Time Machine not working with Yosemite

Time Machine is one of the best features of OS X, but it can be a complicated. And once you start having problems, and you make a mistake trying to fix it on your own, it can make things worse.

Senior Advisers at AppleCare who do nothing but work on Time Machine issues (and they are really smart people) have told me that you should never mess around with any documents or other data that you see in the backups folder via Finder (e.g., don't drag a document out of a folder in one of those backups). It can screw up a lot of things related to your backups and possibly corrupt them. The only way you should restore a document or anything from a Time Machine backup is by going to "Enter Time Machine," finding it in those backups, and and then clicking restore.

If that's not working for you, I suggest that you call AppleCare and get on the phone (not the Chat support) with the Time Machine/Wireless experts via this page. If you have purchased AppleCare, the support call will be free. If your AppleCare has expired (check to see if your support is active on this page), they may charge you $29.00 for a "pay-per-incident" support call. They can use screen-sharing to see what your issue is and figure out if there is a solution. If the solution you implement has any problems, the payment covers you for 30 days. To prevent losing your data on your hard drive (photos of your kids!) is worth $29.00. But since the Time Machine issue involves installation of new Apple software, they will probably give you an exception and not charge you. And the issue may not even be with Time Machine; it might be a problem with your external hard drive. Apple's experts can almost always determine that.

As for those of you who are experiencing long periods of time for your initial back up in Time Machine after installing Yosemite, this is obvious, but if you are doing it wirelessly, it's going to take longer, depending on how many documents, photos, videos, etc., that you have on your hard drive and the speed of your Wi-Fi.

The fastest way to do the back up is to turn off wi-fi and connect your your external hard drive to your Mac directly with a USB, FIreWire, or Thunderbolt cable. I've had bad luck with wireless backups, so now I only use a portable external hard drive that is connected to my iMac with a USB 3.0 cable all the time. The backups are more routine and more reliable. If you have a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air, you can still do the same thing by either by using a portable external hard drive that you can carry with you, or just connect it to your laptop when you get home and click on "Back Up Now." I use G-Drives and have never had a problem. They are reliable and already formatted for Time Machine.

Finally, after speaking with an Apple Time Machine Adviser, you may ultimately have to do a "clean install" of Yosemite and start over. Just downloading and installing Yosemite from the Mac App Store or using Migration Assistant, however, will just bring back whatever issue is causing you problems with Time Machine. It also doesn't really get rid of crap that builds up on your hard drive over time from previous version of OS X, such as old or corrupted .plists, caches, settings, and other things that you really need to wipe from your hard drive before installing Yosemite. A "clean install" we remove that garbage.

Here is an article on how to do a "clean install" but it involves using a "bootable install drive using a USB flash drive." Some people advocate this method, and I guess it works (most of the time). But this is really not necessary and it's far more complicated that it has to be (you have to use a Terminal command, which is something to avoid unless you really know what you are doing).

Check out comments section of that article and you'll see how people have problems going with "bootable drive." In the same comments section, I provide the steps for an easier, alternative way to do a clean install that works for me every time I do it. You can find the steps in the comment listed as "M.C. says 11/01/2014 at 6:10 p.m." This is the best way to wipe the crap off of your hard drive, install Yosemite, and restore via a Time Machine backup the only data that you really need to restore--your documents, photos, videos, and music. Your Applications (and even your music) can all be re-downloaded from the Mac App Store and iTunes (and they will be the latest versions). It's like having a new Mac.

Good luck.

I did a clean install of Yosemite using a USB drive containing a copy of Yosemite, following steps exactly like the ones in your link. It wasn't complicated at all, but was absolutely necessary because installing Yosemite, over Mavericks, over the many other OS's I had caused a major slow down.Time machine worked fine prior to my clean install, but failed after. Time machine would fail accessing 'anything' prior to the date I installed Yosemite. I am far from the only one, read over this thread. I 'had' to retrieve my data somehow, and I used the backup drive. This did not hurt my Time Machine, the Yosemite update took care of that for me. I spent more then enough money on this machine. I won't be sending another $29.00. It's probably time to get another machine.

It was a clean install and Time Machine didn't work the way it was supposed to. I transferred the individual file and they work fine. There was no other option, Time Machine did not work.

After updating to yosemite end of December I had no access to my time machine backups on an apple time capsule,after many days and increasing desperation I wiped the time capsule and initiated a new backup which was successful, problem solved or so I thought.

yesterday I had need to restore a file and found most of the backups are not accessible (red bar along side is darker colour) and those that are will not let me select most categories eg. documents /movies/ music/ pictures

I feel as if I am paying apple prices for microsoft usability

I can access the backups only through the finder "devices". Nothing happens when I try to navigate through the "favorites" i.e. movies, music, documents...

Are you trying to access the files immediately after clicking on the external ™ hard drive? Because I did that too and got nothing. Once you click on the Time Machine it takes a while for the files to index. They are never immediately available. I can't remember how long they took to appear but I stayed with it and after awhile they magically appeared. But keep your Mac plugged in directly to the Time Machine drive and wait it out. They should appear at some point.

Yes, it is an external drive connected through a usb port. I've an immediate access to all files if I go through the "devices" i.e. "macintosh HD" or my imac. I can't even go back in time if I try to go through "documents" for example.

very strange

I have the same issue that in Yosemite backups are inaccessible (red bar alongside the date in Time Machine), but I too can access the filesystem when opening the external harddrive in Finder.

One of the best features of OSX for me has always been the easy use of restoring files to previous versions or looking up that file you remember from 2 months ago. Now it's useless, come on Apple fix this.

I don't think they will, I complained about the exact same problem in the How do I return to Mavericks Forum, and I received a reply from a level 6 guy. He said if the problem is on Apples side, then how come, no one else is complaining. I sent him a link to this forum, received no reply, so I don't think they will check into it. Long gone are the days a Apple quality control.

greenmind wrote:

I don't think they will, I complained about the exact same problem in the How do I return to Mavericks Forum, and I received a reply from a level 6 guy. He said if the problem is on Apples side, then how come, no one else is complaining. I sent him a link to this forum, received no reply, so I don't think they will check into it. Long gone are the days a Apple quality control.

You're absolutely right, but if the media ever picks up on this story, such likely cause Apple to change their tune. Apple doesn't seem to care much about a large number of individual users complaining, but they do care about bad press.

Honestly I don't see how or why the mainstream media would be interested. That said, simple word of mouth still gets around. In blogs, like this one, and in other computer forums. In fact, everyone who has problems using TM, should also post a complaint in other places as well. It doesn't take a cooperation very long, even a company as successful as Apple, to loose their reputation.

Time machine problems has been solved in OS X 10.10.2!. Now I can navigate through all the folders and I can see all the backups. This was imposible to me since I installed the first version of Yosemite. Too late but thanks anyway!

That is partly true. I believe you will find problems if you attempt to recover from the Documents folder.

No problems recovering files from Documents folder, I've just tried it right now. Is it not working in your computer?

Its finally working for me. Here is an oddity though. It kept bringing up my emails even though I had opened documents. Tried several times with the same result. Quit email went back in and opened documents. Still better than nothing. 🙂

Now if they can just get the wifi issue corrected.