Unable to finish Time Machine back up on macOS Sequoia

Cannot finish the backup before my journey begins. Since ist started two days back, it is now at 35%. What a ..

This happens on my MacBook Pro with current macOS Sequoia 15.5.

I've been trying with two different external USB hard drives, including a brand new one.

Come on, Apple.


[Edited by Moderator]

Original Title: Time Machine backup takes days!!!

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Jun 6, 2025 1:13 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 6, 2025 5:27 AM

Not just TM, the OS needs that at all times, they should make it more well known that free space is not ours alone, nor free… also if you could run it with 8 GB FREE the SSD would die 4 times faster than with 32 FREE.


25 replies

Jun 7, 2025 8:57 PM in response to dvo777

Update:

Yesterday I freed some space on my systen, which now 25 GB for free SSD space and 5 GB of free RAM.

I had to retry the backup after my external target disk had to be disconnected (I'm meanwhile travelling).


Still the backup process takes WAY TOO LONG.

Its initial estimation for remaining hours was 2 hours, which would have been perfectly okay.

Yet it quickly started increasing - after about an hour it said 6 hours.

Now, some 6 hours later, where it claims to have reached 50%, it tells me 8 hours.

Jun 7, 2025 9:57 PM in response to dvo777

dvo777 wrote:

Update:
Yesterday I freed some space on my systen, which now 25 GB for free SSD space and 5 GB of free RAM.

You said you has 512 GB SSD. So now you have 5% free space on the SSD. That's far below the recommended 15%-20% so you will continue to see slowdown and problems. Also, Time Machine uses some space on your internal SSD as a "staging ground" for some of its processes; it isn't just straight out copying files (which requires little free space), it is setting things up so you can recover files from Time Machine from different dates so it is more complicated than just copying files.


There may be more than one thing wrong here, but it will be impossible to troubleshoot the Time Machine slowness until you have about 15%-20% free space, which is most accurately gauged by open Disk Utility and examining your internal drive.

Unable to finish Time Machine back up on macOS Sequoia

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.