BackupLoupe Help
1. Why BackupLoupe?
With Mac OS Leopard Apple introduced Time Machine. This backup software works very
well, but for some reason Apple forgot to include a useable graphical user
interface. BackupLoupe tries to fill that gap. With BackupLoupe you are able to
answer questions like
In addition BackupLoupe provides intuitive ways to restore any item backed up by Time
Machine to any location or exclude directories from future backups.
BackupLoupe works with local and remote drives. Locally connected drives (via USB,
FireWire, ThunderBolt, ...) work out of the box. If you can see them in Finder's 'devices'
section, BackupLoupe detects them.
If you use Apple's Time Capsule (or any other NAS), you need to 'mount' your backup, before
starting BackupLoupe:
- Open a Finder window
- Locate your NAS (Time Capsule) in the 'Shared' section in the side bar and click on
it.
- The right hand side of the window will now be populated with the content of the
drive.
- Look for a disk image (.sparsebundle). Double-click it, to get it mounted. Note: We've had reports of macOS Sierra failing to mount .sparsebundle disk images via Finder (which uses DiskImageMounter). In this case you can user Disk Utility (File>Open Disk Image…) to work around this problem.
- A new drive should appear in the 'Devices' section of Finder's side bar.
You are now ready to start BackupLoupe. Don't forget to unmount the filesystem again when you are done!
3. Understanding the
interface
3.1 The main window
The main window of BackupLoupe is split in two areas, the snapshot selector and the
snapshot browser.
The snapshot selector
Selecting the backup device and machine
The left hand side, the snapshot selector, allows you to select a backup device, a machine,
which has been backed up to this device, and the actual backups (snapshots) that have been
made for the selected machine.
The most common setup is a single backup device on which a single machine is backed
up. If this is what you have got, you can ignore the two popup buttons in the upper
left corner of the window.
If, however, your setup is more complicated, BackupLoupe supports multiple backup
devices, and backups of multiple machines on each backup device. Use the popup
buttons in the upper left corner of the window to switch between backup devices and
machines.
The action popup to the right of those popups allow you to get information about the
currently selected backup device/machine or perform actions on all snapshots of the
currently selected backup device/machine.
Snapshot list
Below the machines popup BackupLoupe displays the snapshots of the selected backup
device and machine. If you start BackupLoupe for the first time, it does not know
yet, how big a snapshot is, nor what actually has been backed up. Snapshots you want
to review need to be indexed first. This is accomplished by clicking on the refresh
symbol. If you want to index all snapshots of a backup device/machine, use the
corresponding action menu in the backup devices/machines section above.
The refresh/abort buttons are only available when "Index snapshots in background" has
not been enabled (default) and when the selected volume is mounted.
Please note that indexing is suspended while Time Machine is backing up data.
Indexes of snapshots that have been modified are marked as outdated. Their name is
printed with a slanted font.
Color codes
Once a snapshot has been indexed, you'll see two colored rectangles on either side of
the snapshot.
The left rectangle indicates the relative size; that is the absolute size of a snapshot in proportion to the time span that snapshot covers. Green indicates a small relative size, and red indicates a large one.
The right rectangle indicates the deviation of a snapshot’s relative size from the average relative size of all snapshots made of the current machine. Green indicates a snapshot of which the size is close to average relative size, and red indicates an unusually small or large snapshot.
Different people use their computers for different tasks, which translates to
different amounts of dynamic data. You should adjust the sensitivity of these 'meters'
in BackupLoupes preferences to make them expressive for your particular situation.
The snapshot browser
When selecting an indexed snapshot, a column-view appears. This is the snapshot browser.
Navigate it with mouse or cursor keys, to find the big space wasters.
If you have enabled tracking of deleted items a red number in parenthesis may appear just to the left of
the directory size. This number indicates the number of items that has been deleted since the last snapshot.
The following operations are available from the browser:
- Drag an item from the browser to any application which supports drag&drop to open it
- View the item via QuickLook (Space key;
)
- Get information via Finder/PathFinder (⌘I/⌘⇧I;
/
)
- Open the file with its default application (⌘O;
)
- Find out when the item was backed up, modified, removed, or how much space all revisions
of this item occupy in your backup (⌘⇧H;
); See 3.2 The history view
- Find other items by name and/or type(⌘F;
); See 3.4 The find window
- Drag an item to a Finder/PathFinder window to restore it
- Exclude an item from future backups (⌘⇧E;
); See 3.3 The exclusion view
- Reveal the item in Finder/PathFinder (⌘R/⌘⇧R;
/
)
3.2 The history view
The history view allows you to see what happened to the selected item in the past.
The history feature shows you when
- an item has been created (
)
- an item has been modified (∆)
- an item has been removed (X)
It displays the size of the item as well the cumulated sizes of all changes to this
item.
