Time Machine couldn't complete the backup

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bajadog Author

Level 1

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Time Machine couldn't complete the backup

Mavericks OSX 10.9.5

Imac 24" Mid 2008

Two external 500 Gb hard drives.

My time machine back ups were working fine for the last 2 years, and now

I am getting this error message (it alternates between both drives).

"The backup disk needs 266.39 GB for the backup but only 248.94 GB are available. Select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files."

How do exclude files (which should I exclude), or is there a hidden setting for TM I am not seeing?

Thanks in advance.

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), 2008 Core2duo (SLOW)

Posted on Feb 7, 2016 12:19 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

Feb 10, 2016 2:51 PM in response to bajadog

System Preferences > Time Machine, click the options button.

Add any files, folders or disks that you want to exclude to that list.

If you need to find out what files are going to be backed up on next run you could try the tmutil command to compare the computer to the backup.

The output can be very long & takes a while to generate…

http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/21/compare-time-machine-backups-tmutil/

In Terminal the command is…

tmutil compare

You may want to consider setting one disk aside as an archive (never backup to that disk again). Time Machine will eventually delete older files in a full backup - that is how it acquires more space for newer backups.

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Feb 8, 2016 9:51 AM in response to bajadog

Start with C4 in the 1st linked article.

Time Machine Troubleshooting

Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

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