backup the entire drive on top of the old data, I guess it doesn't match up to it, so I'm just going to delete old TIme machine backups and start new. And 150 GB took just shy of 3 hours with Firewire. Most of my content lives on other externals.

Connect an external storage device

Connect one of the following external storage devices, sold separately. Learn more about backup disks that you can use with Time Machine.

Backup
  • External drive connected to your Mac, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive
  • Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over SMB
  • Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination
  • AirPort Time Capsule, or external drive connected to an AirPort Time capsule or AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac)

Select your storage device as the backup disk

  1. Open Time Machine preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Or choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Time Machine.
  2. Click Select Backup Disk.
  3. Select your backup disk from the list of available disks. To make your backup accessible only to users who have the backup password, you can select 'Encrypt backups'. Then click Use Disk:

If the disk you selected isn't formatted as required by Time Machine, you're prompted to erase the disk first. Click Erase to proceed. This erases all information on the backup disk.

Enjoy the convenience of automatic backups

After you select a backup disk, Time Machine immediately begins making periodic backups—automatically and without further action by you. The first backup may take a long time, but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway. Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster.

To start a backup manually, choose Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Use the same menu to check the status of a backup or skip a backup in progress.

Learn more

  • Learn about other ways to back up and restore files
  • If you back up to multiple disks, you can press and hold the Option key, then choose Browse Other Backup Disks from the Time Machine menu.
  • To exclude items from your backup, open Time Machine preferences, click Options, then click the add (+) button to add an item to be excluded. To stop excluding an item, such as an external hard drive, select the item and click the remove (–) button.
  • If using Time Machine to back up to a network disk, you can verify those backups to make sure they're in good condition. Press and hold Option, then choose Verify Backups from the Time Machine menu.

Time Machine is Apple's built-in, set-it-and-forget-it backup system. Time Machine makes hourly snapshots of files and copies them to a backup drive. It keeps older revisions and deleted documents so it can restore them or an entire computer to any point in the past. When the backup drive is full it automatically deletes the oldest backups.

Time Machine works so well it doesn't always get much attention. But if you need to replace computers or hard drives, you'll appreciate these advanced techniques that put you in charge of what happens behind the scenes.

Inheriting a backup versus creating a new backup

Time Machine Backup Mac

When you replace a Mac Screenshot button laptop. that was previously backed up with Time Machine, you can set it to use the same backup drive as the old Mac as long as there's enough room for both computers' backups.

Does Time Machine Backup Everything
  • External drive connected to your Mac, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive
  • Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over SMB
  • Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination
  • AirPort Time Capsule, or external drive connected to an AirPort Time capsule or AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac)

Select your storage device as the backup disk

  1. Open Time Machine preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Or choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Time Machine.
  2. Click Select Backup Disk.
  3. Select your backup disk from the list of available disks. To make your backup accessible only to users who have the backup password, you can select 'Encrypt backups'. Then click Use Disk:

If the disk you selected isn't formatted as required by Time Machine, you're prompted to erase the disk first. Click Erase to proceed. This erases all information on the backup disk.

Enjoy the convenience of automatic backups

After you select a backup disk, Time Machine immediately begins making periodic backups—automatically and without further action by you. The first backup may take a long time, but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway. Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster.

To start a backup manually, choose Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Use the same menu to check the status of a backup or skip a backup in progress.

Learn more

  • Learn about other ways to back up and restore files
  • If you back up to multiple disks, you can press and hold the Option key, then choose Browse Other Backup Disks from the Time Machine menu.
  • To exclude items from your backup, open Time Machine preferences, click Options, then click the add (+) button to add an item to be excluded. To stop excluding an item, such as an external hard drive, select the item and click the remove (–) button.
  • If using Time Machine to back up to a network disk, you can verify those backups to make sure they're in good condition. Press and hold Option, then choose Verify Backups from the Time Machine menu.

