Disable Time Machine

I found this website with what appears to be really good info on how to disable Time Machine. It's dated March 2021, so I tried the first one anyway (Prong 1), and neither the sudo command, nor the MDM Profile work. The sudo command

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine DoNotOfferNewDisksForBackup -bool TRUE

returns "Could not write domain /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine".

The configuration profile got installed on the machine, but after connecting an external drive, I got the prompt anyway.

I figure this is old information at this point, but does anyone have knowledge on how to do effectively disable Time Machine in its entirety? I can restrict the app, but what can be done about the popup when external drives are inserted?

Page 1 / 1

Have you tried restricting the time machine system settings pane?

Did you find a solution? I ran across that same site this morning as I'm looking to disable Time Machine.

No, I did not, mostly because I just haven't had the time to test further. My next test was to disable Time Machine as suggested above. Not sure that disabling it would prevent notifications after connecting an external drive. That is where I'm at.

OK, thanks. I'll keep looking into it.

I solved this by using a Configuration Profile with the following Custom Setting:

Domain: com.apple.TimeMachine

Property List:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

  <dict>

    <key>AutomaticBackup</key>

    <false/>

    <key>DoNotOfferNewDisksForBackup</key>

    <true/>

  </dict>

</plist>

Reply

Sign up

Login with SSO

Login to the community

Login with SSO

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded