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Time Machine Autobackup Not Working

I can manually initiate Time Machine backups for my vintage 27" intel iMac - but auto backups just don't happen so often I have weeks between backups as I forget to check. The manual backups are fine and seem to complete properly. I have the same problem on both backup disks. This problem has been going on for ages - I've just got fed up with living with it!


Any ideas on what's up? All help welcome!

iMac 27″, macOS 12.1

Posted on Feb 10, 2022 4:32 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 12, 2022 3:10 PM

Have you tried starting a newly-formatted disk as the Time Machine backup?

For my 2013 Mac Pro I started a new disk right before updating to Monterey and have no problems. I started a new disk when I got my 2020 M1 MacBook Air and have had not problems.

3 replies

Feb 10, 2022 5:14 AM in response to PKthefirst

If you search the web, you'll discover Monterey has multiple problems with Time Machine. Our five Macs had no problems, but that's obviously not any kind of consensus.


Apple is aware: https://piunikaweb.com/2021/11/05/apple-is-allegedly-working-on-the-macos-12-monterey-update-failure-error/


Maybe update to Monterey 12.2 will help. We're on 12.2 on all our machines and TM is fine. Or rather was, fine we ditched TM for Carbon Copy Cloner Standard clone. It does exactly what TM does, files are accessible via Finder and migrating data from CCC using both Setup and Migration Assistance has been flawless. CCC is also far more flexible as to scheduling and data selection choices.

Feb 12, 2022 1:38 PM in response to ku4hx

@ku4hx - many thanks for your response. I've updated to 12.2 but nothing's changed. I might consider CCC if Time Machine doesn't get fixed but I'm loath to shell out of something that I thought I'd paid for as part of my numerous macs over the last 30 years! My next step is to clear some time and find an empty disk to try a fresh backup on...

Time Machine Autobackup Not Working

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