Deleting files from macbook after time machine back up

My macbook's hard drive is almost full so I bought an external hard drive. I used the time machine to back up my hard drive. My intention was to delete some files (photos, video and music) from my macbook to free up space but I read from the FAQs that I am not supposed to do that. How then can I free up space on my macbook's hard drive?
Thanks.

You can delete files from your hard drive to free up space, but within the month those files will also be removed from your TM backup. If you want to save the files you would delete, then you need to save them in some other free storage space, but do not use TM. TM's backups are dynamic and change with the changes on your hard drive. They are not a substitute for permanent storage space.
You might consider partitioning the backup drive and using one of the partitions for TM and the other for permanent storage. Be clear that you should allocate about twice the capacity of your hard drive to the TM partition.

Similar Messages

Having trouble restoring old files from an external Time Machine back-up to a new internal hard drive...HELP!

O.k. So my main hard drive died on my iMac and I had to replace it. I have my old system backed up on my external with Time Machine. How do I access it to get my old files back on my new hard drive? I have read multiple forums and I have yet to find a solution. I was told that when I first turn the computer on and get to the third screen, it would ask me if I wanted to restore from a previous back-up. It did but it didn't show my external until I went through the set-up and got to my home screen. The drive showed then. It also asked to install updates...and I did. So everything is up to date. I have not turned time machine on yet because I'm affraid that if I do, it will erase my old back-up on my external. I tried using the Migration Assistant in Utilities and all I get is the spinning wheel when I tried to get that to work. So now I am here asking for help. I'm not very hopeful that I'm going to be able to get all of my old files back... Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for the video link. I did it pretty much exactly the way the young man explained. The one thing I didn't do was click "customize" as he does and unclick the multiple language support and he also clicks "rosetta" to support older programs. I wonder if that's the issue? The guys at Macmall told me that I would need to update the o.s. before I restored. I did that originally but have since (as mentioned before) erased the main drive. I noticed that when he does his install, his external drive does not show up on the list in which you want to install the o.s. on... should I unplug my external? I'm just trying to look at ever detail. I know the recovery file is there. The one thing it (the external) did say before I started posting here was "in progress". I'm not sure what that means? I promise I'm not an idiot. I consider myself an above average user. I usually help other that have issues... but I've yet to restore from a Time Machine back-up and I'm looking forward to learning how to do it.... the right way. I appreciate all of the advice. I have some pretty important files on my external back-up. I am really hoping that this is possible. I'm beginning to think the external is where the issue lies. The "in progress" next to the file name concerns me. I know there's a lot of data on the drive because it's nearly half full. So there's stuff there....
Deep breath in...... reeee laaaaaaaxxxx

After Time Machine backs up my file vault files (after logging out), when I next log into the user account it beachballs permanently during log in.

After Time Machine backs up my file vault files (after logging out), when I next log into the user account it beachballs permanently during log in. The backup was successful, as I had to restore after this issue last time. Hard resetting doesn't resolve the issue. Is there a Time Machine setting that I should be aware of?
I have 2011 13" MBP, 10.6.8 and use an external hard drive connected via USB for my Time Machine backups.
Thanks

I was able to get it to work. Thanks for your help. It's unfortunate the two applications do not work well together. This is what I did:
1) Safe boot and logged into the affected user (since the whole issue damaged the account's system settings).
2) Turned off File Vault in System Preferences. I needed to make some space on the hard drive first since apparently the total free space on the hard drive has to equal or exceed the amount of data currently in the file vault. I deleted some files and moved others to the Admin account. This whole process took awhile.
3) Finally, just restarted and logged in. The next time machine backup seems to be a significant backup, I assume because it's backing up the user account in a different way now that File Vault is turned off.
Thanks again!

Deleted files in HD and Time machine

I use the time machine with my laptop. Recently I ran out of memory and my question is if I delete files (photos and videos) from its HD would I loose these files when Time machine backs up my laptop in the future??? Thank you.

anofelino wrote:
my question is if I delete files (photos and videos) from its HD would I loose these files when Time machine backs up my laptop in the future???
yes.
if you remove files from your HD, time machine ill eventually remove them from your backup drive.
instead, get an external HD and move the photos/videos there. you can have time machine backup the files on the external if it is connected directly to your Mac.
JGG

Retriving data from an incomplete time machine back up

Hi,
I have an incomplete time machine back up. Can I retrieve data from it?
Thanks,
v8r.

v8r wrote:
It was my first time machine back up. Mid way I felt that it is stuck so I powered down my mac book pro. Now its not booting. I gave the details in a simultaneous thread "Gray screen, spinning cog and midway to first back up of time machine". I am assuming that if I have lost all the data on my harddrive, can I at least get some from the incomplete time machine back up.
well, it might be possible but it won't be in any form that you can retrieve automatically. so your first priority should be to get your computer to boot and after what you can start worrying about getting your data from an incomplete TM backup. I've done that it the past and it works sometimes but it really depends on the situation. I had to do it from terminal too as it didn't work from finder.
but it need not be that you lost all data on the main drive. boot from the SL install dvd and see if disk utility sees the drive. if so, repair the drive and try booting from it. if you have disk warrior it might help too if disk utility can not fix some errors.
Thanks,
v8r.

