Run time machine on a low priority

Question

I noticed that every time TimeMachine runs, my mac becomes less responsive. Is it possible to run the time machine process on a lower priority?

Answer 1

You could try navigating to

System -> Library -> LaunchDaemons 

and edit the file below

com.apple.backupd-auto.plist

It would appear from this Apple man page referencing launchd that you could add a key for

LowPriority I/O that may achieve this.

In this same .plist you could also alter the frequency of the backups by changing the value of the Start Interval key :

    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>3600</integer>

The 3600 represents seconds, so increasing this will delay the time between backups.

Having said all that, it's really probably best not too alter the default behavior of Time Machine by editing .plists. It may be best just to turn Time Machine off from its preference panel manually if you think it is going to bog you down. ( And of course remembering to turn it back on when your will leave the machine unattended afterwards. )