MacOS – How to exclude docker files from time machine backups

dockermacostime-machine

I don't need back up of my docker files. How do i exclude them from time machine backups

I see people mentioning /Users/david/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker folder but that does not exists on my machine.

Docker engine version: 20.10.2 running on
Big Sur: 11.2

Update: Found the location

My virtual machine appears to be here. I added it to the list of folders to be excluded. However that folder is not shown in the Time Machine UI.

tmutil addexclusion /Users/david/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/

Best Answer

I use the generic addexclusion clause of tmutil to make files not get backed up even if I move or copy them.

Open a Finder window to the files and a command line prompt (terminal.app is fine for this) and drag that file into the prompt after typing tmutil addexclusion and press enter. Here you can see me checking files on the desktop of a user named mike...

mike@m1 ~ % tmutil isexcluded /Users/mike/Desktop/Docker\ Files 
[Included]    /System/Volumes/Data/Users/mike/Desktop/Docker Files
mike@m1 ~ % tmutil addexclusion /Users/mike/Desktop/Docker\ Files 
mike@m1 ~ % tmutil isexcluded /Users/mike/Desktop/Docker\ Files   
[Excluded]    /System/Volumes/Data/Users/mike/Desktop/Docker Files
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