Time Machine Not Working on Mac

Time Machine is great for creating local backups of all the important data on your Mac, but if it’s the only backup you rely on, it can be worrying when a problem with Time Machine pops up. It’s not uncommon to find that Time Machine stops backing up your files for no apparent reason.

But don’t panic. As frustrating as it might be when an issue like this arises, it’s actually not that difficult to get Time Machine working again. In this guide, we’ll look at 10 different solutions to fix Time Machine on Mac, whether the issue lies within macOS, your external backup drive, or somewhere else.

Before we begin:

 

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1. Download and install MacKeeper.
2. When MacKeeper opens, select Premium Services, then click Chat Now.
3. After connecting with a MacKeeper expert. Explain the issue you’re facing in as much detail as possible to get the best help right away.

Why is Time Machine not working on your Mac?

There are many reasons why Time Machine may stop working on your Mac, including simple things like your external disk is unplugged, isn’t turned on, or has been ejected from your Mac.

If your Mac and your external drive have been turned on and running for a while, there is a greater chance that a connection issue between the two has occurred. This could be caused by anything from an insecure cable to an unstable network connection. Whatever the case may be, the fix is usually fairly easy.

How to fix Time Machine not working on Mac

The first step to take when Time Machine is not working on Mac is to ensure your backup disk is securely plugged in with an appropriate cable and turned on.

If you’ve checked the connection and there are no issues there, here are 10 steps you can take to fix a problem with Time Machine:

1. Restart the Mac
2. Update your macOS
3. Delete big files from the backup
4. Interrupt the ongoing backup
5. Use First Aid
6. Check if the external hard drive is compatible with Time Machine
7. Exclude Spotlight from indexing Time Machine backup
8. Remove local snapshots
9. Use Terminal commands
10. Clean up Time Machine and try backup again

1. Restart the Mac

One of the most effective fixes for any problem you might be facing on your Mac is a simple restart, which will kill processes that have crashed or become stuck and alleviate issues with both hardware and software. Here’s how to restart your Apple computer:

1. Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the menu bar.
2. Select Restart.
3. Click the Restart button to confirm.
4. When your Mac has finished starting up, try running Time Machine again.

2. Update your macOS

Issues with Time Machine and other macOS features can be caused by bugs and instabilities in the operating system, which are regularly fixed with software updates. Here’s how to update macOS:

1. Open the System Settings app.
2. Select General in the sidebar, then choose Software Update.
3. If a macOS update is available, click Update Now to install it.

As you’ll know, if you’ve installed macOS updates before, it’ll take a little while for the update to download and install, and your Mac will restart a couple of times. Once it’s all done, keep an eye on Time Machine to see if it continues to create new backups as expected.

3. Delete big files from the backup

We sometimes find that a problem with Time Machine occurs when you attempt to back up files that are particularly large. If you have a single file that’s multiple gigabytes in size, for instance, it can cause the backup process to hang for unknown reasons. Here’s how to exclude large files from the backup:

1. Open System Settings, then navigate to General > Time Machine.
2. Select the button labeled Options.
3. You’ll see an Exclude from Backups list. Click the + button.
4. Select the large file or folder you want to delete or exclude from your backup.
5. Click Done.

If this fixes your issue, wait for a new backup to be completed, then attempt to re-add the large file to the backup later—assuming you need to back it up. To do this, simply repeat the steps above, but select the file or folder you excluded earlier, then click the – button.

4. Interrupt the ongoing backup

If Time Machine is stuck on preparing backup, connectivity issues, software glitches, and many other things can be the root cause. When this happens, it may look like a backup is in progress, but it never actually finishes. To solve this issue, you can interrupt the ongoing backup:

1. Open System Settings and navigate to General > Time Machine.
2. You’ll see a progress bar that shows the current status of your Time Machine backup. Click the X icon at the end of the progress bar to stop the backup.

Alternatively, you can interrupt an ongoing Time Machine backup from the macOS menu bar:

1. Click the Time Machine icon on the right side of the menu bar.
2. Select Skip This Backup.
3. To restart the backup manually, click the Time Machine icon again, then choose Back Up Now.

If you don’t see the Time Machine icon in your Mac’s menu bar, you may have inadvertently hidden it at some point. Here’s how to get it back:

1. Open System Settings, then select Control Center.
2. Scroll down to the Menu Bar Only section, then next to Time Machine, choose Show in Menu Bar.

5. Use First Aid

Like any other drive, your Time Machine backup disk can be affected by errors in its directory and formatting. You won’t know this is the cause of your issue—you’ll just encounter problems when you attempt to create a backup or restore data from it. But you can fix the problem with First Aid:

1. Open Disk Utility from Applications > Utilities in Finder.
2. Click on your Time Machine backup disk in the Disk Utility sidebar.
3. Select First Aid in the toolbar, then click Run to proceed.

It may take a little while for the First Aid process to complete—especially if you have a very large Time Machine drive. However, once it’s finished, Disk Utility will tell you if any drive errors were detected and fixed or if there was a drive error that could not be fixed.

Take care when using Disk Utility because it’s easy to accidentally perform destructive actions, including deleting all data or removing partitions, on the wrong drives if you’re not familiar with the tool. Why not have one of our experts walk you through the entire Time Machine troubleshooting process?

