Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I have my external hard drive attached to my computer and want to make sure its being backed up with everything else.
If you want to get details on all of the files that are being backed up by Time Machine, I would suggest a utility like: BackupLoupe
If you want to get details on all of the files that are being backed up by Time Machine, I would suggest a utility like: BackupLoupe
Thanks it did - help - I can't see individual files but might just be me figuring out the app
I have my external hard drive attached to my computer and want to make sure its being backed up with everything else.
Let's first check and make sure that you have setup the drive to be backed up along with your Mac. This can be a bit tricky.
Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock)
Open Time Machine
Click on Options
Here you will see a summary of items that have been excluded from Time Machine backups. By default, a hard drive that is connected to a Mac will be excluded from backups, so if you want to have the drive backed up, you must remove the drive from the list of excluded items.
Does your drive appear under excluded items when you click Time Machine Preferences / Options?
If yes, click on the name of the drive to highlight it, then click the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from the list of excluded items. If you have not already done this, and you are doing this for the first time, the hard drive will now be backed up with your Mac. It was not being backed up before.
If you do not see the name of the drive when you check the list of excluded items, then it is being backed up by Time Machine along with your Mac.
Post back on your progress, and then we'll show you how view the drive in Time Machine once the backup has been completed, so you can verify that all of the files on the drive have been backed up.
my external hard drive was not excluded - so it is was backed up - I did try to "ever the time machine" from the icon on the top of my screen when I open it it basically opens a finder window so I can't tell if thats my computer or the back up files
Allow BackupLoupe time to build a database of all of your existing TM backups. Once it has completed, you can choose any backup in the left column and you will see a breakdown of each in the columns to the right. They also offer a Help menu to get you started.
Before you open Time Machine click on the smiley face Finder icon down on the dock. On the window that opens, do you see headings on the left side panel for Favorites, Devices, Shared categories? If yes, you should see the hard drive under Devices and you are all set.
If no, click on the View menu at the top of the screen and click on Show Sidebar. That should make your hard drive appear under Devices.
Close the Finder window and open up Time Machine again.
On the left panel, look under Devices to locate your external hard drive. Open up the drive just like you normally would so that you can navigate among levels or folders.
Use the timeline on the far right side of the Time Machine window to go back in time to see how the drive looked on a previous date.
As Tesserax mentions, after the first backup of your Mac and the hard drive, it will take Time Machine some time to index all the files, so they will display correctly. This process can take up to a day or two depending on how much data was backed up.
how do I check the files being backed up on my time Capsule
