TimeMachine - Lets try to cleanup

[testato]

I noticed that Apple has not updated the exclusion list for a long time, which now appears outdated (based on the current structure of the operating system)

Try to compare the latest backups, you will notice that a myriad of short or very short-lived files are saved.

Perhaps only useful for forensic purposes

sudo tmutil listbackups | tail -2 | sed 's/.*/"&"/' | xargs sudo tmutil compare

My personal exclusion list has added these paths, and I saved a few hundred MB for each spin

/System/Library/AssetsV2/analytics (unified logs)
/private/var/db/diagnostics (unified logs)
/private/var/db/uuidtext (unified logs)

~/library/containers/com.apple.safari/data/library/caches (Safari cache)
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari/Data/Library/WebKit (Safari cache)

and there remains a ton of analytics data in a myriad of paths and thousands of small files

any comments or contraindications are welcome

 

[gilby101]

What version of macOS?

Comments:
1) I don't have ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari only my system - macOS 14.3.1
2) TM is intended as being able to do a full system recovery, as well as recovery of individual files.
3) I too do wonder about Unified Logs, but once TM's backups have been thinned to weekly the ~1 GB of Unified Logs is much less than /Applications so I don't worry about them.
4) I don't agree with your first line, there are a myriad of files marked with the nobackup extended attribute as well as those in exclusion lists.
5) I do have quite an extensive lists of locations added to my TM exclusions (the biggest is Xcode.app) - things that I either don't need or can recover from elsewhere in the event of a disaster.

I use BackupLoupe to explore what is consuming space in my backups. Much easier than tmutil compares.
BackupLoupe

 

[testato]

What version of macOS?


1) I don't have ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari only my system - macOS 14.3.1
2) TM is intended as being able to do a full system recovery, as well as recovery of individual files.
3) I too do wonder about Unified Logs, but once TM's backups have been thinned to weekly the ~1 GB of Unified Logs is much less than /Applications so I don't worry about them.
4) I don't agree with your first line, there are a myriad of files marked with the nobackup extended attribute as well as those in exclusion lists.
5) I do have quite an extensive lists of locations added to my TM exclusions (the biggest is Xcode.app) - things that I either don't need or can recover from elsewhere in the event of a disaster.

I use BackupLoupe to explore what is consuming space in my backups. Much easier than tmutil compares.
BackupLoupe

1) I am currently on Ventura 13.6.5 , planning to jump on Sonoma on june. Maybe things have changed in the meantime

2) I understand, but I don't understand the point of backing up data that has a short or non-existent life, data that is constantly modified by MacOS as soon as it is connected to the internet. Even in the case of a complete restore, the data would be irrelevant

3) -

4) Do you have theese path backupped on Sonoma ?

5) would you like to share ? i am curious. Not personal paths but general ones

I will try BackupLoupe

Thanks for the time you spent

/System/Library/AssetsV2/ *
/Data/private/var/db/searchparty/sharedVault/BeaconPayloadCache/