backupcatalinamacostime-machine
The only way I know how to manually start a Time Machine backup is by showing the Time Machine menu bar icon (by enabling that option in System Preferences), and then choosing "Start Backup" from the menu bar icon's menu.
How can I manually start a backup without having to use the menu bar icon?
Okay, so I did a bit of digging, and perhaps found a clue as to why the option is not accessible (to some at least). Read this MacWorld Hint, specifically, look down at the comment from joekewe (on Feb 08, '11 06:08:14PM):
From a web search, it looks like "Verify Time Machine Backup" should be called "Verify Time Capsule" backup. My system log shows that I attempted to verify my Time Machine backup:
com.apple.backupd[70595]: Backup verification requested by user.but (I believe) because it is a locally mounted volume, it didn't do anything and didn't leave any more entries in the log. From this older knowledgeable article, it looks like Verify Time Machine was added when Time Capsule was having trouble.
It might be the case that he's onto something. The option is also grayed out for me, but I have a local TM disk connected via USB. Can anyone confirm they can use the feature with their Time Capsules?
It may have been that they actually fixed the menu option, in that, it should have been grayed out for Snow Leopard users connected through USB (read the comments as many people talk about having the service do nothing), but it wasn't. So in Lion, it behaves correctly.
I am 100% sure there is no way to see how long the the backup takes just the size of the backup and how much portion of the size it has already backed up like shown below.
The only time duration that Time Machine shows is when you are restoring from a backup and during the first time you set up Time Machine using a empty hard disk.
I just noticed that "Open Time Machine Preferences" shows a progress bar for the current backup operation. I just upgraded to Maverick recently so this may be a new feature.
Best Answer
If you'd prefer not to have or use Time Machine from its icon on the menu bar, it can be started/stopped, and more, via Terminal, e.g.:
Or:
The
startbackupverb also can take options, i.e:Have a look at its manual page:
man tmutil