Good folders to exclude from Time Machine backups

Time Machine is a really effective tool for backing up everything on your drive. And when I say everything, I mean it — Time Machine indiscriminately backs up a lot of junk on your drive. And because of the techniques it uses and the way some files are used by your apps, you might find that your 500GB external backup drive is getting full after just a few months of use.

It’s really easy to identify folders for exclusion from Time Machine, which will save time and space during backups. It’s worth noting, though, that if your machine’s drive does fail, you won’t be able to execute a full restore without having some of these locations backed up. Then again, if you’re anything like me, you’re far more likely to just do a full reinstall and just restore your lost user data. (Doing a full restore from backup just doesn’t have many advantages compared to a full system reinstall, anyway.)

These are just a few suggestions — you should NEVER exclude anything from backup if you’re unsure you have another copy, aren’t able to get it again, or are unaware of the possible ramifications. Of course, you’ve got any good folders you think should be added to the list, feel free to drop ‘em in comments.

Obvious
The duh stuff.

• /Applications - This will likely save you more space than any other single folder, especially if you have lots of apps. Just make sure you know what programs you’d want to get back if your machine were to die.

Caches and downloads
Big directories of files that should probably be excluded automatically, but aren’t. Unless you’re a crazy developer debugging code, you’ll probably never need a backup of your caches.

• /Users/[user]/Library/Caches and /Library/Caches - Between the two you can knock off a few hundred megs of constantly changing, essentially useless data.
• /Users/[user]/Downloads - Where all your internet downloads wind up. Frequently changes, and if you’re anything like me, it’s filled with gigs of garbage.
• /Users/[user]/.Trash and /.Trashes - Some people might see value in backing up their trashed files. Not I.

More after the break. More…

Leopard 10.5.2: external USB drive crashes Finder, possible fix

Yeah, I’ve been contending with Leopard / 10.5.2 since certain external USB drives began crashing Finder endlessly (until they’re yanked and Finder springs back to life). Using the Console app, I traced the issue back to this core error message from com.apple.launchd: com.apple.finder Exited abnormally: Bus error. I happened upon a solution that seems to work, though:

First, with the drive plugged in an Finder crashing, go to System Preferences > Sharing and change your computer name. Then, if Finder doesn’t come up and stay up, go to your Time Machine prefs and turn it off. That did the trick for me. When you’re done, change it back, it should stick and not crash.

I have to say, this is definitely one of the more ridiculous bugs I’ve seen in Leopard.

Leopard (still) sucks at shared Windows SMB

Leopard has been pretty good to me so far, but the whole Finder automagically finding local Windows / Linux machines and mounting their SMB shares has been the one thing I’m classifying a total joke. I’m sure some Mac fans are about to pipe up and mention AFP and the like, but let’s face it, like it or not SMB is an incredibly widely deployed standard, and I expected more after Apple briefed me on how much better Finder handles this stuff.

I’ve tried a few tricks, like adding a second network location and inputting my local network’s WINS workgroup (the second location is necessary because Leopard has a bug that prevents it from saving a workgroup name in automatic mode) and other such black magic, but this jaded old network engineer just can’t seem to fix the issue. I’m not feeling too defeated and alone, though — it seems like almost no one has been able to get Leopard to auto-mount anything but AFP drives, with or without Bonjour for Windows (even sans firewall). Any Leopard users in the house with a solution or any bright ideas?