Time Machine first made it's debut in OS X 10.5 "Leopard". It's Apple's backup utility that comes bundled with the system and works silently in the background without needing user intervention (provided it's set up that is). By default, Time Machine will perform incremental backups every hour. While this is a sensible default, there may be times when another interval would be desirable. Unfortunately, there is no setting that allows a user to easily achieve this but that doesn't mean it's not possible.
Previously, there was a defaults write command that changed the interval in one fell swoop, but since version 10.7 this has stopped working. This tip will show you which file to edit and how to achieve the desired results. It will also show you how to check if backups are indeed working as expected and within the defined backup interval.
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Additional Resources
A few applications have surface that make editing Time Machine's schedule a trivial matter.
- Time Machine Scheduler (Paid - Mac App Store)
- TimeMachineEditor
- TimeMachineScheduler
