OS X :: Time Machine Deleted Itself Entirely?
Sep 7, 2010
I know time machine deletes old backups when full, but in the last hour my Time Machine (without warning) deleted its entire history of backups to make space for one stupid hourly backup. So i've gone from 6 weeks of backup info to one hours worth!Only after this did it tell me (the following hour I presume) that there was not enough space to perform a backup. So my reckoning if your backup gets anywhere near half the size of the backup drive you loose the lot.
In my case I was trying to sort some permissions errors and working on new network accounts so had to duplicate some files to fix permissions and temporarily doubled up on a lot of data.Amongst all that I needed a fresh copy of some system files and went to TM to grab them to discover everything gone.I had two HD's (250GB and mostly empty 500GB) backing up to a 1TB drive. I guess all this has happened 'by design' to make it consumer friendly(!), but the lack of options in TM is really to its own downfall.(Marks my second major disappointment of Apple software - after lame iOS multitasking interface/concept)
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Feb 15, 2009
I noticed today that Time Machine was taking an awful long time to do a backup, but I didn't think much of it until an alert popped up that said it was 150GB short of space. There's no change I gone near 150GB of changes to anything today, since the last hourly backup.I looked at the Time Machine HD, and there is only one folder left inside the backup.backupdb/Mac Pro/ folder, and in Time Machine there is only 'Today' left in the time bar thing. So it seems months of valuable backups have just vanished for no good reason!Is there any way to find out what Time Machine is trying to backup, and why?And I assume there's not much hope of restoring my lost backups?
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Jun 2, 2009
I got home from work today to see a message about needing 232.79GB to backup but only having ~100GB.Firstly that makes no sense because I "only" have 200GB of files on my hard drive (although obviously the backup would need more), but more importantly there is no way they have all changed since yesterday.I opened the time machine backup and noticed it had deleted every single backup apart from one from last night.From late last night (don't know how far back it goes, console.app doesn't show much further back) until the time when I got home.Has anyone got any idea why it has done this, there is no reason for it that i can work out and now I'm a bit worried it is going to start screwing up backups in the future.
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Feb 9, 2009
I added a few new albums to different artist folders, and instead of adding each folder to the library individually [using "Add to Library" from the File menu], I decided to take a shortcut and add my entire Music folder to the Library.
Now, a load of stuff is missing, and I have a massive collection, so I don't know exactly what's there and exactly what has gone. Searching using Finder confirms that the files are completely gone from my hard drive.
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Jul 24, 2009
Either I accidently deleted an email in my apple mail inbox or my computer deleted it (because it was in my inbox for several months) but now I can no longer find this important email. Though, I do have time machine running always, so I was wondering if the email had been saved to anywhere on the hard drive where time machine may still have it.
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Sep 22, 2009
I initially backed up to the Firewire drive (140GB at a rate of about 1.2GB per minute and all was well.In Snow Leopard i noticed that without any hacks it also has the option to backup to a network drive. I have a QNAP NAS and also an Airport Extreme Basestation. As the QNAP doesnt support HFS i thought i'll just plug my drive into the Basestation even though i heard it wasn't the fastest thing to use..Anyway, to cut a long story short, i open time machine, re-select my time machine drive as the location has changed from being firewire to being attached the Basestation and time machine then says ' analysing changed files' or whatever that similar message is, then it says copying 0.1MB of 143Gb .....i stop it, go and check the drive and it has deleted the whole lot and is trying to start again!? WTF??It didn't format the drive as other data is still on that disk. Kinda loses my confidence in it when it will happily delete 143GB without even asking me
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Sep 19, 2010
I was backing up my drive this evening. I left the Mac alone and realised when I returned that Time Machine deleted my oldest, and most important, Time Machine backup.
It's on an external hard drive.
Is there any way to recover this at all? This is so massively important!
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Mar 2, 2010
(Using Snow Leopard 10.6.2). Over the last 12 months or so, I've managed to fill up the "Backups.backupdb" file on the external HD to about 400GB. I'm pretty confident that I have all these files safely backed-up (in other other files) on the same external HD. So, I thought I'd have a clear-out and get rid of the contents of this "Backups.backupdb" file on the external HD. I followed the instructions on this page: [URL]
So, I could see (after I did it), that when I entered into Time Machine (with the timeline and universe landscape backdrop) all the files had gone. But when I looked into the "Backups.backupdb" file on the external HD, the files were still there, so I highlighted them all, and placed them into the Trash. I've not emptied the trash yet, but before I do, I just wanted to ask, was is this ok to do, or can it cause problems to just delete the files from the "Backups.backupdb" file on the external HD?
