Start time machine backup when attaching a HD

Questions & Suggestions
1

How do I start the backup straight away when attaching the external hard drive.

I want to start a backup with Time machine each time I attach a certain external HD.
I know how to get the time machine dialogue up and running when attaching this HD. My problem is that I want to start the backup in the same was as when I click on the Time Machine symbol in the top bar and click on the “make backup know” (or whatever it’s called in the english version).

2

You can use a Volume Mounted trigger to detect the device appearing.

And then you can start the backup, either using GUI scripting or the shell command.

Best would probably be Execute Shell Script: tmutil startbackup --auto

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3

I tried your suggestion - as in the screen capture - but nothing happened.
I made a pause, while the HD is loading, but the backup is not starting.
Is the syntax ok? I’ve never tried scripting before.
See: http://www.screencast.com/t/uc6VoHhH9I

4

Today - when I waited a little longer, the backup started. Everything seems to be ok.
I think I was fooled to believe that it should start up immediately and did not wait, as I saw no immediate activity.

Thanks a lot!

Just for my curiosity: Is there a way to unmount the HD when the backup is finished (which may vary very much in time…)?

5

Still a problem. It only works if the power cable is attatched. Which is not always the case - on my MacBook…

Is there a way around this??

6

Try removing the “–auto”? It may be Time Machine does not start in Automatic mode unless it is powered?

7

It works Excellent!

Thank you.

8

I’m following the same.

Is there any way to unmount the drive when backup is finished and have a pop up notification saying that backup has now finished and it’s safe to unplug the usb.

Thanks.

9

You can have the macro wait until the tmutil command is not running.

Something like this:

For this sort of thing, where it is going to go for a long time, and there is no need for a rapid response at the end, using a While loop with a long pause will cause less CPU/Battery drain than will a Pause Until which will check the continuation at a very high rate, needlessly wasting CPU and battery.

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