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Terminal Tip: Change Time Machine backup interval

by Cory Bohon Dec 8th 2008 at 9:30AM

Sometimes you want your Mac to be backed up more frequently than usual. If you want to instantly back up using Time Machine, you could click on the menu bar item and select "Back Up Now," but what if you want to change the backup interval indefinitely? With this Terminal Tip, you can do just that.

Time Machine is set to automatically back up every hour, but if you would like to change it to every half hour, you can use the following Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) command:

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 1800

You will need to authenticate as an administrator, since this command is run under a "sudo." The time interval is measured in seconds, so you can enter any time you wish there; just make sure it is in seconds. By default, Time Machine backs up every 3600 seconds (every hour). If you wish to revert to the original, just replace "1800" with "3600."


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Sometimes you want your Mac to be backed up more frequently than usual. If you want to instantly back up using Time Machine, you could...
 

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yones

please send me time machine code
my emai:m_father131@yahoo.com

January 21 2009 at 12:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
J Hendrix

No, a restart isn't required, but you should log out and back in to force the system to load the new plist file. Alternatively, you could run a killall command in the Terminal to force Time Machine to reload, but I wouldn't recommend it so much that I'm not going to write out the code here. Logging out and in is the stablest solution.

December 08 2008 at 4:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gerrit

Am I supposed to restart my Mac after setting the interval? I just set it to 7200 but the next Update is still scheduled for in about an hour according to Time Machine's preference pane.

December 08 2008 at 4:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Christophe Bismuth

Thank you for this great tip!
I'll set it up to every 12 hours ;o)

December 08 2008 at 10:11 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Le Big Mac

Any reason you can't do it less frequently (e.g., 7200=2 hours)?

December 08 2008 at 9:48 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Le Big Mac's comment
unbelievable

I set all my machines to back up less frequently. A LOT less frequently, like every 12 or 24 hours. But I have various reasons (like Aperture and large video files) for doing so.

I personally like this App:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26704/timemachineeditor

With it you can schedule backups as well as set intervals.

December 08 2008 at 9:54 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
serenity

Nope, less frequently works great! I use 7200 secs (2 hours).

December 08 2008 at 10:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
unbelievable

You can also (ode to mac murphy) edit the file named com.apple.backupd-auto.plist. Open it in your favorite text editor, and look for this section:
StartInterval
3600
Change the 3600 number to some other time interval in seconds, and you'll have changed Time Machine's backup interval.

Another way ( : ) is to use a GUI time machine scheduler such as http://www.klieme.com/TimeMachineScheduler.html

There are many others.

Macosxhints.com also noted Apple now recommends that you set your machine to manual Time Machine backups if you use Aperture.

December 08 2008 at 9:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
4 replies to unbelievable's comment
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