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Mar 17, 2010
I've just accidentally deleted the Hotmail mailbox from Mail. Mac says it's removed 'permanently' unless Time Machine is on, which is not. Does anyone know any other way I can add Hotmail to Mail again?
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Jun 14, 2010
After searching the internet for a couple of hours I've given up and I'll bother you all with a question.
I've been using Time Machine since around december when I got a 1TB external LaCie. I've partitioned 250gb of it to back up the 180gb OS X partition on my mbp (yes I know it's not a ton of space for backup). It's been working wonderfully for 6 months. Even saved me once, found a file I had accidentally deleted.
I've had absolutely no trouble until yesterday.
I plugged in my Time Machine drive after 3 or 4 days of running around with my mbp and doing some light work. A few minutes go by and Time Machine has calculated that 85gb (usually it's at most 1-2 gigs for a full day backup, no idea how it went up to 85) and that there are only 74gb available, so the backup fails.
That's odd, so I try again. Same thing. So I enter Time Machine and I find that only one backup date is available, June 10th. Apparently the last time it was plugged in. So I exit Time Machine and browse through the drive itself via Finder and find that, sure enough, there is only one backup folder in existence. It seems like Time Machine deleted all my previous backups in order to fit this massive 85gb 4 days backup.
So does this mean everything is really gone, and that's why it wants to backup 85gb (just over half of the used space on my drive)? I'm pretty confused as to why this would happen, and what it means.
Any other options other than wiping and starting over?
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Jul 28, 2010
If you remove a file from your mac, will time machine update it self and also remove it from the external drive? Or does it save and keep everything?
Also if it saves everything is there a way to go back and delete something, for instance some files that you don't need on your desktop.
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Apr 16, 2012
Time machine deleted a back up, that I need as it was the only place that had some files and as my hard drive became full it deleted this back up (I didn't realise it was going to do this ) and now I want to get it back. Is there any way I can without having to pay loads for a recovery?
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Apr 29, 2012
For a couple of years I was backing up my old MacBook using Time Machine to a 1T Time Capsule. I had two profiles on my Mac, but eventually I deleted one of the profiles. I always thought I could use Time Machine to go back into the Time Capsule and retrieve files from that deleted profile from a date before it was deleted, but it seems it will only access my main profile.
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.4)
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May 23, 2012
After I backup my computer onto a Hard drive using time machine, I delete certain folders off my computer, then assuming my files are on the HDD, I go back to the HDD to see the files, but the files on the Time machine back up are gone! What is happening? and how do i prevent this from happening?
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Nov 30, 2014
I accidentally deleted an important Numbers file on my iPhone from iCloud, and desperately need it back. I've tried using my Time Machine to reclaim it but as soon as i select Cloud Drive, Numbers folder, or user/Library/Mobile Documents i can't go back to any previous backups, my timeline tabs all show up in red. Â
running Yosemite.
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Aug 25, 2014
I purchased an external drive to use between my MAC and a PC for my photos. In the process, I totally deleted the Time Machine backup drive that came with my macbook pro. I now have nothing backed up and obviously cannot restore should I have a problem with the notebook.Â
I need to restore the actual TM drive that came with the macbook and then use my external as a second drive. I have exhausted all resources trying to figure this out.
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
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Sep 5, 2010
I just updated my iTunes but it appears it deleted my library. This sucks because I have spent hours upon hours sorting it, renaming crooked song titles, finding covers and all that stuff. I used time machine to back up my computer like 5 days ago, but I can't figure out how to use it. I wish I could just select that given day (when I made my last backup) and make it turn everything back to what it was back then. How do I do this exactly? I don't care at all if I have to go back to the old iTunes (obviously they will fix this eventually!) - I just want it to look like it did a few days ago.
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Apr 16, 2012
I accidentally erased all my bookmarks and need to access them from my time machine. I would need to import them into either safari or firefox (my firefox seems to be corrupted).
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
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Jun 14, 2010
I've tried getting some answers to this from Apple support forums and my local mac forum but didn't get much info... I've removed some important language files while using monolingual (namely -English (American) -English (British) not realizing these are subset and required). I should've read the FAQ first... now some programs are appearing in weird character formats. Can I restore these language files with my Time Machine back ups? Which folder would I need to replace back with previous file? Since I did this only late last night, I should be able to just replace a certain system file folder, without causing much headache
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Apr 25, 2012
I just made a TM backup of two user accounts (A & B) on one iMac.I now want to delete the files and accounts from the iMac and create a new user account.(A & B shared this computer and it is now going to be used by a third person alone. I don't want all the additional unused A & B account data clogging the hard drive.)Â If I delete the original A & B user accounts, will I still be able to access the backed up files? How?
