Using the following commands work in macOS Big Sur on my Intel based Mac to hide the Time Machine desktop icon, but not on Apple Silicon (M1). It says that the operation is not allowed:
In Terminal run:
chflags hidden "/Volumes/[volumename]"
killall Finder
Any ideas would certainly be appreciated. Thanks.
Mac mini 2018 or later
The following works to hide the mounted Time Machine drive icon on the Desktop with Big Sur 11.0.1 on an M1 mini:
sudo SetFile -a V /Volumes/[volumename]
killall Finder
Where [volumename] is replaced by the actual Time Machine drive name. Per the SetFile man page, using a lower-case 'v', in the same syntax as above, will unhide the drive icon.
Of course, the consequence of hiding the Time Machine drive is that if you are not paying attention to the Finder window sidebar, and if for some reason, the drive became corrupted and would not mount, you would not be aware that Time Machine backups were not occurring for some painful amount of time.
Maybe, this would do the trick...
sudo SetFile -a V "/Volumes/[volumename]"
[ ref. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/hide-time-machine-icon-on-desktop.2236263/ ]
Yes, that would essentially break the functionality of displaying newly connected disks that are only needed temporarily. The function works on Intel Macs and the question is whether there is some inherent reason it doesn’t work on the M1.
The SetFile -a -V command reports an error: Unexpected Error. (-5000) on file: /Volumes/Time Machine
Is there some reason you don't just disable showing external disks on the Desktop altogether?
Well, they would still appear in the Finder sidebar. As far as the command not working on a M1 Mac, it's possible the command is deprecated on such.
The problem I see, hiding the disk icon, is that you cannot easily eject the disk properly (without opening Disk Utility). Perhaps from Finder is ok, but not if you are on the desktop.
Removing the USB connection without properly ejecting the disk, will corrupt the disk index and result in losing your Time Machine backup entirely.
The error -5000 means “Insufficient access privileges”.
AFP Protocol Errors
afpAccessDenied = -5000, /* Insufficient access privileges for operation */
[ https://krypted.com/lists/comprehensive-list-of-mac-os-x-error-codes/ ]
Could you check your Time Machine drive’s “Sharing & Permission” section by right-clicking the drive and selecting “Get Info” on Finder.
You should have “Read & Write” access to do the operation, I guess...
putnik wrote:
The problem I see, hiding the disk icon, is that you cannot easily eject the disk properly (without opening Disk Utility).
FWIW, you can safely eject drives from the Finder sidebar.
Hide Time Machine on macOS Big Sur on Apple Silicon
