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How can I prevent Time Machine backups from being deleted?

I have Time Machine backups on an external hard drive that is nearly full. I do not want old backups to be overwritten. I want to be prompted instead.


How much space do incremental backups take?

How can I prevent deletion of old backups?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.3

Posted on Sep 4, 2023 10:12 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Sep 5, 2023 3:26 AM

jjjefff wrote:

How much space do incremental backups take?

That would depend entirely on what needed to be backed up.

How can I prevent deletion of old backups?

Remove the drive from Time Machine and start a new set of backups on a new drive.

5 replies

Sep 5, 2023 7:29 AM in response to jjjefff

And physically label the TM drive that you remove with "Big Sur version TM backup 1, 2023-09-05" so you know what is on it for any future restore need. Label its replacement drive as "Big Sur version TM backup 2, 2023-09-05" to keep them organized. The word version should be replaced with the last version of Big Sur that was applied via Software Update for that given drive.


Consider a larger capacity replacement drive unless you know you will be soon upgrading to a new major version of macOS where in that case, you would need yet another suitably sized backup drive to segregate the operating system backups.

How can I prevent Time Machine backups from being deleted?

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