Time machine missing files

Just bought a Mac Pro to replace my Mac Mini and thought the easiest way to go would be to use the Time Machine that was backing up the Mac Mini to get the Mac Pro up and usable as quickly as possible. So in preparation, I did some house cleaning on the Mac Mini (running Mavericks), i.e. moved some files and directories to external storage, moved some files to existing and new directories, removed a bunch of files/directories, etc. Then did a Time Machine backup and there are loads of missing files and directories. Tried the renaming trick mentioned previously and that seemed to work, i.e. renamed a directory, did a Time Machine backup, renamed it back to the original name, did another Time Machine backup and viola, the contents of the directory are now visible in the Latest Backup! ***.

Quite frankly, this is complete BS and totally unacceptable. Time Machine as it stands is completely useless and what's worse, it's giving users a false sense of security and many won't find out how borked it is until it's too late and their data is gone.

Just returned my out of warranty time capsule (4th gen) to Amazon on the basis it's not fit for the purpose it was bought for. UK law allows six years for this. Nothing wrong with the hardware but it literally does not back up all your files under the current OS (Mavericks).

Previously I lost about a hundred files from itunes after restoring my mac with time machine. Every now and then I've tried to retrieve a file like a photoshop design I accidentally deleted and found them missing from my time capsule. I thought it was all a fluke but just the other day I lost thousands of music files which are critical to my job as a DJ. All this because (after making backups via time machine in good faith) I thought I'd be able to do a full restore when my drive failed. It turns out time machine hadn't been backing up random files. Who knows what else I'm going to find missing.

Facing hours upon hours of work finding out whats missing and trying to get hold of the files or re-render them I've decided never to rely on time machine again or buy a time capsule. I'm buying a 1TB SSD, sticking it in a USB 3.0 enclosure and cloning my drive to it periodically. I'll have time machine backing up to my macbook's 2nd HDD but won't be holding my breath should I need to restore anything.

Do not trust Time Machine in Mavericks!! As and addition to the above I did a fresh backup to another drive and found files missing immediately. Attached is a screenshot of my itunes folders, the left is my boot drive the right is in my time machine backup on a 2nd internal HDD. Over 5100 files missing...

Count me in. Read all comments and wishing I'd found this thread before starting to use TM after Mavericks update... Thanks to Stingworm looks like there's some steps to apply and determine if any good back up can be mined. In my case the entire back up history appears to have the same exact same data present in every archive; tested and recent file additions appear in later archives, but large stores of personal data present at day one are seemingly gone. Working to cope with great hesitation to trust TM again. Thanks for the support here.

Anyone know what option to Notify checked below performs? Seems ominous...

I'll answer my own support Q here with the simplest reference from the manual.

I'm sure there's a heap of issues being discussed around this practice WITH/WITHOUT Notice! if the action occurs after the user is made aware of it... Seems in my case 'missing data' is likely blatantly deleted data. As my MBA image changes, older versions of the archive have been unceremoniously deleted to make room for new, and also far less valuable images. I've just read TM is not an archive tool. Making it's usefulness as a tool V. limited.

Agreed but that's not the whole problem, I did a fresh backup to check and that instantly had files missing from it...

November 3, 2014

Same issue here. My current T.M. backups go back to 8/2013. I've always been confident that they are solid and if I ever had a problem, I also had a solution.

But just week I tried to restore my last version of Mavericks before updating to Yosemite and after hours and hours of munching, I discovered that many apps and utilities were totally missing—I didn't bother to try to find out what else was missing.

I rooted around in the backup archives and found the first one that, on initial inspection, appeared complete. It's dated Aug 3, 2014, exactly three months ago. The Mac was on 10.9.4 at that time. No way to tell what happened after that, but the next archive is dated Aug 10, 2014 and it's obviously incomplete/

I've retained the same name for my hard drive so the backups are contiguous. One long backup with many upgrades to the Mac OS and software along the away. Yet even significant changes the same files/apps are missing in the archives—mainly about 20 apps from the Utilities folder and a few from the Applications folder. No telling how many other files or parts are missing.

I do hope that Apple gets a handle on this and soon. (I've left a bug report)

I too have found a load of files missing after recovery from a Time Machine backup in Mavericks. This is from a standard SATA drive and not a Time Capsule. There seems to be no rhyme or reason. Just randomly missing. The folder structure is all there, which led me to believe that the recovery went well. But, as I'm using the machine for the last couple of days, I find files missing.

I'm hoping this gets addressed by Apple at some point soon.

The OP is from Nov 13, 2013 4:52 AM today is Nov 7, 2014. (almost a year and posters are still reporting it).

Caveat Emptor!

See the highlighted part.