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.5), iBook G4/iMacFP/G4Tower/Bondi/3400/165/SE/Plus
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May 1, 2012
I have never set up Time Machine on my Macbook Pro.I have several Mailbox's or Folders inside my email system or Mac Mail.I wanted to clear some of the less used folders out and so I exported them to another folder on my desktop.Then I deleted the folders or Mailbox's from inside the Email system or Mac Mail.When I went to the folder on the desktop to see the exported emails, there was nothing you could read, it was all jibberish or crazy characters. What did I do wrong and how can I retrieve those important saved emails?
Info:
Macbook Pro i7 2GHz 4GB 15", Mac OS X (10.6.6)
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Aug 23, 2014
My entire iPhoto Library is gone, inaccessible, doesn't show up in finder. I tried to restore my last Time Machine back up but it says that I don't have enough space on my startup disk. In order to create space I deleted everything nonessential and moved all of my essential folders such as documents, photos, videos, everything, etc. to my external drive, then deleted them from my hard drive. I emptied the trash to make sure that everything was wiped.
I tried to do the Time Machine back up of my iPhoto Library again and is still says I don't have enough space. I looked at my storage under About this Mac, and it says that 120.35 GB of my current computer storage are photos, however, I don't have ANY photos on my hard drive at all. I don't know what to do because I can't delete applications and there is literally nothing else I can delete from my computer, so I don't understand how 135 GBs of storage is being used up. Â
Could there be somewhere my photos are hiding? I just don't understand why my library got deleted in the first place for that matter.
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)
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Sep 7, 2010
I just updated my iTunes but it appears it deleted my library. This sucks because I have spent HOURS upon HOURS sorting it, renaming crooked song titles, finding covers and all that stuff. I used time machine to back up my computer like 5 days ago, but I can't figure out how to use it. I wish I could just select that given day (when I made my last backup) and make it turn everything back to what it was back then.How do I do this exactly? I don't care at all if I have to go back to the old iTunes (obviously they will fix this eventually!) - I just want it to look like it did a few days ago.
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Aug 23, 2010
I was trying to set up my Time Machine to an external hard drive. I didn't continue because it asked to "initialize" the hard drive which I had a lot of important things on.
I have another external hard drive I'd like to use but, my Time Machine has this error code of -43. What is this and how can I use my Time Machine on another external hard drive?
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Mar 13, 2012
can't open the program time machine located in the folder /applications/time machine anymore, message says program ain't working for unknown reaason, but I still can open time machine in the menu bar. any clues what the trouble might be? and/or is there any way to reinstall time machine only on os x 10.7.3?Â
btw., on the system backup hd which is a mirror of the imac system, the programm still works
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Mar 9, 2012
I cannot enter the time machine when I press the time machine icon. I press and nothing happens, so I'm not sure even if it is backing up at this point. When i go to my Tme Capsule it has the folder there for back-ups and the most recent, but no access from the icon.
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Nov 19, 2008
I just replaced my HD on my 15"MBP. The install went well until restoring my data from Time Machine. The apps came over fine but none of my data did. Yes, I checked all the boxes on the "restore from backup" menu.
Of course now when I start up time machine the backup isn't there. How do I get Time Machine to recognize the backup? I have it on two places - a time capsule and a separate external HD.
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Jan 1, 2011
Have installed an 120GB SSD in my Macbook Pro 2010 but have had a couple of problems. Sometimes when you try to enter time machine and or Finder the machine freezes. Also the only way out of this is to hold the power button down and reboot. I have been informed by Apple that there are slight differences between the 2009 and 2010 models. Another odd thing is Skype will not load up automatically on startup, despite making sure this option is ticked. Most other things seem to work. Reinstall original hard drive and all OK.I have tried this with OCZ and Crucial SSDs and get same result. I have also installed the SSDs by cloning and by direct original OS X disk.
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Feb 27, 2012
I have my data saved on an external hard drive (OS 10.7) as I sold my previous Mac and am thinking about buying a power pc iMac using Leopard - does anyone know whether this will be able to open and transfer my data to the older Mac?
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May 27, 2012
Yesterday I used Migration Assistant to recover the contents of a failed MacBook Pro (Snow Leopard) from a Time Machine backup to a new MacBook Air (10.7.4). Using the same external disk for backups, I now have a folder for both the old and new machines inÂ
/Volumes/time_machine/Backups.backupdb/Â Â
The instructions hereÂ
[URL]
explain how to reconnect time machine to the old machine's backups. Once I've done this and checked that I can access the old backups, can I simply delete the new machine folder to save space?Â
Info:
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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