Double-clicking a snapshot in the history view navigates to that snapshot and item
in the browser. The snapshot with the bold label is the snapshot currently displayed in the browser.
The history view determines the history of files regardless whether a snapshot has
been indexed or not. Directories can only be found in indexed snapshots.
3.3 The exclusion list view
The exclusion list view can be opened any time (⌘⇧E; ). You need super user privileges to access this feature.
The view lists all directories currently excluded from backups.
To exclude an item from future backups, select it in the browser an click on the
plus (+) symbol in the lower right of the view. Select an item in the list and click on the
minus (-) button to remove the entry from the list.
3.5 System service "Show Time Machine Revisions"
BackupLoupe integrates with any system services enabled application which lets you select files/directories.
Just select a file/directory and select the "Show Time Machine Revisions" menu item from the services sub menu
of the application's menu.
If BackupLoupe has not been started already, it will be launched now. The item you selected will then
be searched. Please note that the find feature only works on indexed snapshots.
Apple OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) requires the user to enable system services manually before they may be used.
To do this, open "System Preferences"/"Keyboard". Select "Services" in the left list. Enable
"Show Time Machine Revisions" in the "General" section in the right list.
4 Common tasks
Why is my backup drive filling up so fast? Which files are actually
being backed up?
You need not necessarily index each and every backup ever made, to find out what to
include in your Time Machine exclusion list. Usually it is sufficient to check the
last couple of snapshots.
As an exercise you want to select the most recent snapshot from the list of snapshots
which is marked as "Not scanned yet". There is a small “refresh” button (
) next to that text.
Click it! BackupLoupe now indexes
this snapshot. When finished, you can see its size right above the snapshot name.
You will also see the column-view you already may know from Finder.
The first column contains the volumes which have been backed up, plus some grayed-out
files, which Time Machine has created. Every disk, directory or file has its size
written right beside it. The contents of these columns is already sorted by size in
descending order.
It should be easy now to determine, which files are important, and which ones just
eat up the space on your backup drive. Depending on your work flow, a normal hourly
backup shouldn't be larger than, say, 20MiB. After installing an OS upgrade, the
backup may grow considerably. But that is not what you're after. Look for temporary
files, that programs spread all over your hard drive.
Good candidates for examination are:
- ~/Library/Caches
- ~/Downloads
- ~/Library/Logs
Use the history view (⌘⇧H; ) to see how
often a file has been backed up. Some files get updated every few minutes. And even
though these files might be small, their size sums up over time.
I found a big one. How do I prevent Time Machine from backing it up again?
Select the item in the browser view. Open the 'Excluded Items' view (⌘⇧E; ) and click on the plus (+) button in the lower right of the view. The
item you have selected will now appear in the list of excluded items.
How do I remove an item from the list of excluded items?
Open the 'Excluded Items' view (⌘⇧E; ), select the item you want
to be included again in future backups and click on the minus (-) button in the
lower right of the view. The item you have selected will be removed from the list
of excluded items.
I need a file which I have deleted. Where is its latest backup?
BackupLoupe can only search for items in snapshots it has already indexed.
Open BackupLoupes find window (⌘F; ). Fill in the required information and hit the find button (Enter). The
result should give you an overview ordered by date (most recently backed up items
first). Restore it from here or select it and click the browser button (
; ⌘B) in the tool
bar. The item will be displayed in the browser. You may want to open the
history view (see above) to investigate further.
How do I restore a file/directory
Locate the item via browser or find window. Drag it to a drag&drop enabled file manager of your
choice (e.g. Finder, PathFinder).
Now choose if you want to restore the complete folder (the way it was when the backup was made) or only the files that have been backed up in this particular snapshot.
BackupLoupe can restore the item with its original owner and/or permissions. To change this behavior check the appropriate options in the 'Restore' section of the preferences pane.
How much space do my backups use up currently?
Every snapshot of the backup device / machine has to be indexed to answer this
question.
Select the action popup beside the backup device/machine popup you are interested in
and select the 'Show statistics' menu item. The answer is written right beside
'Total size of already indexed snapshots'.
When will Time Machine start truncating my backup?
Every snapshot of the backup device has to be indexed to answer this question. Select
the action popup beside the backup device popup you are interested in and select the
'Show statistics' menu item. The answer is written right beside 'Time left until
device fills up'.
What exactly has been changed in a file from version A to version B?
This functionality requires FileMerge.app, a Utility shipped with Apples Developer Tools.
- Locate the file in the browser view.
- Select it and open the History view (⌘⇧H; ).
- Right-click one of the other revisions of the file. A context menu will appear.
- Click 'Show differences'.