From http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/MacOSXserver.html

6. Disclaimer of Warranties. YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT USE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU. EXCEPT FOR THE LIMITED WARRANTY ON MEDIA SET FORTH ABOVE AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, AND APPLE AND APPLE’S LICENSORS (COLLECTIVELY REFERRED TO AS “APPLE” FOR THE PURPOSES OF SECTIONS 6 AND 7) HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE APPLE SOFTWARE, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OF ACCURACY, OF QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. APPLE DOES NOT WARRANT AGAINST INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE, THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, THAT THE OPERATION OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT DEFECTS IN THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY APPLE OR AN APPLE AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY. SHOULD THE APPLE SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR LIMITATIONS ON APPLICABLE STATUTORY RIGHTS OF A CONSUMER, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION AND LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Just wanted to chip in that I've had the same problem, and I've filed a report using Apple Bug Reporter.

I also experienced this bug, and I think it began right around the time I installed Yosemite. I almost lost some critically important data but thank god I had the good sense to back it up in an additional place.

Unfortunately this means that Time Machine is now unusable garbage. I don't think I can ever, ever trust it again. So now I'm struggling to find a good replacement. Sure there's programs like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner but I want the iterative backups I got with Time Machine. Is there a good, reliable program that can do that?

Apple Time Machine is a really nifty concept, but is not quite ready for prime time since either I am missing something or Apple Time Machine has some issue. In either case Apple needs to perfect this. For now, at least for me, I have painfully learned the Apple Time Machine CANNOT BE RELIED UPON TO MAKE A COMPREHENSIVE BACKUP.

Early in January 2015 I purchased a new MacBook Pro i7 2.8 (OSX 10.10.2), and to back it up I also bought the Apple AirPort Capsule 3TB. The AirPort Capsule mounted just fine, and I performed the first comprehensive backup of my Mac to it. Since then I have periodically backed up to the new Time Capsule over the WiFi at my home.

A few days ago I accidentally deleted a long E-Mail draft from Microsoft Outlook. I attempted to simply restore my "Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities/xx Main Identity/Database" database records file from Time Machine, currently about 82 MB on disk. I could find NO copy of the file Database, either in the original comprehensive Time Machine backup or on later, more recent backups. I was appalled to learn such a critical file to my work is apparently being skipped over by Time Machine.

Last night I deleted com.apple.timemachine.plist, deleted the backups from the Apple AirPort Capsule, then ran Time Machine again. And yet again, most if not all other files on my MacBook Pro appear to have been backed up - EXCEPT MY MOST CRITICAL E-MAIL DATABASE FILE.

I see no way to force a backup of "Database" into the Time Machine backup. I wish that somehow I could simply copy that manually from my MacBook to the AirPort Capsule Time Machine records, maybe after then Time Machine might know to look for it and compare modification dates on my MacBook's original file?

I used Time Machine to backup my previous MacBook onto other drives, and had no issues using it - though I do not recall ever before having to access my Database file. Now I thank goodness that I have always used Carbon Copy Cloner too, backing up my Mac to another external drive every several days, and that does create comprehensive backups. Having more than one backup device, and ones that employ different software are among my core values.

I feel really let down - if not misled by Apple.

Doing further research it appears the Microsoft Outlook 'Database' file is somehow coded so that Time Machine skips backing up that file.

Apple Time Machine should at least initially open with some warning for the user explaining what files, especially those from major developers (Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) might not be backed up by Time Machine.

In my past experience using "Carbon Copy Cloner" software to create backups of my Microsoft Outlook 'Database' files has allowed me to recover lost E-Mails with no problem. So I still fail to understand why Microsoft/Apple would not have that critical file copied by Time Machine.

martin21045 wrote:

Doing further research it appears the Microsoft Outlook 'Database' file is somehow coded so that Time Machine skips backing up that file.

Apple Time Machine should at least initially open with some warning for the user explaining what files, especially those from major developers (Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) might not be backed up by Time Machine.

Do you have a link from M$ to verify this? According to https://support.office.microsoft.com/en-US/Article/Automatically-archive-or-back -up-Outlook-items-441fcce5-2262-4b64-ac8c-fa949df989f5 , there is no such exclusion.

Please also

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2448811?wa=wsignin1.0

http://www.officeformachelp.com/2012/05/how-to-recover-your-data-when-rebuilding -restoring-and-upgrading-fails/

Before posting, I had come across and read the first link you referred me to, and read the others too. None of these links appear to apply to the question of why the E-Mail Database records file is being excluded from being backed up, at least by my Time Machine.

The purposeful exclusion of Database seems to make the most sense at the following link; it seems to offer the most plausible, if not the only answer that could make any sense. I read that at:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macoutlook/time-machi ne-is-excluding-the-database-file-in/bb98a824-bcdd-4421-87c2-fff426259218

PS: I have found no other files (yet) that also fail to back up to Time Machine, though Filemaker Pro does post some warnings about using Time Machine to back up/restore their files too. All in all, this experience is simply disconcerting because it has compromised the trust I had put in an Apple product - and the act of posting my experience on line is the best that I can do to warn others, and possibly to convey the experience to Apple Inc.