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.
View 14 RepliesI'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?
View 3 Replies View RelatedMy 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?
View 10 Replies View RelatedI 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).
I just want to delte everything and start over from scratch.
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.).
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.
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?
View 1 Replies View RelatedIs 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?
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PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I am trying to delete time machine backups from trash. It doesnt allow me to do this because it says certains things are running?
Info:
imac
time machine backups won't delete from my trash can
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iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.2), Ipads, Macbook Pro, Iphones
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.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI 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?
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iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)
i have a macbook with an internal drive of which about 230gb if full and used.
I have a 250gb external which i have been using to back up with time machine, done it several times over a few months.
Now there is like 70gb left on the external, and when i try to back up, it says failed, not enough space on external.
But i thought when there is not enough space, it simply deletes and backs over older time machine backups.
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?
Hardware:
2.2 MBP 10.5.7 (120 GB internal HD)
120 GB External HD (USB)
I just switched from hdd to ssd and i want to resume my Timechine backups, but it says that I have incorrect date and time set in my mac.
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MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
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?
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iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.2)
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?
Info:MacBook Air
I have recently connected a NAS and have attemted to use Time Machine as a backup and have been met with failure. I have attempted most things in the forums to no avail. I have also transferred about 700gb from another mac to the NAS with no problem. Here is the syslog:
Feb 19 12:15:47 Office-Mac com.apple.backupd[1154] <Notice>: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://admin@192.168.17.107/Mac%20Time%20Capsule
Feb 19 12:15:49 Office-Mac com.apple.backupd[1154] <Error>: NAConnectToServerSync failed with error: 2 for url: afp://admin@192.168.17.107/Mac%20Time%20Capsule
[code]...
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Imac, Mac OS X (10.5.6), 4g Ram
My new MacBook Air running latest as of today Lion seems to do full backups way more often than I'd like. Just this morning it finished up a full back up, then I noticed it did a small incremental. Now it is doing another full back up for no apparent good reason. I have not made any significant changes to the system at all. I'm backing up to an external drive that is attached to my AE. How to reduce the amount of Fulls it does because each day seems it does a couple.
View 14 Replies View RelatedI'm having a strange problem with Time Machine. Any backup older than 1 week seems to go missing when viewed from Time Machine. Time Machine preferences shows my oldest backup as February 13th, 2012. But, when I enter Time Machine only entries back to March 14th, 2012 are shown. When I use "sudo tmutil listbackups" all my backups are shown including the one from February 13th. Why aren't they showing up in Time Machine? The disk still has 89 GB available and I can see that the log is adding incremental backups and deleting old ones from February that are no longer useful (daily-backups removed so that only weekly ones are visible).
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MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3), Time Machine
I have a 1 TB external hard drive that I've been using as a time machine drive & also as a place to put random files i dont need on my computer and its starting to get very full. Most of whats on there is old backups from the past year & 1/2 that I have no use for anymore. is there a way to delete all of the backups that are on there right now without deleting the other files I've put on there. I have a bunch of projects and files on there that I cant put anywhere else and just format the drive. Basically, i need a way to delete all of my time machine backups off my external hd without deleting all my other files on there.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI just bought my time capsule. It works doing backups manually but the button is in 'on' and the next backup field always says 'automatic backups off'.
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MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)
I installed Snow Leopard, upgraded it to OS X 10.6.8, paid for and spent the hours necessary to download Lion, but Lion will not install. Even though it says the requirements are 10.6.6 or greater, when I try to install, I get a message saying I need 10.7. to install Lion.
Info:iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
There is possible to lock down a generation of my time machine backups?I want to lock permanently a version of my backups using Time Machine. I can copy to another disk but, I want to know if there some kind of configuration available using Time Machine to configure for not delete from my disk?
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MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Time Machine
I had a Mac from 2006. Bought a new one in 2011. I have a time machine back up from my old mac.. This HD was damaged in 2010 and recently repaired. I bought a new HD and used it with time machine on my new mac. I am looking for something on my old Time Machine... Specifically iTunes playlists.. They are very difficult to find by just searching through the back up folder.. What I want to do is, enter the old time machine on my old HD and export some of the iTunes playlists to my new HD. Then of course go back to my current time machine back up and continue using my computer... Can I do this? and Can I have both Time machine devices connected to the computer at the same time?
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MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
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.
I use Time Machine to wirelessly backup my MBA to a Buffalo NAS. It will work fine for weeks or months, then I will see the dreaded "Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.” error. Of course this means I lose all my backups.I have researched this pretty thoroughly and I know that using TM with a NAS has some risk. But I am hoping to not have to resort to dragging out a USB drive everytime (daily) I want to do a backup.Can anyone share sucess stories of how they make TM work reliably with a NAS? Is it a Buffalo problem and a different NAS works better?
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iPad 2, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
Time Machine is not working correctly since installing Lion. I found (from using Adobe Bridge) that there seem to be automatic back ups being made 20 times a day and onto my hard drive! Usually I back up to an external drive specifically for back up using Time Machine. Now time machine takes several hours to back up when I have that disk wired in (with USB) and the Time Machine icon in the Apple menu is always showing that the back up is delayed.
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MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
How can I show invisble items on //Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb? I've backed //Lion/ Users/User/ Library , but when i checked the backed folder, i could not find it.
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MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.3), RAM: 4GB
I have an iBook G4 running 10.5.8 and a new iMac running Lion. Migration assistant will not accept Timemachine backups. I can't upgrade the OS on the iBook anymore. I only want to move my music, photos and documents.Can I do this by Firewire?
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