Trying to use a time machine back up from my mackbook (which has 330Gb of data on the drive) to restore to an Imac so I have all my files and settings. When I select the back up from the external drive I get an error that says the back up is 2.3TB in size and will not fit on Imac 512GB drive. I have tried to erase previous backup in TM but error persists. Both Machines running Monterrey
Jason's Macbook 15" (3)
You should be able to link the two machines together via thunderbolt and just use the migration assistent to import one to the other. The backup drive for one can be used to grab files occasionally as needed, but I would not use it for migration assistant, unless you are sure the older machine does not have the data you want.
You should be able to link the two machines together via thunderbolt and just use the migration assistent to import one to the other. The backup drive for one can be used to grab files occasionally as needed, but I would not use it for migration assistant, unless you are sure the older machine does not have the data you want.
2.3 TB ~= 4* 512 GB.
Suffice it to say the whole thing won't fit.
Unless you know which archives you no longer need, restoring the whole backup is not going to be practical on a 512 GB machine.
It may be possible while time machine is off to use the Finder or Shirt Pocket Superduper to copy over folders to a different drive that you don't mind cherry picking a recovery, and only recovering some more recent one as part of the move.
Use the Finder's File menu -> Get Info after clicking once on various backup folders to get an idea where you can save space on the recovery.
In the end you don't want to add to the recovery more information than it would take to fill up more than 85% of the destination drive. If the destination drive only has an operating system, once you have paired down your backup, you could even save a little more space by wiping and reinstalling that operating system and using the setup assistant to bring over the time machine backup of choice. Otherwise you will have to spend extra space merging users through the Users-> Shared folder to make sure you don't overwrite data already on your destination drive.
If I am not mistaken, TM Backup Drives are normally formatted in the APFS Format.
The drive itself is also Marked by TM Backup Utility as READ ONLY.
User wrote " So I erased all backup except the last one. " - it is not possible the remove Snap Shots on that drive.
The user would be better off getting another drive and Making a New TM Backup of the Internal Drive of the " Macbook with a 500gb SSD "
Then, use that New TM Backup drive to move data to the iMac.
Users can not use TM Backup to Backup a Backup Drive
Nor can one use a Cloning software to Clone an TM Backup Drive
refer to link below
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/can-i-use-carbon-copy-cloner-clone-time-machine-backup
Thanks for the help! Maybe I need to explain better. I have a Macbook with a 500gb SSD and it has 340 gb of data. I have a time machine backup of that machine on an external HDD that has 4 gb capacity. I just bought a 2017 iMac with a 512 gb internal SSD. I am trying to migrate my Macbook to the iMac so all my setting and apps are there (files I can do on a case by case basis). But when I choose the TM backup from the external HDD connected to the iMac it says that my user folder is 2.3 TB. This happens when the backup becomes bloated. So I erased all backup except the last one. But it still shows 2.3TB. I bought another external HDD to do a fresh time machine backup and limit the data that it backs up to see if I can get a small clean copy. But seems to me that it is not possible to back up anything from TM if it has a few backups on it as they will all be bigger than the target drive. I don't rmember this happening on earlier OS versions as I successfully did this before. Bit now on Monterey I am having this issue.
Back up too large to restore from
