I'm really glad that I've been using time machine -- it saved my ass today. Just to let everyone know, this was the first time that I said to myself "oh shit, that's right, isn't time machine supposed to help in situations like this...?" I just went back a couple of hours, grabbed the file that I was looking for, and bam! The flux capacitor kicked in and I was back in business -- no bullshit.

I've been on the same Mac and backing up with Time Machine since July 2012. Now my external backup drive is full. Can I just go in to the Time Machine folder and delete old archives? Say manually delete all but the last three months?

I must look into this :embarrassed:

Do you use it for more than just time machine?
Time Machine will overwrite all the old archives with new ones, so even if it is full, it will continue to do the backups.

Love me some Time Machine - it's saved my butt a couple times, too. Also good for finding out what others have been doing on the internet after they clear the history!

Quote from: david on April 17, 2014, 03:28:12 PMDo you use it for more than just time machine?
Time Machine will overwrite all the old archives with new ones, so even if it is full, it will continue to do the backups.

No. That external is used for TM only. It doesn't seem to be overwriting the old ones, as my Desktop HD is 640GB  and the external is 2TB. I'm going to delete the entire TM backup from the external and start with a new one.

found this tidbit:

QuoteIf your backup drive fills up

As your backup drive begins to fill up to its capacity, Time Machine intelligently deletes the oldest backups to make room for newer ones. It also alerts you if the "Notify after old backups are deleted" option is selected in Time Machine preferences.

Consider the following options if your backup disk is filling up often, causing your oldest available backups to be erased sooner than you might want:

    Use an additional drives for your backups or transfer your backups to a new, larger drive using the steps in Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive. 
         Tip: You can also browse the original backup drive for past backups by using "Browse other Time Machine Disks"--to see this choice, hold the Option key then click the Time Machine menu in the Finder (to see the menu, "Show Time Machine status in the menu bar" must be selected in Time Machine preferences.
         
    Reduce the amount of information being backed up by adding to the "Exclude these items from backups" list in Time Machine preferences, as mentioned above. Your backup drive will fill up less often.
     
    Delete file(s) that are no longer needed (such as from your desktop, Documents folder, or other Home folder locations), so they will no longer be backed up.  You can also enter the Time Machine restore interface and find files that can be removed from the backup drive itself to conserve space. To do this, select the file(s) and from the Action pop-up menu (gear icon) in the Time Machine Finder window choose "Delete All Backups of...". Be sure to only delete files you are sure you won't need or want to restore later.

yeah, it's not working. and the NAS won't let me delete the backup files either.

came in this a.m. and was able to delete my TM backups from the NAS and initiated a new backup set starting with today, so it's finally all good.

I lost a file of a perfect bound cover I did a lot of color changes to.
I was freaking out and I found it with Time Machine!  Feels like a good day! 
I had to figure out how to get a file, but it worked.
It looks like my Time Machine is only backing up for a month so I lucked out.

I have to be more careful! I don't leave things on the desktop and I have a backup.
I think I threw away the file thinking I already put it on the server. 

All's well that ends well, we always say.

Yes, I have never used Time Machine so it ended well!

Quote from: Tracy on September 04, 2024, 09:21:17 AMI lost a file of a perfect bound cover I did a lot of color changes to.
I was freaking out and I found it with Time Machine!  Feels like a good day! 
I had to figure out how to get a file, but it worked.
It looks like my Time Machine is only backing up for a month so I lucked out.

I have to be more careful! I don't leave things on the desktop and I have a backup.
I think I threw away the file thinking I already put it on the server. 

Time Machine should be backing up several times a day unless you don't have the backup disk connected and turned on at your Mac. After the initial full backup it only backs up new or changed files after that. It won't start deleting older backups unless the backup disk runs out of space.

it does backup a few times a day
I think I need to look at the settings, I remember giving it a specific amount of space.
just learning the time machine
I'm so grateful I found the file, hours of work!

I don't think there is a setting for amount of space. The only settings are that you can exclude certain disks or folders and how often to backup, ie...every hour, every day, every week, or manually. Manually of course would mean it would only do backups when you manually start one.