UX.md

Status codes

Status	Meaning
green 🟢	Backup finished successfully.
red 🔴	Backup was interrupted or drive was disconnected.
yellow 🟡	Warning demanding user attention.
blue 🔵	Ongoing backup or general information.
magenta 🟣	Miscellaneous information.
gray ⚪️	Backup drive or destination not available.

UX & Implementation

Tip

Over time, tmbackup generates numerous local snapshots that will be trimmed but not removed. If you know what you're doing, you can remove local snapshots by scheduling rmlsnaps().

Simplifying the script into terse functions is possible, but tmbackup prioritizes an intuitive and user-friendly approach. The goal is that at any point in time, users have a clear picture of the state of their backups.

Restructuring it into functions may lead to confusion. One notable example is the default behavior of tmutil startbackup. See tmback()'s output below:

Total copied: 0.00 MB (0 bytes)
Avg speed:    0.00 MB/min (0 bytes/sec)
Total copied: 0.00 MB (0 bytes)
Avg speed:    0.00 MB/min (0 bytes/sec)
Total copied: 0.00 MB (0 bytes)
Avg speed:    0.00 MB/min (0 bytes/sec)

Compare it to tmbackup's output instead:

Complete: 4F4B520B-C151-485D-8CD9-6EB53E8FAAE4 (Backup 1)
          Total copied: 69.34 MB (72704000 bytes)
             Avg speed: 74.97 MB/min (1310283 bytes/sec)
 Offline: CF9A4D94-2A57-40A1-B843-A8DA64A5858D (Backup 2)
 Stopped: F49B059C-5944-49C9-A96D-53DCDF07EFC6 (Backup 3)

When UX isn't a priority, you can create your own custom functions and add them to your .bashrc or .profile:

tmback() {
    tmutil destinationinfo | awk '/^ID/ {print $NF}' |
    while read -r id
    do
        sudo tmutil startbackup -br -d "$id"
    done
}

getlsnaps() {
    tmutil listlocalsnapshotdates | grep "-"
}

rmlsnaps() {
    lsnaps="$(getlsnaps)"

    for i in $lsnaps
    do
        tmutil deletelocalsnapshots "$i"
    done
}

thinlsnaps() {
    calc=$(echo "5 * 10^9" | bc)

    tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / "$calc" 2
}

Tip

These functions are provided as standalone scripts in utils/.