Safe to delete old Time Machine Backups??

I've been using the same HD for backups. During that time I have changed computers. The first computer backed up as Bill's MacBook Pro; then the second backed up as Bob's MacBook Pro. Now I have two separate sets of backups and am running out of disk space.
I just want to delete the Bill's MBP backups. I really don't need them anymore. Is there any downside to doing this that I don't see? I am assuming that the two sets are totally independent of each other and deleting one won't affect the other.
Many thanks for any input.

CalChloe wrote:
I like your idea of erasing the drive and starting over again. However, when I try to do that (go to Disk Utility and choose "Erase"), I get an error message:
Do you have any other Volumes on that drive?
If not (i.e. you only have one-partition), then try to re-partition
(All data in the drive will be erased)

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Deleting OLD Time Machine backups

I am working on a 21.5 inch iMac, mid 2010 running Yosemite.
My Time Machine kept telling me it didn't have enough memory to back up even though I had just wiped the hard drive and reinstalled from my latest backup. So I looked at the back ups in finder and it looks like there are a TON of back ups from about 5 years ago. I think that when I got this computer and migrated from my OLD mac, the old back ups came along with the migration and were put in a separate file rather than the Time Machine picking up with those back ups. Regardless, they are irrelevant now and just clogging up space in my Time Machine partition. Can I just manually delete them? I know you generally shouldn't just go in and manually delete back ups. I would like to get rid of them because I think they are eating about 400 GB of space!!
I've been using mac for years (obviously) but I'm kind of a plug and play kind of person so please forgive me if this is a silly question.
TIA!!
3.06 GHz Intel Core i3
8GB 1333 MHz DDR3

After further internet digging I realized that I need to trash each one individually out of finder and then just safe empty the trash. It was really time consuming but did the trick.
Thank you!

Need to delete old time machine backups from a external drive

was using a 500 gb external drive for time machine so when i upgraded to time capsule 2 tb i just started all over basically. i have these back ups abd videos i wanted to delete from the toshiba dr but appear and attempt to erase securely everytime i need to connect the toshiba to my mac to transfer stuff. i want to use this disk with whats on there like videos and music but i cant seem to figure out how to delete these backups...

Don't try to transfer any old backups to your new TC TM backup drive. Just create a new complete backup. I hope you aren't someone that is trying to store files in a TM backup that you have deleted from your internal hard drive. That is not what TM is for and eventually those deleted files will be removed/deleted from the TM backups.

Can i just delete OLD time machine backups?

I went to the BAckup directory because I keep getting this annoying window that time machine has run out of space.....It is 1 TB and my HD is 500gb and i am using about 400gb....roughly.
i think I see 2 backup ups from June 9th.
How can I change the setting on length of time TM keeps backups?

vdotmatrix wrote:
How can I change the setting on length of time TM keeps backups?
There is no such option. Time Machine keeps backups for as long as there's room on the backup disk, then deletes the oldest one(s) to make room for new ones.
It is 1 TB and my HD is 500gb and i am using about 400gb....roughly.
Which message are you getting? There's one that's just letting you know it deleted some old backups:
That's not really a problem -- it just means Time Machine is doing it's job of cleaning up old backups for you, so there's room for new ones. If you don't want to see it anymore, just click the box on the message.
But if the backups are actually failing, with a message like this;
Then something doesn't add up -- if you're backing-up 400 GB to a 1 TB drive, there should always be enough room, unless you have (lots of) other stuff on the same drive.
See #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for details on those messages.
If those June backups are really the only ones left, it sounds like your backups have been failing for a long time (or you haven't done any). If so, your best bet is probably to erase the backups and let Time Machine start fresh. Then keep an eye on it -- if backups fail, or don't complete, investigate sooner rather than later. If you get an error message, see Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If you're backing-up to an external HD, just erase it with Disk Utility (see #2 in Using Disk Utility if you don't know how to do that).
If you're backing-up to a Time Capsule, erase it via Airport Utility (per the green box in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule.
If you do have other data on the drive, roughly how much is there, and what sort of data is it?

Can I manually delete old Time Machine backups?

I've got a 1TB ext. HD that has 950GB of TM backups on it from my Mac Pro. The Pro has to go in for repairs so I'm using my Macbook Pro. Can I (& HOW) remove some of the older backups from the drive to make room for things off the Macbook Pro?