Setting Up a New Mac From Two Different Time Machine Back-ups?

Greetings Apple People,
I am planning on getting a new iMac. Right now my wife I are still using our separate MacBooks from college. Both of them have Time Machine back-ups. We would like to setup our new iMac to have two different users. Is it possible to setup each of the users on the new iMac from our respective Time Machine back-ups?
I know you can do this seamlessly with one Time Machine back-up, but can you do it from two different back-ups, essentially merging the two, while keeping the separate user profiles?
Thanks!

Follow the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide using one computer as the source on first boot. Then, hook up the second computer and use the Migration Assistant to transfer the second user account and nothing else. Don't use the TM backup because it's much slower doing it that way than directly from each machine.
27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Yo (10.10), Mavs, ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/10.5 & 9.2.2

Restore Files From an Old Time Machine Disk

Please forgive and send me a link if someone has already answered this but I need to restore files from an old Time Machine Volume to my current desktop.
How do I do this?

control-click on TM in the dock and choose "browse other TM disks". choose your old TM backup to browse and restore what you need. also, you can always open your TM drive in finder and copy what you need directly via finder.

Access individual files on old Mac time machine back up from new Mac

Hi
I have a never Mac Book Pro with 10.9.1 I am using now. I have a old time machine on a external drive that was made with a old Mac Pro The time machine back up is over 15 TB and I no longer own the Mac Pro used to make the time machine backups. I want to access the old time machine back up and copy over a only a few files I need about 500. I cannot use migration assistant because I cannot move the entire back up as the entire back is too big.
Thanks

right click on the folder that shows with the red negative sign, and select to "get info". In the long skinny window that appears, look in the "sharing and permissions" section. In the "name" column, you should see your current user name. Ensure the "privilege" is set to Read and Write. If your user name is not in the name column, click the + sign, and add it, ensuring the privileges are set to Read and Write

I can't access my files on my old Time Machine back up on my newer iMac

Okay, so I’m in a bit of a mess here.
I did have an old Macbook running on Snow Leopard 10.6.8 which died on me.
Luckily I managed to get a few Time Machine Back Ups before I passed away . These back ups are
saved on a non-Apple external HD.
I recently inherited an iMac ( from 2009) which was also
running on Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I got very excited and hastily up graded the OS
to Yosemite.
This iMac belonged to a friend, and I did not have the Snow
Leopard disc to perform a factory restore so I decided to simple delete their
account (System Admin account) from the iMac and keep the account they made for
me with the intentions of making that the main account.
After upgrading to Yosemite and deleting the System Admin account and making
myself the main account holder on the iMac I tried to access my files on my
external HD to manually move them onto the new iMac ( such as my photos,
videos, music, logic files, documents etc).
This is where I encountered my problem. I can no longer
access my folders on my external HD. It tells me I do not have permission to do
so, with a little red stop sign on front of all of these folders and files.
Is there any way I can fix this without having to buy a Snow Leopard disc? AND
IF I do perform a factory restore will my files in my HD still be locked?
Thank you in advance.

I managed to get a few Time Machine Back Ups before I passed away
I'm not sure whether a ghost can do this, but if you were still alive, you could do as follows.
First make sure you have read & write access to the folder you're trying to restore to. You should be able to see its contents in the Finder, and to move files in and out of it.
This is an exception to the rule that you should never make any changes to backup data. I've tested this procedure in OS X 10.8 only. It should work with later versions, but I don't know whether it works in earlier versions. Use it only for files that were backed up from your home folder, or a folder on another volume created by you, and would normally be writable by you. Do not touch backups of system or application files.
In the Finder (not in the time-travel view), navigate to the backup volume, then to the folder named "Backups.backupdb", and then to the snapshot you want to restore from. The snapshots are folders labeled with the date when they were created. Inside each of those folders is a file hierarchy like the one on the volume that was backed up. Descend through the hierarchy until you come to a folder named "Users," and inside that, a folder with your user name. The procedure will be different if you're trying to restore files on another volume.
Select the folder and open the Info dialog (command-I). Click the padlock icon in the lower right corner of the window and authenticate. In the Sharing & Permissions section, give your account Read & Write access. You may have to close the dialog and repeat this step in order for the change to show up. Then click the gear icon and select
Apply to Enclosed Items
from the popup menu.
Try the restore operation again, in the time-travel interface.

