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Level 1

66 points

Time Machine Icon Colour

Minor issue here, but annoying and staring me in the face!

I have a time machine drive connected, so have the disk image on the desktop. In the past it turned green to show that it was backing up OK, and was orange until a first back up had taken place.

I've upgraded to El Capitan and now the icon is constantly orange, yet the backup has taken place a number of times since the update.

As I say, minor but very annoying. Any ideas?

iMac (27-inch Mid 2010), OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Sep 30, 2015 11:16 PM

Best reply

bkeske

Level 1

15 points

Posted on Oct 1, 2015 11:45 AM

Am having a similar issue but my Time Machine back-up disk is an internal disk, thus looks like my main internal drive, not orange as an external drive. Once I got the Time Machine to finally finish for the first time after the update, it did turn green after clicking on it.

Most often after a re-boot, (prior to El Capitan), it would change from the internal to TM icon after the first Time Machine back-up. I just noticed after my last back-up took place it revered back to the internal disk icon again. Odd. Fooled around with it, and by changing the icon size ('show view options'), then back, it changed to the Time Machine icon. Go figure.

Not a big deal, no, but it does let me know that Time Machine is operating correctly after a shutdown/restart, reboot, etc. Lets see if it maintains the icon after 'playing' with it. I know this has been an 'issue' for various users for quite some time, and was for me as well, but seemed to have sorted itself out over the last tear or two.

View in context

24 replies

Nov 8, 2015 11:58 AM in response to Curry2K12

This helped me !! Thank you.

leonpope

Level 1

0 points

Dec 11, 2015 9:12 AM in response to Curry2K12

Thanks for this. The "wrong" icon has been bothering me for ages now and your suggestion resolved it at a stroke.

Dec 11, 2015 10:06 AM in response to J. Hopmann

Yellow again ! Terminal did not help.

FPR BOY

Level 1

0 points

Jan 11, 2016 6:18 AM in response to Brightone2

I had the same issue for 3 months until today!! I right clicked and chose view options and reduced the size slightly out of interest and it instantly turned green.

Could it be that simple???

Anyway, worth the 10 seconds to try.

ickyTeq

Level 1

0 points

Jan 16, 2016 9:03 PM in response to FPR BOY

That did it for me- Thx!

Jan 23, 2016 11:54 AM in response to FPR BOY

Yesterday, because of a thunder storm, I had to shut down the mac. When I re-started, the icon was orange, so I tried your method, FPR Boy, and unfortunately it didn't work, but it did when I typed ;;;; KillAll Finder into Terminal., The icon went back to grey/green. Weird, but thank you anyway. Maybe it's all about how we hold our tongue !!!

Jan 23, 2016 1:55 PM in response to FPR BOY

That does not permanently fix the dynamic nature of the icon. Resizing through view options, or using terminal to killallfinder, etc... is temporary. Once you unmount and remount the drive you will see that it will still remain generic orange. Copying and pasting a time machine icon over the generic orange also does not fix the dynamic nature of how the icon is supposed to work (change after a backup). It simply stays on the time machine icon even if a backup has not been conducted.

Jan 23, 2016 3:01 PM in response to Bear Hunter

Yes, I've come to realise it is only a temporary fix, but I feel if the colour is orange, the time machine/external hard drive is not working. If the technology is working, despite the colour of the icon, I can then live with the change from green to orange.

xdoum

Level 1

8 points

May 8, 2016 6:47 AM in response to Curry2K12

Yes this is solve the problem

Thank you

Time Machine Icon Colour