List all TimeMachine Snapshots

Command: tmutil listlocalsnapshots (without quotes)

What it does: This command lists all local Time Machine snapshots on your system, including their creation date, backup size, and status.

Example:

Let’s say you want to view a list of all local Time Machine snapshots on your MacOS machine. You can use the tmutil command:

1. Open Terminal on your MacOS machine.
2. Type in the following command: tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
3. Press Enter to run the command.

Result: The output will display a list of all local Time Machine snapshots, including their creation date, backup size, and status.

Tips:

• To view more information about each snapshot, use the -v option followed by the tmutil listlocalsnapshots command. For example:
  • tmutil -v listlocalsnapshots /
• To delete a specific Time Machine snapshot, use the tmutil remove command followed by the path to the snapshot. For example:
  • tmutil remove /path/to/snapshot.fsp
• To view the current system time and date for scheduling purposes, use the date command with the -r option. For example:
  • date -r /

Trick:

To schedule a daily backup of your MacOS machine to an external Time Machine drive using cron, you can use the following trick:

1. Open Terminal and type in the following command: crontab -e
2. Add the following line to the end of the file: 0 0 * * * /usr/sbin/tmutil scheduledbackup -f /path/to/external/drive -u adminuser
3. Replace /path/to/external/drive with the path to your external Time Machine drive and adminuser with the username of an administrative account.
4. Save and exit the editor.

This will schedule a daily backup at 12:00 AM using the specified administrator account.

Note: Be aware that this command requires root privileges to execute, and should be used carefully.

This trick uses the tmutil command to interact with Time Machine snapshots on your system, including listing them and deleting specific snapshots.