In Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Apple has introduced Time Machine, a very convenient way to make backups.

Unfortunately the backup interval is preset constantly to one hour. Apple uses an launchd daemon to control the timing, but changing the interval value in the launchd.plist file has no effect.

TimeMachineScheduler disables the automatic backup function of Time Machine and installs its own launchd agent. As the agent is located in the main library, the administrator password is required for all (writing) operations.

Except disabling Time Machine no further system files and preferences will be touched by TimeMachineScheduler.

There are (still) some access privileges problems in OS X 10.5 Leopard, if the operation system has been migrated, updated, or installed with the archive & install option. TimeMachineScheduler takes care of all files and sets owner, group and the privileges to the proper default value.

You can install and uninstall the agent as well as only load and unload it to disable making backups temporarily. The interval can be set between 1 and 12 hours, and the agent can be set to run additionally at load, which means also at startup and login. You can press a button to run a backup immediately. The status of the scheduler will be displayed.

During a runnig backup the control elements are disabled. All actions will be written into a log file (~/Library/Logs/TimeMachineScheduler.log).

TimeMachineScheduler is not required to run permanently, the scheduler works self dependent in the background. If you want to revert to the original settings of Time Machine, just uninstall the scheduler and enable Time Machine in its Preference Pane.

For the worst case (which will never happen) an "emergency" uninstaller is included.

Here are some key features of "TimeMachineScheduler":

· Set the interval from 1 to 12 hours.
· Run the backup manually or automatically also at startup, login or when the daemon has been loaded.
· Display the status of the daemon, of the backup volume and if the backup is currently running.
· Automount, an option to mount and unmount the backup volume automatically (see known problems).
· Option to hide the backup volume (to take effect a Finder relaunch is required).