What do YOU exclude from your Time Machine backup?

[aross99]

I exclude everything outside of my user folder, and also my Podcast folder in my iTunes folder...

I'm not worried about restoring the OS after a drive failure, but I don't want to lose anything in my User Folder...

I exclude Podcasts, because they are temporary files and are downloaded anyway.

 

[TheReef]

I exclude any folder I know will end up taking up large amounts of data - movies folder, eyetv folder, Media Drive…like others above I generally only want the home folder which contains a lot of text files.

 

[kblessinggr]

Anyone ever considered excluding the applications directory. The reason I say this is because.

1) your preferences and what not would already be saved under libraries
2) Restoring the application and it's components from a time machine backup might not only be incomplete but maybe lack proper permissions to function?

But least you could reinstall the program and have your preferences intact.

 

[heatmiser]

I don't use Time Machine (SuperDuper allows for bootable backups), but I don't exclude anything.

 

[alphaod]

I exclude my downloads folder because I can always download all that stuff again.

 

[aross99]

Anyone ever considered excluding the applications directory. The reason I say this is because.

1) your preferences and what not would already be saved under libraries
2) Restoring the application and it's components from a time machine backup might not only be incomplete but maybe lack proper permissions to function?

But least you could reinstall the program and have your preferences intact.

This kind of stuff is why I exclude things outside of my user folder. I can always reinstall applications and things like that...

 

[Eidorian]

I exclude my ripped DVDs from my mobile backup disk that craps out at 120 GB. My downloads and podcasts change far too often so those are excluded as well.

 

[snsethy]

I know this thread is kinda old, but I just got an external hd, and decided to start using Time Machine...I keep getting this error which causes the backup to stop:

Sep 30 14:33:06 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Backup requested by user
Sep 30 14:33:06 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Starting standard backup
Sep 30 14:33:06 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Sep 30 14:33:06 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Sep 30 14:33:06 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 26.96 GB requested (including padding), 94.37 GB available
Sep 30 14:34:11 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Previous Systems.localized/2008-08-06_1105/private/var/vm/sleepimage to (null)
Sep 30 14:34:13 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Previous Systems.localized/2008-08-06_1105/private/var/vm/sleepimage to /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Seth/2008-09-30-131520.inProgress/DF982CF5-7C4E-4ED7-982F-219E750871E3/Macintosh HD/Previous Systems.localized/2008-08-06_1105/private/var/vm
Sep 30 14:34:13 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Stopping backup.
Sep 30 14:34:13 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Previous Systems.localized/2008-08-06_1105/private/var/vm/sleepimage to /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Seth/2008-09-30-131520.inProgress/DF982CF5-7C4E-4ED7-982F-219E750871E3/Macintosh HD/Previous Systems.localized/2008-08-06_1105/private/var/vm
Sep 30 14:34:13 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Copied 192 files (1.3 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Sep 30 14:34:13 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Sep 30 14:34:18 c-76-24-17-97 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[16898]: Backup failed with error: 11


So I excluded Macintosh HD/previous systems, will that harm anything? I have no idea what it does.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[bobr1952]

I don't exclude anything--and I also periodically use Super Duper to make a bootable backup--hard drive space is cheap!