Important: 

 

With MacKeeper Premium Services, you can get immediate help from a trained professional whenever you encounter problems with your Mac, macOS, or third-party software. Here’s how to get in touch:

1. In MacKeeper, select Premium Services, then click Chat Now.
2. Describe the problem you’re facing in as much detail as possible to get support right away.

6. Check if the external hard drive is compatible with Time Machine

If you’re setting up Time Machine for the first time or you’re trying to use a new disk and it’s not working, we recommend checking that your external hard drive is compatible with this feature. Here’s what Apple recommends for Time Machine drives:

• Storage space of at least twice that of your Mac’s startup disk. So, if you have a 256GB SSD in your MacBook, your external drive should be a minimum of 512GB.
• A native macOS drive format, such as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Formats traditionally used with Windows, such as FAT and NTFS, won’t work.

Here’s how you can check the specifications of your external drive:

1. Plug your drive into your Mac.
2. Right-click the drive icon that appears on your desktop, then select Get Info. If the drive doesn’t appear on your desktop, you’ll find it in the Finder sidebar instead.
3. In the Info window, check your drive’s Capacity and Format to ensure it’s suitable.

If your drive doesn’t appear on your desktop or in Finder, or you need to reformat it to use it with Time Machine, you’ll need to turn to Disk Utility. Follow these steps:

1. Open Disk Utility from Applications > Utilities in Finder.
2. Your external drive should appear in the Disk Utility sidebar, and you can select it to view its information, including capacity and format.
3. To format your drive to make it compatible with Time Machine, click the Erase button in the toolbar.
4. Give your drive a name, select an appropriate format—APFS is recommended for newer versions of macOS—then click Erase.

7. Exclude Spotlight from indexing Time Machine backup

Spotlight indexing has been known to interfere with Time Machine backups, so our experts suggest excluding the backup drive from Spotlight when you’re attempting a Time Machine troubleshooting. Here’s how:

1. Open System Settings, then select Spotlight.
2. Click the Search Privacy button, then click the + icon.
3. Select your Time Machine backup drive, then click Choose.

A tip from our team: It’s best to restart your Mac after following these steps to force any ongoing Spotlight indexing to stop. After your Mac has rebooted, monitor Time Machine to see if it goes back to functioning correctly, or force a new backup to find out if this has fixed your issue.

8. Remove local snapshots

Time Machine backups often stall because of conflicts with local snapshots. This typically happens when corruption has occurred somewhere. To fix this, you’ll need to remove the local snapshots on your Mac. Don’t worry, this won’t delete Time Machine backups—new snapshots will be created later. Try this:

1. In Finder, open Terminal from Applications > Utilities.
2. Copy and paste tmutil listlocalsnapshots / into the Terminal window, then press enter. This will display a list of snapshots on your Mac; make note of the ones you want to delete.
3. Enter tmutil deletelocalsnapshots followed by the name of the snapshot you need to remove. For instance, the command will look something like tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2024-10-22-001100.
4. Repeat these steps for all the snapshots you want to delete.

If you decide you want to disable local snapshots altogether, you can enter the sudo tmutil disablelocal command into Terminal, which will also delete all existing snapshots automatically. However, we advise users to leave this feature enabled if possible—especially if Time Machineis your only backup method.

9. Use Terminal commands

Most Mac users don’t interact with Terminal, but it turns out that many of the features and tools on your Mac can be controlled via the command line when necessary. This includes Time Machine, which can be enabled, disabled, and forced into starting a backup with a few simple commands. Let’s take a look:

1. In Finder, open Terminal from Applications > Utilities.
2. Enter one of the following commands, depending on what you want Time Machine to do:
   • To enable Time Machine: sudo tmutil enable
   • To disable Time Machine: sudo tmutil disable
   • To force a Time Machine backup: tmutil startbackup
   • To stop an ongoing Time Machine backup: tmutil stopbackup
3. After typing or pasting in the command, press enter.
4. Enter your Mac’s password when prompted, then press enter again.

Although these are some of the most helpful Terminal commands for Time Machine, there are others you can use to exclude files and folders from your backup, manage remote backup disks, and more. To see all the commands you can use to control Time Machine, enter man tmutil into Terminal and press enter.

10. Clean up Time Machine and try backup again

Our experts have found that one of the most common reasons for failed Time Machine backups is an issue with one of the temporary files the feature uses during the backup process. Deleting those files and cleaning up Time Machine usually gets things running normally again. Try this:

1. First, turn off automatic Time Machine backups by going to General > Time Machine in System Settings.
2. Click Options.
3. Select Manually alongside Back up frequency.
4. In Finder, navigate to your Time Machine backup drive.
5. Open the Backups.backupdb folder. You should see a temporary backup file that ends with .inProgress. Right-click this file, then select Move to Bin or Move to Trash.
6. Click Delete to confirm, then empty the Bin/Trash on your Mac.

Our expert’s note regarding step 5: Time Machine doesn’t use the backups.backupdb folder anymore unless the drive was originally set up in macOS Big Sur or earlier. Skip this fix if you can’t find the backups.backupdb folder on your drive.

Conclusion

Like most macOS features, Time Machine is prone to running into odd issues every so often. Fortunately, most Time Machine problems are easy to fix, no matter what the root cause may be. Try out the tips outlined above, and be sure to restart or enable Time Machine again after trying each one.

If you find that you’re unable to fix Time Machine yourself, don’t worry. Our experts are available 24/7 to help you diagnose and fix almost any problem with your Mac. Simply select the Premium Services feature inside MacKeeper to contact a trained professional today.