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I made a time machine backup and then reinstalled macOS. Yesterday and this afternoon I was able to look at the time machine backup, and copy files I wanted to keep into my clean install.

Suddenly the backups started coming up empty.. I used the last backup at first, but then at some point this started to show an empty Macintosh HD folder. So I moved to the second to last backup, which was still working. Until that started to come up empty too, like in this picture: Screenshot showing empty Macintosh HD - Data folder in backup

I double-clicked on the empty "Macintosh HD - Data" to open it, the finder window closed itself and poof, that backup too was completely empty. In fact, all backups are empty... What is going on here, and how do I solve it? Screenshot showing empty time machine backups The first backup was a new backup on this drive. Subsequent backups are the hourly backups on this drive. After 1:23 I ejected the drive and booted into recovery to reset the machine.

I'm trying my best to google it, but I can only find posts of people that see folders but can't access them, like this reddit post.

I think I have the same problem as this guy, but he never got an answer.. Time Machine Backup Drive Shows Empty Files

Additional info

Model & OS:

  • MacBook Pro mid 2014 (15-inch)
  • Big Sur 11.7.10
  • 250 GB internal harddrive

I booted into recovery (cmd+r), wiped the drive with disk utility and then reinstalled Big Sur.

When the disk was first plugged in after reinstall I clicked on the popup that asked if I wanted to use it as time machine disk. This took me to the time machine preferences where I immediately unchecked "back up automatically", because I'm not sure if back ups from a new install will work well with ones from a previous install. Time machine preferences

Disk utility still shows that the drive is used Non-empty disk in disk utility

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  • Might be coincidental, but I just made a post about my mother's TimeMachine backups and iCloud acting…impossibly…today.
    – Phrogz
    Commented Oct 2 at 3:24
  • Your first line says "reinstall" - suggests same computer. But later you refer to "new machine" and "different machine". Q1: Assuming 2 Macs, please give model and year of each and version of macOS. Q2: the new machine is using APFS format for TM disk, do you know if the old one was also APFS or was it HFS+? Q3: were the backups you show on 2024-09-29/30 made on the old Mac? Suggest add answers to the question.
    – Gilby
    Commented Oct 2 at 5:10
  • @gilby It's the same machine. I reinstalled Big Sur, so it used APFS for time machine. All backups are from the old installation. I clarified it in the post
    – Fr4nc3sc0NL
    Commented Oct 2 at 7:58

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Turn hidden files (Command+Shift+Dot) on and off. Turning it on looks like this: Time machine backup drive hidden files turned on Turning it off again looks like this: ime machine backup drive hidden files turned off after turning on I have no explanation for this behaviour. I had hidden files turned on previously and don't know why Finder decided it had to turn it off again. If anyone has an explanation for this behaviour, feel free to post a new answer and I'll happily accept it.

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  • 1
    Glad you got to a solution.
    – Gilby
    Commented Oct 2 at 22:02

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