Time Machine is Apple's built-in, set-it-and-forget-it backup system. Time Machine makes hourly snapshots of files and copies them to a backup drive. It keeps older revisions and deleted documents so it can restore them or an entire computer to any point in the past. When the backup drive is full it automatically deletes the oldest backups.

Time Machine works so well it doesn't always get much attention. But if you need to replace computers or hard drives, you'll appreciate these advanced techniques that put you in charge of what happens behind the scenes.

Inheriting a backup versus creating a new backup

Time Machine Backup Mac

When you replace a Mac Screenshot button laptop. that was previously backed up with Time Machine, you can set it to use the same backup drive as the old Mac as long as there's enough room for both computers' backups.

If you used Migration Assistant to set up the new Mac, at the first backup Time Machine may ask if you want to inherit the backup history of the old computer. Note that even if you choose to inherit the backup, Time Machine cannot pick up where it left off and copy only new files. It always copies everything from the new Mac to the backup. Even so, inheriting can have benefits.

Inheriting a backup allows the user to easily restore files from the previous computer's backup even if they weren't on the computer when you set up the new Mac. And if the backup drive eventually fills up, Time Machine will seamlessly remove the old Mac's backups to make room.

Instead, if you create a new backup Time Machine leaves the old backup set intact and starts a new set. That's great if you plan to continue using both Macs but it's not convenient if you intend to sell or dispose of the old Mac. You may run out of space and have to remove the old backup set manually. That's not always easy because, as Time Machine will tell you, 'backup items cannot be modified.'

Does Icloud Backup Everything

Forcing a Mac to inherit a backup

Does Time Machine Backup Everything

  1. On the new Mac, set Time Machine to use the same backup drive as before. Then immediately turn backups off.
  2. Log in as an admin user and open Terminal.
  3. Type or copy & paste the following command:sudo tmutil inheritbackup and a space.
  4. If the Mac backs up to a local drive, open the backup drive and the Backups.backupdb folder. Drag the folder named after the old computer to the terminal window.
  5. If you back up to a network (such as a Time Capsule or server),mount the backup volume and look for the Mac's backup disk image inside. Do not open it – just drag the disk image to the terminal window.
  6. Click the terminal window, hit return and type the admin password.

Replacing a drive and continuing the same backup

When you replace a hard drive in a Mac that was backed up with Time Machine it's usually considered an entirely new volume. Everything is backed up from scratch. Although the original drive may also show in Time Machine this will undoubtedly take a lot of time and space. In fact, Time Machine may delete a good part of your backup history (maybe all of it) to make room for the new drive. Thankfully, there's a better way.

Associating a new drive with a Time Machine backup

How Does Time Machine Work

  1. Turn off Time Machine backups – preferably just before you transfer files to the new drive.
  2. Use a tool like Carbon Copy Clonerwhen you replace a drive. This utility makes a clean copy and preserves file ownership & permissions. The less your new drive differs from the original the less Time Machine will have to recopy when you back up.
  3. Mount both the new drive and the Time Machine set. If your computer backs up to a network drive (server or Time Capsule), mount the backup volume and double-click your Mac's Time Machine backup disk image inside.
  4. Open Terminal and type or copy & paste the following command:sudo tmutil associatedisk -a and a space.
  5. Drag the new hard drive icon to the terminal window. You may click the Finder and choose Go – Computer to find the icon.
  6. Open the Time Machine set (drive or disk image). Navigate to the latest backup of your computer. For example, if the backup was called Time Machine Backups and the Mac was called iMac, you would open Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/iMac/Latest.
  7. Drag the folder for the old hard drive to the terminal window. For example, the internal drive might be called Macintosh HD or something similar.
  8. Click the terminal window, hit return and type the admin password.
  9. Eject the Time Machine Backups disk image if you're using a network backup.
  10. Turn on Time Machine and Back Up Now.The next backup may take a while as Time Machine compares the new drive to the backup but only the files that differ will be copied.

Does Mac Time Machine Backup Everything

Don ho notepad. See balancing shared backup drives, Time Machine tips and terminal commands, including the complete list from Apple.





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