Copying a Time Machine backup to a larger hard disk drive

Question

Copying a Time Machine backup to a larger hard disk drive

Back in 2022, steve626 advised to use this link: If your new Mac inherits your backup history - Apple Support (IL) ( mh35732 ) , in order to migrate a TM backup from Catalina to Monterey. His advise was to use the Migration tool, of course.

Now, I would like to stay on the same MacOS version (Catalina), but at the same time copy an existing TM backup to a new, larger external hard disk drive. How could I get that done? I encountered a problem that seems to be well known on the internet: Finder gets stuck in preparing the actual copy action.

Migration tool cannot help me here, as I am not moving to another Mac. Correct?

Please help me out!

MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Feb 3, 2024 8:58 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 3, 2024 10:09 AM in response to janfromapeldoorn

There is no copying of Time Machine backups to a larger drive. You need to start over with that larger Time Machine drive formatted as APFS with GUID partition scheme and new Time Machine backups. Set that older drive aside appropriately labeled with last backup date and operating system version.

The article you linked to was for HFS+ formatted Time Machine drives. Catalina and later expect APFS formatted TM drives which implement an entirely different backup structure that is incompatible with older HFS+ drives. And going forward, there is no duplication solution for APFS formatted Time Machine drives.

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Answer 2

Feb 3, 2024 10:16 AM in response to janfromapeldoorn

Thx (Eric the) Viking, not the most gratifying reply, alas. Anyway, you explain enough to stop me from hoping to find a solution. Thanks for your suggestions, also! Best, Jan.

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