Frequency of Time Machine Backups

[leons]

Time Machine says it does "hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month until the volume runs out of space".

I find this confusing. If it backs up every hour, then of course, it will back up (by default) every day, week, etc. Or, does it STOP doing hourly after the first 24 hrs., then do only once daily? And then STOP doing daily after the first week, and then only back up once a week? If not, than what is the difference between hourly/daily/monthly? Please explain.

 

[chrfr]

Time Machine says it does "hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month until the volume runs out of space".

I find this confusing. If it backs up every hour, then of course, it will back up (by default) every day, week, etc. Or, does it STOP doing hourly after the first 24 hrs., then do only once daily? And then STOP doing daily after the first week, and then only back up once a week? If not, than what is the difference between hourly/daily/monthly? Please explain.

Time Machine will purge older backups based on the pattern it describes.

 

[MacUser2525]

It backs up once an hour every day a daily backup of everything that has changed since last daily backup then once a week a weekly all changes since last weekly and lastly every month a monthly backup of the changes since the last monthly.

 

[AZhappyjack]

Time Machine says it does "hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month until the volume runs out of space".

I find this confusing. If it backs up every hour, then of course, it will back up (by default) every day, week, etc. Or, does it STOP doing hourly after the first 24 hrs., then do only once daily? And then STOP doing daily after the first week, and then only back up once a week? If not, than what is the difference between hourly/daily/monthly? Please explain.

It backs up every hour (or so, mine is actually about ever 1:10)... and keeps those backups for 24 hours. Beyond 24 hours, it only keeps ONE BACKUP (assumption is the last backup of the day) each day for the past month, then once a week all the way back.

My available backups are:

Every hour (approximately) from the most recent, back to yesterday at 1:15pm
Daily backups (no timestamp) from 20OCT back to 23SEP
Weekly backups (no timestamp) dated Thursdays from 23SEP15 back to 24APR14.

 

[Weaselboy]

It backs up once an hour every day a daily backup of everything that has changed since last daily backup then once a week a weekly all changes since last weekly and lastly every month a monthly backup of the changes since the last monthly.

You are mistaken. It backs up once an hour and that backup includes anything new or changed in that hour. That is all it ever backs up. The other daily, weekly, and monthly comments refer to the purging of older backups as chrfr and dwfaust explained.

 

[chabig]

Time Machine says it does "hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month until the volume runs out of space".

You misread it. The control panel says, "Time Machine keeps", not "does".

 

[leons]

You misread it. The control panel says, "Time Machine keeps", not "does".

GOOD CATCH! You're right. That explains a LOT!