Time Machine backup to encrypted apfs volume

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shousafr Author

Level 1

8 points

Time Machine backup to encrypted apfs volume

Have preformatted, encrypted apfs volume.

Choose volume as new time machine disk.

Case 1: Check "encrypt backups"

Time machine asks for new password to encrypt your backup.

Case 2: Don’t check "encrypt backups"

Time machine asks for password to decrypt the volume.

I simply wanted to backup to an encrypted apfs volume using time machine. I don’t want an additional time machine encryption layer (case 1), and I definitely don’t want an unencrypted backup (case 2).

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Posted on Nov 19, 2020 5:33 AM

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Answer 1

shousafr Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 19, 2020 5:57 AM in response to shousafr

Here’s a screen recording of what I mean:

https://youtu.be/ensdh_jnpH4

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Answer 2

putnik

Level 4

1,185 points

Nov 19, 2020 6:10 AM in response to shousafr

Just format the disk APFS. Select the disk for Time Machine and check the encryption box. It reformats the disk APFS Case Sensitive, Encrypted. I also uncheck the "Backup automatically" box, or the hard disk fills up with hourly snapshots. Maybe a business might consider these useful, but not for my purposes.

Note that, if you seriously want to restart Time machine from a clean slate, you will need to delete previous snapshots lingering on your computer. Use the following commands in Terminal, to view and delete them.

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

tmutil deletelocalsnapshots /

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Answer 3

shousafr Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 19, 2020 6:21 AM in response to putnik

This is useful information, thank you.

Still I am curious what is actually going on here.

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Time Machine backup to encrypted apfs volume

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