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How to make Time Machine only back up once per day?

I really really don't need time machine to back up EVERY HOUR. It's overkill for me and with the level of computing I am forcing my computer to do most of the day its VERY irritating. Is there anyway to change the settings so it only backs up once every night?

MacBook Pro 1st Gen, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jul 22, 2008 3:24 PM

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Posted on Jul 22, 2008 3:25 PM

use [TimeMachineEditor|http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor>.
5 replies

Jul 23, 2008 6:44 PM in response to Don Ameche

Great thread! Both these apps listed seem to work, but have interesting side effects. The TM preference pane becomes .... how to say this... messed up? With the editor, the preference pane display is incorrect after running, and with scheduler, you have to authenticate to use and in the preference pane TM is said to be turned off, even though scheduler is working. This are just nits...but it would be nice if Apple or 3rd parties could make it perfect. Ha!
coocoo

Oct 20, 2008 3:19 PM in response to lakewoodlawnman

Yeah, we tried using TimeMachineEditor on a friend's laptop. There will be 2 laptops backing up, and we wanted them both to backup overnight at different times when there would be no interruptions (for user or computer). It seemed to work OK (have to check w/ them), but how do you verify when backups were actually done?

I have a couple related question to this, though, that may also be helpful for folks:

- I'm guessing Time Machine cannot do a backup when the computer is asleep, correct? If a Time Machine backup starts while the computer is 'awake', will it keep the computer from sleeping so it can finish?

- If I set a schedule in the Energy Saver preferences to 'Wake Up' the computer at midnight (before scheduled backup), and 'Sleep' later on (say 4am), does this override the other preferences set for sleep in Energy Saver? (ie - if it's set to sleep after 30min., will the computer wake up at midnight only to go back to sleep 30min. later, or will it stay 'awake' until 4am?)

- Do you need to uncheck 'Put the hard drive to sleep when possible'?

How to make Time Machine only back up once per day?

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