Of course. To do it, open Finder and choose the Time Machine drive in the Finder sidebar, under "Devices". Then, open the "Backups.backupdb" folder, open the folder with your MacBook Pro's name and delete the old backups. You can delete as many as you need.
Then, you have to create a volume in the external drive, as you can't use the Time Machine volume to store other data or you might damage the Time Machine structure. See > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU3.html

Delete old time machine backups?

I know that once a time machine disk fills up, it will delete an older backup. But is there any way to do this manually?
I recently learned that Time Machine has been backing up my entire Parallels virtual machine every night (50GB), because I didn't have the settings configured correctly in Parallels. I want to go back and delete a lot of those 50GB days when it backed up.
I know how to delete a particular file from a specific backup day, and maybe I can do that, but I was wondering how to delete entire backups the way that Time Machine does when it is full?
Thanks
Bob

Ah, nevermind, I just went and deleted all backups of the virtual machine. Went from 3TB drive totally full to having 2.4 TB free!
Bob

HELP:: Accidentally deleted Old Time Machine Backup!

I was trying to free up some space on my external HD, and deleted a prior backup - assuming that the one called "Latest" was the backup I wanted.
When I deleted the backup named "01/11/09" - it actually appears to have deleted the contents of any/all of my backups!
What I'm worried about - is that before I realized this - I emptied the trash, and restarted the computer.
This is critical stuff that is from a previous computer that I just sold when I upgraded. Years worth of files and photos.
Any help is much appreciated.

First, you should never delete any backups from finder. if you have to do it it should only be done from TM interface. since you've emptied trash your ONLY hope now is using data recovery software like Filesalvage or Data Rescue II. you should turn off TM and use one of those programs asap to maximize recovery chances.
Also, you should never use TM as an archiving utility to store files. It is a backup tool not an archiving tool. old backups are constantly thinned and eventually recycled without warning.
If you need to store some data permanently keep it on a separate drive.

Can't get old time machine backups to delete from the trash can

time machine backups won't delete from my trash can

You shouldn't be deleting old Tima Machine backups. When TM runs out of space it automatically deletes the oldest backups to make rioom for the new
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

I am trying to delete a Time Machine backup from a Time Capsule.

I am trying to delete a Time Machine backup from a Time Capsule. The file is about 400GB and my MacBook has been trying to delete it for 5h now. It still says "deleting" but has not given me a "time remaining" yet. Any idea of what I could do????

You should not attempt to delete backups using the Finder. The result can be a corrupted backup.
I recommend you let it complete, no matter how long it takes. That could be days, if your TC is connected via wireless.
It is not necessary to delete backups, since Time Machine will delete old backups some time after they have been deleted from your source volume. For more information read Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini's explanation here: Should I delete old backups? If so, How?

Old Time Machine Backup

OK this is complex so hope u can bear with me...
I backed up my computer with Time Machine running lion, or maybe snow leapord.
Now I have a new computer and the old one is gone, and it's running Mountain Lion.
I'm just trying to get my old data back, but when I go to "browse other time machine backups" my old backup does not appear in the list.
I've taken this disk to other computers before and accessed my old TM backup, I dunno why it's not working now.
Migration Assistant I learned does work, however there are a few problems with that...
First: Migration assistant did not copy my old iWeb site domain file to my new computer, so I'm hoping its still in there somewhere, becuase iCloud deleted my mobile me site by now.
I also clicked every option therefore now I have two accounts. I DO NOT WANT TWO ACCOUNTS. I have now one with the old time machine backup restore, and one with the new computer account. I want one account, I don't want to have to relogin to have to check my old email box. Not only that the directories of one account are locked an not accessible by another... not good.
Finnaly Time Machine just popped-up a window asking if I should "integrate" old time machine backups into this computer backup, saying that if I did this the old computer would not be synced with this new time machine backup. Since I don't have the old comptuter that should be fine. However I'm still hoping to find my old website on that disk somewhere, perhaps in a earlier version of the TM backup.
If I do this "integration" will I be able to now browse my old time machine disk as I was able to before and on other computer's which run lion?
Thanks.

OK it's actually called "inherit" it says:
Would you like this computer to inherit the backup history from "XX" on "X" backup disk?
3 options
don't back up now, Create new backup, Inherit backup history
If I click inherit backup history... it will backup my new disk... and hopefully allow me to accesss the older one like i've been trying to do all along...

Defrag an old Time Machine backup to save space for archiving?

