OS X Mavericks :: (10.9.3) Can't Delete Time Machine Backups
Jun 21, 2014
I used Time Machine to backup my laptop (Mavericks OS X 10.9.3) onto an external hard drive. Time Machine created multiple backups over a period of time, and I wanted to delete some of the older ones to free up some space. However, I now have 5 different backups in the trash, and when I attempt to empty the trash (secure empty) the trash window pops up and counts over 200,000 items for deletion, but then disappears and deletes absolutely nothing. Now, the trash is always full when I connect the external drive. I tried to move the backups back onto the external, thinking maybe there were too many files for my Mac to handle, but the computer simply started copying the files instead of transferring them. I don't want to reformat the drive or anything like that because I don't just use it for backups and would lose a TON of other work (music, pics, etc.).Â
How to get the trash to delete these backups? It's not just that the backups won't delete, but I can't delete ANY other files from the external as long as those backups are in the trash.
I did try holding the alt/option key while emptying the trash, but that didn't work at all.
I'm lost in trying to delete the backup directories created by Time Machine. I've moved disks around on my network and TIme Machine doesn't seem to remember that it's backed up a given system to a given disk previously, after moving the disk to a different server. So I'm content to start over and I went to /Volumes/Backupdisk/Backups.backupdb and tried 'sudo rm -rf *' to get rid of the existing backups in preparation to start over. It wouldn't let me remove them getting the error 'Operation not permitted'. I note that 'ls -l' shows a lot of rwxr-xr-x@ with the @ sign at the end and I'm assuming that this is a hard link, but I don't know. I'm also thinking this is why rm won't work - multiple hard links?
I really don't want to re-format the disk. BTW I am currently trying to use Time Machine to delete all the file but that is taking FOR EVER and I'm not sure its actually doing anything. Its been about 30 minutes and there's been not reported increase in disk space. Its like its still preparing to delete.
So I'm in the process of fixing up an old Power Mac Dual G4 MDD for my Dad. I'm installing all the software he'll use, setting all the pref panes, etc... I've turned on Time Machine, and when I give him the computer for Xmas I'd like for there to not be remnants of this setting up process. Right before I shut off the computer for the last time before giving it to him, how would I delete all of the old backups and just leave the "current" backup?
My Time Machine backups are getting rather large and I really don't need backups dating back six months. Is there a way to go in and delete certain dates?
I have an external HD and have botched up all the time machine backups pretty badly. (deleting backups, adding things to the time machine disk not using a TM backup, etc).Â
I just want to delte everything and start over from scratch.Â
There appears to be several threads regarding deleteing Time Machine backups but I can't seem to get the correct answer to delete the entire backup folder (Backups.backupdb). I move the location of my backups files and they are working fine now so I want to delete the folder on the disk it used to backup to. How can I do that? I have everything backedup to the proper disk so I don't need this folder any longer.
Time Machine on my Mac has kept backups of my machine since December of last year. I have no need for that many backups, and they are taking up space on my external HD. Is there a way to have backups older than say, a month deleted automatically?
Is there a way to delete a range of time machine backups, say all dates from the first backup to 1/10/2012 (as an example). I know how to delete a single backup for a given date/time through the TM interface, however, deleting them one-at-a-time is rather laborious and time consuming if I wanted to delete a large number of them to free up space. Is there a way to select a "range" to delete, or am I stuck doing it one backup at a time?
I decided to reinstall Leopard, Erase and Install. Everything runs much faster of course. I'm doing some restoring from my Time Machine HD. I don't want a complete restore, I'm just grabbing folders here and there from my TM HD and restoring it. I'm doing a backup now and so far it has deleted over 20GB of my backups and it doesn't seem to be stopping.
I recent fount necessary to do a complete install and restore. As I was having trouble with system performance, I chose to restore Applications from Time Machine and set the system parameters manually. In the process, I wound up with some very large (50 Gbytes) on my Desktop. I neglected to turn off time Machine backup while doing the restoration and wound up with several big(!) files in the back ups taken during the restoration. There is nothing useful on the backups taken during the restoration and they have really filled up my backup disk. Looking at the structure of the backup disk, it seems you could just delete the backups after I started to restore things. Are there other considerations? Are there hidden tables laying around that might become unsynchronized?
Info: iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)
I keep getting the error saying that my backup will not fit in the backup volume, but shouldn't Time Machine automatically delete old backups to make room for new ones?
I'm trying to get older backups off my Time Machine hard drive but when using the Migration Assistant I only have the option to transfer the "latest backup" to my new iMac. And when I try to drag and drop the iMovie library (which is the only set of files I really want) iMovie on my iMac states I cannot open the library for either permission reasons (the first time I tried it) or because the file does not exist.Â
I recently had the following experience, which is making me thinking about Local Time Machine Backups.Â
I have a MacBook Pro w Mavericks. I recently had an issue on my 40GB iPhoto Library and had to restore a previous version.
