Does Time Machine use aliases?

[Silly John Fatty]

I have these old Time Machine backups from 2013 and 2014 (around 5 or 6 in total).

Recently I noticed that I couldn't access some folders. They're marked as aliases, but when I click them, it says it can't find the original.

I moved these backups to another drive a while ago. And now I am wondering if it could be that those aliases are just aliases of the older backups (basically Time Machine not backing up things that are backed up in older backups already) and that these aliases' paths got lost when I moved the backups to another drive.

Do you think this is possible? Is that how Time Machine worked back in 2013-2014? When I look at the earliest backup from 2013, it seems like everything is there.

It would really suck if some stuff was missing. But I can't find out I guess, because folders kept their names, but maybe there was additional stuff in them in the younger backups and now I can't verify that. But then again, why would the whole thing use Aliases …

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Totally possible, if some information was not copied from the backup. Time Machine uses aliases a LOT to link in something backed up earlier. This is why it’s so dangerous to try to “Manually prune” a Time Machine backup via the Finder - if you’ve backed up something large that you don’t need, you can remove it but should only do so using the UI. If you go in and start deleting folders… something’s going to be in those folders, that could easily prevent a restore from working.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Totally possible, if some information was not copied from the backup. Time Machine uses aliases a LOT to link in something backed up earlier. This is why it’s so dangerous to try to “Manually prune” a Time Machine backup via the Finder - if you’ve backed up something large that you don’t need, you can remove it but should only do so using the UI. If you go in and start deleting folders… something’s going to be in those folders, that could easily prevent a restore from working.

I think so too. That's calming me, I thought I had lost some stuff. I haven't moved anything inside the backups, just the entire backups themselves. I hope everything is fine …

 

[HuNay]

It uses aliases for unchanged files, hence why every snapshot looks like a full backup if you dig around your TM drive using the Finder or something

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Thank you!

 

[HuNay]

No problem!

 

[Bigwaff]

Probably more than you ever wanted to know about aliases, links and Time Machine -

Aliases, links, clones, and Bookmarks

Do you know when it would be best to use a hard link? What’s the difference between a Finder alias and a symbolic link? And where to High Sierra’s new clones fit in?

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