MacOS – How effective is a Time Machine backup

backupmacosms officetime-machine

I'm having a problem with Office not installing correctly and not being able to update. I have one last resort which is Backing up and formatting my system.
However I would like to know how effective is Time Machine for the following two points :

  • Will I be able to restore "EVERY" application without the need of re-installing items ?? For example, I have python installed with many modules that take ages to get them all working together. Would I need to repeat this process after cleaning my machine and using the backup to restore ?
  • Office has been corrupted after deleting it. Now it fails to install correctly and update. What is the chance that the corruption would be copied over to the backup file, rendering the whole process of formatting my machine to "fix" the issue useless ?

Best Answer

Time Machine backs up everything and restores everything.

When Time Machine backs up, it first copies all of the files exactly from your hard drive (and any other disks) to your chosen backup disk. Nothing is excluded unless explicitly specified. This answers your question concerning losing your Python modules.

After first backup, Time Machine hard links your files to another backup folder named by time and date. This means that it creates a duplicate of all of the files it created on first backup to the next backup without taking up more space. It's a lot like an alias or shortcut, but the difference between the original and a hard linked file is indistinguishable in Finder. Therefore, it efficiently changes all the files that were actually changed since first backup.

Using Command-R to bring up Disk Utility from Recovery options, formatting the disk, and restoring from Time Machine was painless and I did not lose a single file.

Since it copies all files exactly, it will transfer your "corrupt" Office files to the new drive. However, you can select Repair Disk to clear up any issues with permission errors, etc.

But, honestly, I don't think that it's worth restoring from Time Machine unless you've tried completely removing Microsoft Office for Mac 2011.

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