Chosen Solution
Good day Have a very interesting issue for today, recently did a time machine backup of a 256GB 2019 TB MacBook Pro 15", the data on the machine was 128GB. Backed up to a 256GB ssd, back up went trough perfectly with no issue. Formatted the machines drive and loaded a fresh OS, this is where the issue comes in as I can’t put the back up back as it is to large for the machine. Going through disk utility the drive is definitely a 256GB and the info that’s on the back is 147GB, but the amount it wants to restore is 1.1TB of data. The file that seems to be house the phantom data is a one drive folder in the library. Question I have is is there a way I can remove this one file then restore, or do I dread restoring to a larger drive, remove the file make a new time machine.
If you’ve been backing up regularly the backup image will grow! As over time you delete and create new files which will expand the backup image. Make sure you are restoring the last backup. If you can, I would create a fresh TimeMachine backup using a fresh drive. I would also use the other sides USB-C ports and cable. I’m suspecting the backup is corrupted. Either within the backup drive, cable or the given ports logic.
