beyondmac.com|comments, answers, etc.

How do you run Time Machine “Manually”? | October 30, 2007

With Apple’s note running a Time Machine backup during an Aperture session could lead to “inconsistencies” and suggesting that Aperture uses run Time Machine manually. The big question I hear, is how does one run Time Machine manually?

Option #1 is to select the “Back Up Now” item from Time Machines the contextual menu from the Dock, this of course only works if you have Time Machine on your dock though, but if you are manually managing it, this isn’t a bad idea since the icons presence may remind you to use it every once in a while.

The other option is to simply toggle Time Machine on and off in the Time Machine pane of the System Preferences, when you want to do a backup. This option is not a very useful solution IMO, but it works.

A few things I’d like to see changed…

Currently there is no immediately noticeable way to Automate or Apple Script this to make it a bit easier (Time Machine has no Automator actions or even an AppleScript dictionary attached to it.) I’d really like a way to hook into Time Machine to start backups through the scripting system.

It would also be nice to allow more flexibility in scheduling when Time Machine backs stuff up when it is on. A hint at macosxhints.com shows you how to change the backup interval of Time Machine manually. I’m not sure this is something I’d recommend since I feel it’s a very bad idea to mess around in the System folder. But this does illustrate how easily this feature could be added.