Time Machine is the reason I recommend macOS for regular users. It’s quick. It’s simple. It’s set and forget. But there also comes a point where your Time Machine destination, be it remote or local, needs pruning. The cleanest solution without additional tools is to create another destination on a regular basis, perhaps with every new machine. However, keeping two independent destinations comes at the cost of double the initial commit.

Time Machine Cleanup is a freely available tool that does exactly what the name implies — cleans up the oldest Time Machine snapshots to make room for the new. It even offers a TUI.

Full disclosure, I have not run the script myself yet, let alone on a remote sparsebundle. Automatic pruning exists natively, but Time Machine is known to cause issues over the network, hence why I am introducing a tool. Time Machine, if I understand it correctly, was originally designed to back up to an external drive, not over the network.

Time Machine is not exactly a well-maintained feature on macOS. It is a significantly different approach than what iOS has been offering thus far: a clean backup solution to iCloud. Yes, one is entirely proprietary without alternatives, while Time Machine leaves some doors open. But Time Capsule, an Apple-branded router for Time Machine, has been discontinued for ages. Neither the protocol nor the program has seen major improvement since APFS support. macOS Golden Gate will remove support for AFP. Hopefully a signal for something.