I am not currently using a backup drive and would like to turn off Time Machine. When I go into System Settings and click on Time Machine, I am not seeing the option to turn it off or stop backups. I can only ask it to back up manually or automatically at different intervals. Is there another way to access Time Machine settings so I can actually turn it off? Thank you.
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.2
FWIW, selecting "manually" is effectively the same as disabling Time Machine. It won't run until you select "Run Backup Now" from the Time Machine icon on the macOS menu bar.
Did you select the "Manually" option as I described to the OP?
If you did, were you using TM before? TM, when in automatically mode, will attempt to run a backup (at least, hourly). The first part of that backup is for it to make a snapshot of your Mac's Data volume to your local drive.
If you have an available backup drive connected, TM will then copy that snapshot to that drive. If that drive is not available, then it stays on the Mac's drive ... but TM will monitor them and "thin" them based on either the amount of remaining storage space on your Mac or at a certain time limit.
I also don't have the option to tun off Time machine (using Sonoma). I never select "Run Backup Now" but I still get this massive Sparesbundle every week taking up valuable storage space. Every week I delete it and the next week it comes right back.
Great - that is helpful, thank you!
You're very welcome!
I don't see any option to run Manually. I do see this but I have no idea what to do with it.
If I click on Add Backup Disk I see this.
turn off Time Machine on macOS Sonoma