Since I was not at home (so without my Time Capsule), I firstly restored a local time machine backup of the previous day, which was created before the issue to my iPhoto Library. The old iPhoto Library was available by surfing on the local TM snapshots, however, after restore, I had the same issue: the library was corrupted. I tried a 2 days before local snapshot, without success.Â
Back home, I did a TM restore by using my Time Capsule TM backups, and the library is fully working, without any issue.Â
Since all the local backup that I tried to restore were related to dates where the iPhoto library was ok, I am wondering if there are any limitations or issues to local time machine backups.Â
Suddenly Time Machine often backups my whole disk. It has happened more than once, but it's not every time. Here is the log for the current and last backup. The last backup was just a few hours ago, and was normal. But then suddenly it insists on backup up everything. Not the first time this happens. And I not done much on the disk.Â
I'm looking for a good, reasonably priced, external disk to temporarily use for Time Machine backups. My 10.9.4 install is messed up and Time Machine no longer works with my ReadyNAS NV+ system. I want to use the disk to backup my MBP and reinstall the OS. suggest a proven external disk (2TB+) with a USB 2.0 (or Ethernet) interface?Â
Info: MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9), 2007 15" Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
I recently did a complete erase of my hard drive and re-installed Mavericks. I chose to start clean rather than use any Time Machine back-ups. I used the same external hard drive for my new Time Machine back-ups. Now I cannot open any back-ups/items prior to the re-install via Time Machine. They are listed along the right hand sidebar in Time Machine (star wars view) but will not open when clicked on.Â
Some files I can access if I go to the actual backup folder - ex a Pages doc BUT ff I try to open the iPhoto library from the back-up folders stored on the external drive, I get the following error message -
I cannot open the iPhoto "package" to access individual photos from these back-ups.Â
So - how can I get Time Machine to allow access to the pre-install back-ups??Â
My time machine backups to an external drive stopped with a message that the backup could not be done because the drive could not be repaired and needed to be reformatted. Prior to reformatting I copied the TM backup file of 250GB to my desktop. My internal drive is 500GB and this only leaves me with 33GB of available space. I then reformatted the drive with the proper OS extended journaled and GUID partition. The external drive is 500GB. When I try to copy the backup file from the desktop to the reformatted drive the process begins normally with the message "preparing to copy files" but as the preparation process reaches 13,000,000 files it stops with the message "there is not enough sufficient space to copy files" even though it never even got to the actual file transfer. I have tried copying the backups in small batches to the new drive but I get an error message that backup files cannot be modified.Â
My Time Machine has been making the usual regular backups for a few months onto my Time Capsule. I just found that all the backups prior to about a week ago have vanished. It's not a disaster (I think) as I assume that the current backups reflect what's on my iMac (I haven't had to delete files from it yet).
Where did they go? Why did they go?
A possible connection: My TC is 500GB; my iMac 1TB. I recently put extra files for temporary use onto the iMac hard drive - Time Machine said (in effect) 'that's too much, try removing certain folders from the backup'. I excluded said folder and things seemed okay, but it would be at around the time I did that that my old backups have gone.
Just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem with the Time Machine. I bought a 500gb Time Capsule last July and it has been running perfectly until a few days agp. I noticed that all my backups were no where to be seen (when entering Time Machine on my MBP) and that it was doing a full backup.. The backup took the guts of 36 hours.
I've come home today to find that all backups are gone again and it is doing another full backup!!!Any ideas what is wrong here?
After carrying out a clean install of Mavericks is it possible to reload certain files such as Music files from the Time Machine back-ups previously created?Â
My 500 GB hard drive is getting full, so I moved my entire ITunes music library (160 GB) to an external hard drive, and then moved the iTunes Media folder to the trash, and deleted it on my Mac. The moved files are playing fine from the external drive.Â
Surprise!
No disc space was freed up at all, because iTunes (I guess) cleverly backed everything up automatically.
I've tried to find these backup files in order to delete them -- to no avail.
I plan to 'clean up' my Time Machine/Time capsule completely, whereby I want to make it impossible for third parties to recover all or part of these old backups.After I have accompished this I want to start from scratch backing up my Mac.
I have an iMac running the latest version of Lion (10.7.4) and which I have upgraded to a one terabyte hard drive and full memory capability. I back up to a My Book 2 terabyte external hard drive using Time Machine. My iMac is often very sticky, though I've done most of the diagnostics I know of and preferences etc. are seemingly all OK and fcuk -fs gives a positive result! The Mac is often hard to wake from sleep and in particular seems to spend a lot of time backing up very-very slowly, with the result that it frustratingly seems to be backing up most of the time with the consequent effects on using other programs. Also the whole thing seems to grind to a halt after a hard days work with quite a few applications open. I'm wondering what can be causing this and what I can do to overcome this very frustrating and debilitating problem?
I've backup my Macbook Air Using time machine before reformat it to have window partition.However, after installing OS Lion 10.7.4, how do I restore back all my application and data on my last backup from time machine?
I bought a 500gb Time Capsule last July and it has been running perfectly until a few days agp. I noticed that all my backups were no where to be seen (when entering Time Machine on my MBP) and that it was doing a full backup.. The backup took the guts of 36 hours. I've come home today to find that all backups are gone again and it is doing another full backup.