Can I delete files on Macbook after using TM?

I just used TM for first time. I need to free up HD space on Macbook before I run out. Do I need to move files to external or can I delete them after using TM? Do not want to loose the data that I have.

Apple says that the Time Machine volume can share space with other files but recommends that Time Machine have its own volume. If you put the files on the same volume as Time Machine you could not use Time Machine to back them up. Also, 160GB is on the smallish side for a Time Machine volume so taking up space for extra files will mean that you will run out of space for backups more quickly.
External drives can be bought for less than what Leopard costs and extra storage is always a worthwhile investment.

Recovering a specific folder after time machine back up

Hey there,
im having lots of problems with my macbook pro retina 15 from last year.
to try to fix problems with the battery not lasting even 3h, the apple care ask me to format my computer.
I tried to do so without success, as i could not download the software due to my horrible conection.
anyway, i had to work the next day so i restored my Time machine i did the same day.
Today i realized that im missing a folder ( hopefully not any others ) and im afraid i may have told my time machine to exclude that folder from my backups long time ago because i had a small hard drive.
My question is, is it possible to restore a specific folder with any tools ?
thanks,.

Whoa.
If you delete the files from your Mac.....you only have one version of them on the WD drive.
What will happen when....not if....the WD drive has a problem?
Only the most foolhardy of users would ever consider keeping only one version of their important files.
My advice, if you decide to do this anyway, would be to only delete files from your Mac that you can afford to lose.
Another thought might be that Time Machine backs up the changes on your Mac. When Time Machine starts needing more space, it will pick up the fact that you deleted the original files from your Mac.....and it will delete them from your backups. You will not know when this will occur.
Bottom line....to be safe, you need at least one version of your important data on two separate drives. When one fails, you at least have the other.

Lion has deleted all my emails and Time Machine back ups !

Help !
I had the very bad idea of installing Lion :
- first consequence : it deleted all my emails
at this point I was a bit disappointed but of course I had a back up of my emails via all the saveguards done automatically on my Time Capsule via Time Machine, so I decided to go there to get back my emails...
but ahhhhhh
- second Lion effect : it had deleted all my saveguards in my Time Capsule !!!!
I called Apple technical support :
they are very sorry but indeed Lion deleted my emails, and sorry again it has screwed my Time Machine, technically they have no solution !
Does anyone hat the same issues ? or had better technical support ?

Arrhhhg, no idea on contacts, but might try some recovery SW...
Data Rescue II...
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
This one would require another HD with plenty of space to recover to.
You should use another Boot Disk or other Mac with this one in Target mode to do the recovery.
They have a free demo to see what it could recover.
rccharles on file recovery...
"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."
They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...
http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm
FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:
    * been accidentally deleted.
    * become unreadable due to media faults.
    * been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1

After time machine back up

I am using the WD passport for mac, and I need to know if it is safe to delete files from my Macintosh hd once it is on my time machine?

Whoa.
If you delete the files from your Mac.....you only have one version of them on the WD drive.
What will happen when....not if....the WD drive has a problem?
Only the most foolhardy of users would ever consider keeping only one version of their important files.
My advice, if you decide to do this anyway, would be to only delete files from your Mac that you can afford to lose.
Another thought might be that Time Machine backs up the changes on your Mac. When Time Machine starts needing more space, it will pick up the fact that you deleted the original files from your Mac.....and it will delete them from your backups. You will not know when this will occur.
Bottom line....to be safe, you need at least one version of your important data on two separate drives. When one fails, you at least have the other.

Restoring selected files from a networked Time Machine backup

My wife's laptop logic board failed 2 days ago. It is backed up over our home network to a separate partition on a second hard drive in my MacPro. I'm trying to recover a few specific files from the day the machine failed.
When I try to mount her sparsebundle image, I get a message that the image could not be mounted "Reason -- not recognized".
Disk Utility claims the sparsebundle appears to be okay.
Using "Browse Other Time Machine Disks..." only shows the partition on the backup disk associated with my machine's backups.
Suggestions?

I have found a way around the issue. My wife's user account on my machine is set up as Sharing Only (just so her Time Machine can write files to the backup drive). So I went to my daughter's machine, turned off her TM, disconnected daughter's machine from mine, and then reconnected from daughter's machine as my wife's username. Then I could mount my wife's sparsebundle on my daughter's machine.
DR

Cannot find deleted photos from iPhoto in time machine!

Help wanted, I am unable to recover lost photos from iPhoto in Time machine.
I can find lost documents OK, but nothing from iPhoto 08.-Chatch

Hi Larry, they were in trash, but I deleted trash because I thought that time machine went back in time and found them from an earlier date? Is this not so?-Chatch

Deleting files from macbook after time machine back up

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for