10.5: Start Time Machine backups now in Terminal - Mac OS X Hints

10.5: Start Time Machine backups now in Terminal - Mac OS X Hints

Backups every hour are fine, but what if you want to run a backup before taking your laptop somewhere? The following command in Terminal will start a backup immediately:
/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/backupd-helper -auto
The same Resources directory has two interesting .plist files as well. StdExclusions.plist contains a list of all the folders and files that won't be backed up, while System.plist appears to be a list of all the files that are considered part of the standard release of OS X.

The fvimagetool app in that directory is probably the command which builds temporary disk images when you are doing backups over the network, but I haven't investigated that one fully yet.

[robg adds: While it's easy to start a backup now if you're in the GUI (control-click on the Time Machine icon in the dock or sidebar and choose Backup Now), the above may be useful to those who would like to start a backup remotely via ssh, or for use in scripting.]