What is backupd (Time Machine) on Mac?
By Junaid, maker of Taskglass · Last reviewed
Runs Time Machine backups and manages your backup history.
backupd is the Time Machine backup daemon. It creates your backups, usually every hour when the backup disk is available, and manages old backups. It can use noticeable CPU and disk while backing up, especially the first backup, which copies everything and can take many hours.
- Category
- Apple service
- Made by
- Apple
- Safe to quit:
- With care
Shown in Activity Monitor as backupd, backupd-helper
Why is backupd (Time Machine) using so much CPU or memory?
- The first backup to a new disk
- Lots of changed files since the last backup
- Backing up over a network to a slow drive
- Verifying or cleaning up old backups
What to do
- 1Let the backup finish; check progress in System Settings > General > Time Machine
- 2Exclude large folders you don't need backed up (VMs, caches, downloads) in Time Machine Options
- 3Keep the Mac plugged in and connected to the backup disk
- 4Restart your Mac if a backup seems stuck
Safe to quit? With care.
Quitting interrupts the current backup; skip a backup properly from the Time Machine menu instead.
Related guides
Related processes
Part of the Taskglass Process Library