5 Preferences
5.1 Caching
Index snapshots in super user mode
In its standard configuration Time Machine backs up almost any file on your computer. Many
directories are owned by the system administrator. Other directories might belong to other
users having an account on your machine. If BackupLoupe is started by an unprivileged user,
it cannot traverse such directories and won't be able to include their contents in its calculations.
With this switch enabled, BackupLoupe scans snapshots as a privileged user. You need an administrator
password to scan with this switch enabled.
Clear caches of unmounted volumes
If enabled, BackupLoupe will consider indexes of snapshots it cannot find, because
the backup device is currently not mounted, as purged. Indexes of these snapshots
will be removed. The default setting is "disabled", so you don't have to worry about
indexes being removed, just because a backup device is not hooked up.
Update outdated snapshots
Time Machine saves hourly snapshots for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past
month, and the weekly ones for everything older than a month.
This implies, that your hourly backups from today will be merged into one backup
tomorrow, which in turn will be merged into a weekly snapshot next month. The
directories, which contained the backups will be gone. Others will have emerged.
A side effect of this behavior is, that indexes created by BackupLoupe may become
outdated. With its standard settings BackupLoupe will mark those outdated caches
for you to update. Their names are printed with a slanted font. If you enable
"Update outdated snapshots", BackupLoupe will rescan any outdated snapshots automatically.
This option has no effect for snapshots on the configured Time Machine disk when "Index
snapshots in background" has been enabled.
Index new snapshots automatically
If enabled, snapshots which have not been indexed at the time BackupLoupe is started,
will be added to the scan queue automatically.
This option has no effect for snapshots on the configured Time Machine disk when "Index
snapshots in background" has been enabled.
Track deleted items
If enabled, BackupLoupe will store information about deleted items in its cache files. This
way you can see in the column browser which/how many items have been deleted since the last snapshot.
Directories containing deleted items show a red number in parentheses between the directory name and the directory
size. Deleted items are marked with a red line across their name.
Note: Enabling this option will increase the size of the BackupLoupe cache files. Also indexing
a snapshot will take more time. This option is off by default.
5.2 Background caching / monitoring
Index snapshots in background
Set this option to let a background task do the indexing.
If enabled, you won't be able to manually control indexing snapshots anymore. To restore manual
control you have to disable this setting.
Background indexing and its implications only affect snapshots on the currently in Time
Machine configured backup device.
Should you ever update BackupLoupe by other means then the built-in "Check for update…" functionality,
it is important to remember that background indexing has to be disabled during the update process. The
same applies for moving BackupLoupe to another location.
Send Growl notifications…
Enable these options if you want to be informed by the background indexing task about unusually small or big
snapshots. Clicking on a notification starts BackupLoupe, so you can further investigate what's going on.
This functionality is only available if Growl has been installed and
if "Index snapshots in background" has been enabled.
5.3 Restoring
Restore permissions
If checked, restored items will have the same permissions (read, write, execute) as the original item.
Restore owner
If checked, restored items will belong to the same user and group as the original item.
5.4 Visuals
Display file sizes with base 10 (1kB = 1000B)
With Snow Leopard Apple displays sizes according to the International System of Units (SI). You may switch to the more familiar
binary notation (1KiB = 1024B) by unchecking this check box. It is enabled by default on
Snow Leopard systems.
Color code sensitivity
Use these sliders to change the sensitivity with which BackupLoupe interprets differences in snapshot sizes
or their deviation from the average snapshot size.
At the left most position, BackupLoupe will consider even minor differences important (red), in the right most
position even major differences will be considered normal (green).
Experiment a bit. The display updates in real time. Use whatever setting works best for you.
Date format
Here you may set the date format to your preferences. Use the following format codes:
- %%: a '%' character
- %a: abbreviated weekday name
- %A: full weekday name
- %b: abbreviated month name
- %B: full month name
- %c: shorthand for %X %x, the locale format for date and time
- %d: day of the month as a decimal number (01-31)
- %e: same as %d but does not print the leading 0 for days 1 through 9
- %F: milliseconds as a decimal number (000-999)
- %H: hour based on a 24-hour clock as a decimal number (00-23)
- %I: hour based on a 12-hour clock as a decimal number (01-12)
- %j: day of the year as a decimal number (001-366)
- %m: month as a decimal number (01-12)
- %M: minute as a decimal number (00-59)
- %p: AM/PM designation for the locale
- %S: second as a decimal number (00-59)
- %w: weekday as a decimal number (0-6), where Sunday is 0
- %x: date using the date representation for the locale
- %X: time using the time representation for the locale
- %y: year without century (00-99)
- %Y: year with century (such as 1990)
Highlight items with deleted original
Backed up items which have no counterpart on the drive that has been backed up will be typeset with a slanted font.