I'm aware of all the reasons not to defragment an OSX volume, as well as Time Machine volumes, but hear me out on this one...
I bought a new iMac and will be starting a brand new Time Machine backup. I would like to keep the old Time Machine backup around just in case I need access to some old files. I will not be adding anything further to this old backup, and I will not be using this old backup to restore any system. I will only be browsing and restoring files from this backup, but only rarely. I have removed (via the Time Machine interface's "Delete all backups of...") a number of large files and unecessary directories to reduce the backup size. I then ran the hdiutil compact command to reclaim free space from the sparsebundle.
I read, however, that the hdiutil compact command will only delete unused bands of the sparsebundle, and that defragmenting the contents of a sparsebundle will likely produce more "empty" bands that can be removed with another run of compact to further free up space.
Will it be okay to defragment the sparsebundle under these circumstances?

I've looked over Pondini's site and it's an awesome resource. I've learned a lot from it over the years. But my specific question isn't answered there.
The Time Machine software is complex and I understand that there's a lot of things to know to keep it running smoothly. However, my particular situation isn't commonly discussed. In scenarios not involving Time Machine, defragging a sparsebundle before running hdiutil compact is known to help free up more disk space by creating more unused bands within the sparsebundle that can be removed by compact. Makes sense. Why would this affect Time Machine's process? And could it be that it won't cause a problem for a sparsebundle that will only be used to browse and restore files? ... As opposed to a sparsebundle that one intends to continue backing up to? Are there defregmenting options that I should avoid, or be sure to use?

Can't Completely Delete a Time Machine Backup

How do I completely delete a Time Machine Backup? In Snow Lepord I had no problem with deleting a Time Machine Backup. I back up my HHD on a external HHD. Since using Time Machine with Lion the back ups are not being fully deleted. My trash can each time I connect my external HHD is displaying deleted files. When I go to delete from trash I am told there are locked items. So I select the option to delete locked items, hear the deleted trash can sound but the trash can still indicates the files haven't been perminetly deleted yet. What is my problem here?

hopesdead wrote:
None of that worked. I used the Terminal method. No good.
What does "no good" mean? What happened, or didn't happen? That should empty the trash on the disk. As mentioned, it may take a long time, if there's lots of files there.
Repairing will be no good to be cause my external HD contains everything on one partition. The backups are not on there own partition like that site assumes. Repairing did no good.
Do you mean you didn't try it? If so, try it. It may or may not be able to repair them, but it's worth a try.

Is there a way to get my photos off an old time machine backup from an external hard drive?

Is there a way to get my photos off an old time machine backup from an external hard drive?

You will have to connect the Time Machine HDD and click on the Icon. You will see one folder called Backups.backupdb. Click on that and you will have to continue until you find the home folder. The iPhoto library (where the pictures are, not the application) will probably be in your pictures folder. You will have to drag that to your desk top. Then you will have access to individual images.
Ciao.

I accidentally deleted my time machine backup

I accidentally deleted my time machine backup file (I only had made one). Can anyone tell me how do I recover it? I don´t see it in my time machine travel window

Data Recovery from time machine is something tough job even the best data recovery software can not do so because the complex structue in time machine is not understood by any data recovery software which Apple uses. Time Machine puts your backup in a sparse bundle disk image (backups.backupdb). However you can try some data recovery software which may recover someting from your trash. There are software having demo version which can show you the recovered files on preview if you found any of your important file then there is a good chance to recover your data and your good Luck..REMEMBER FIRST TRY THEN BUY

Help. I hit 'Restore All' in an old Time Machine backup

I fully realize I made a terrible mistake. I had an iphoto library on my imac that i haven't backed up at all. I was playing around with an old time machine backup and i pressed restore all thinking it would warn me that i was going to overwrite my existing library. well, now i have lost a years worth of photos without having backed them up. my question is, is there anyway to retrieve them? the trash holds nothing. there is no backup save my iphone. when i hook that up it only shows 2 photos. hide already imported photos is NOT checked. i imagine i can pull them off. i'm wondering if they will be the full resolution however. i would like to UNDO the restore first if there is a way. if not i guess i have to do it with the iphone which i'm not sure if it had all the photos from my previous library anyways. please advise and i will love you forever.
mark

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. About the only recourse is to use a file recovery application like SubrosaSoft FileSalvage. You can run it in demo mode to verify that you can recover the photos you want before you have to pay for it.
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto (iPhoto.Library for iPhoto 5 and earlier) database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've created an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger or later), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 6 and 7 libraries and Tiger and Leopard. Just put the application in the Dock and click on it whenever you want to backup the dB file. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.
Note: There's now an Automator backup application for iPhoto 5 that will work with Tiger or Leopard.

Safe to delete old Time Machine Backups??

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