I want to know list of folders that can be safely excluded from Time Machine backups while ensuring that full restore can get me a same machine running immediately.
The reason why I want to do this is because Time Machine will backup all the files no matter what it contains. So far, I’ve excluded these paths from my backup:
~/Library/Caches
~/Library/Logs
~/Downloads
Caches and Logs don’t need to be backed up because they’re generated when needed. I’m also excluding ~/Downloads
folder because those files are usually stored temporarily.
Is there any more folders that I can exclude? What is your Time Machine’s exclusion rules?
Best Answer
The simple answer is to exclude any files that you create or download that you won't need for a restore (this includes files that you're able to re-download or restore/rebuild from another source if necessary).
Time Machine
does not actually backup everything. On the contrary, by default it is configured intelligently to exclude folders like~/Library/Caches
,~/Library/Logs
and many others that are temporary in nature, can be rebuilt from available data and are not required during a system restore. Adding these folders to your exclusion list is not necessary and is redundant.The default list of files and folders that
Time Machine
excludes from its backup is listed in/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.plist
. You can verify that the caches and logs folders are in this exclusion list.For more information, see:
Personally, I exclude two kinds of folders:
Time Machine
because they would fill up the backup disk very quickly. Those are, however, covered in a full disk clone (that I manage with a limited backup of older files).