• Mac OS X

    Changing Time Machine Backup Frequency

    Time Machine just does what it does and there’s not much controlin’ it aside from what’s in the System Preference pane.  Or is there?  Earlier, I covered how to disable the disk check feature, now let’s look at how to change the frequency of when backups occur.  Backups are initiated by com.apple.backupd-auto.plist, stored in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons.  The contents of this file are, by default: <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC “-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN” “http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd”> <plist version=”1.0″> <dict> <key>Label</key> <string>com.apple.backupd-auto</string> <key>ProgramArguments</key> <array> <string>/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/backupd-helper</string> <string>-auto</string> </array> <key>StartInterval</key> <integer>3600</integer> <key>RunAtLoad</key> <false/> <key>KeepAlive</key> <false/> </dict> </plist> The StartInterval integer controls the frequency with which backups occur, in seconds.  You can customize this by altering the…