Since its inception, Time Machine has backed up on an hourly schedule. It then keeps hourly backups for the previous 24 hours, daily backups for the last month, and weekly backups back to the start of the backup. Once free space on the backup drive gets low, Time Machine deletes older backups to make room for new ones, always maintaining at least one full copy of every backed-up file. The traditional hourly backups are usually fine, but starting in macOS 13 Ventura, Apple lets you choose a daily or weekly schedule instead. One of those might be useful for Macs that are turned on infrequently or where very little important data changes. It also might reduce resource usage for slower Macs, or at least make your old, slow computer slow down only once a day or once a week. Most people shouldn’t need to change the backup frequency, but if you’ve always wanted to, now you can.
Just remember, hourly backups are normally very quick because there is little to back up. If you are only backing up once a week, the backup will take much longer, and you may not have as many different versions of a document in progress to restore from.
(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/STILLFX)
Further Help
If you are an existing customer who needs help with this or if you have other questions, or if you are in San Francisco and interested in becoming a client I invite you to book an appointment with me. Otherwise, you may wish to contact Apple Support or find a local Apple consultant.
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