All Folders You Can Probably Exclude From Your Mac Backups
Whether you’re backing up your Mac using Time Machine or another service, it can take an incredibly long time. In How-To Geek, they go through a series of folders that you can probably skip if you need to quickly complete this backup.
By default, a service like Time Machine doesn’t include system-level files or your Recycle Bin, but there are many other potentially useless things you can get rid of. If you open the options panel for Time Machine, you can exclude files and folders from backups. The How-To Geek points out some obvious things that some people might want to exclude here, such as your Dropbox, Google Drive, or iCloud folders (if you have them backed up elsewhere). Other files to exclude might include your virtual machines, the Steam library (inconveniently stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Steam ), and your downloads folder. You can also usually skip large applications like Office or Creative Suite because not only are they easy to download again, they are also usually tied to system-level licenses, so it’s not always easy to transfer them to a new computer. anyway.
How-To Geek also demonstrates an extreme approach that I personally take, which excludes all of your system files and all of your applications. This means that only important documents are backed up, which means that the backups will be small and fast. This means you’ll need to completely reinstall the OS if the hard drive fails and reboot everything, but given that the Mac App Store makes this pretty easy, it’s a solid approach if you just want lightweight backups. Visit How-To Geek to learn more about how to set up Time Machine backups.
Save Space on Time Machine by Excluding These Folders from Backups | How-To Geek