Deleting Old Time Machine Back ups

I regularly back up my system ( every couple of weeks! ) and data to an external 2TB drive however I only really need a copy of recent state of system and data. Will it be good practice to enter time machine and go back to the old back ups and delete so that only recent backs up are maintained on drive. This would also free up space on my external drive? I just want to ensure deleting old back ups does not harm the integrity of the data.
Also i wanted to ascertain if it is possible to use time machine drive in another mac and simply drag and drop files from the latest back up onto this other computer?

DO NOT manually adjust Time Machine Backups. That can cause you to lose the integrity of the Backup database.
Time Machine deletes portions of older backups when space starts to get scarce. It carefully computes what files must continue to be saved and ensures it has a copy of those files, never deleting the last copy as long as the original is still present.
If you would like to understand better how it does this, there is an excellent Multi-page description or how it works written by the late James Pond on his site:
How Time Machine Works its Magic
NB> When you have read the first page, click the Next link at the bottom of the page for more -- the detailed description continues on several more pages.
It is inadvisable to keep other files on a Time Machine drive. If you want to maintain your Backups manually, I strongly recommend you use a different Backup method. Buy yourself an additional drive -- they are cheap.
The BIG advantage to Time Machine is that it is the Backup that actually happens, automatically and in the Background without interfering with your work. Other Backup schemes can be MUCH more clever, but they have the tragic flaw that you need to remember to do them.

Similar Messages

How do you delete old time machine back ups?

I have a 2009 iMac (currently on Snow Leopard) that has been using Time Machine (TM) to back up to a 2009 Time Capsule (TC) since new. I have a 2011 Macbook Pro (currently on Snow Leopard soon to be Lion) that I would like to begin backing up using TM to the TC as well. The problem is that I recently did one back up of the MBP to the TC and it used almost all of the remaining space on the TC. Going forward the iMac has continued to back up to the TC creating space by deleting it's oldest back ups. The MBP however says there is not enough space to back it up. I am guessing that the TM for the MBP is unable to delete old back ups of the iMac to create space and since there is only 1 back up of the MBP it cannot delete that.
So... long story short is it okay for me to go into the TC to delete old back ups of the iMac manually and if it is how do I do that?
Thanks for your help in advance
djbrown

Is this more what you mean?
Re: Can not delete sparsebundle backup
Nov 17, 2009 8:30 PM (in response to Ricardo Blach)
+What I really need is to delete the old sparsebundle from the TC. How can I do that?+
Open your Hard Drive and look for the Time Capsule icon under the SHARED heading. Click the TC icon and a folder will appear to the right. Double click this folder.
You should now see a xxxxx.sparsebundle file for each of the computers that have been backing up. The file contains the name of the computer and the MAC address so you should be able to easily identify the xxxxx.sparsebundle file that you want to delete.
Click the xxxxx.sparsebundle file to highlight it and then click the gear shaped icon just above and select Move to Trash.
Be very careful since you will not be able to retrieve the file if you make a mistake and delete the wrong file.
That comes from https://discussions.apple.com/message/10595875#10595875
...and no, I don't think I'm related to that Dave Bean.
david

Can I safely delete old Time Machine back ups?

I use a 1TB external drive for Time Machine but it's nearly full. There are 43 different back ups on the drive, can I safely delete all but the most recent one or two? I realize I would not be able to restore my system from a deleted back up but I can't think of a reson I'd want to. Would greatly appreciate any insight on this, thanks!
p.s. Why does Time Machine keep so many back ups in the first place? I can't find anything in preferences to limit the number of stored back ups. Is there a way to limit the number?

Hello:
I use a 1TB external drive for Time Machine but it's nearly full. There are 43 different back ups on the drive, can I safely delete all but the most recent one or two? I realize I would not be able to restore my system from a deleted back up but I can't think of a reson I'd want to.
It makes no sense to delete old backups. Time Machine automatically deletes backups if it needs space. If you start deleting backups, you will do it ONE at a time.
Why does Time Machine keep so many back ups in the first place?
It is designed that way.
Is there a way to limit the number?
No.
Why are you having a problem with the design of Time Machine? Do you need, for some reason, extra space on the external drive? If that is the case, you should have partitioned the external.
Barry

Deleting old Time Machine Back ups, locked files wont delete?

Will unlocking them help-if so how do you unlock? I can open with Text edit but due to years of caution when not knowing what I'm doing causes more problems I ask before doing things-grin (Suppose it shouldn't matter since all I want to do is trash them????)
The file in particular is the boot file boot.efi. Trash basket is still full presumable until I can delete.

See > Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions 12. Should I delete old backups? If so, How?
of the > Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions

HT3275 how do i delete old time machine back ups?

I just switched to a new MBP, and my external drive does not recognize it. How do I delete old backups in order to make room on the external for the new computer's backups?
Thank you.

You could click on the time capsule in the SHARED panel in Finder, then enter your data folder and delete the sparsebundles, but that will take some hours for the delete to finish with the millions of nodes.
You could also use the airport utility and click on the DISK tab, then do a quick erase.

How can I remove old Time Machine back-ups for a Mac I no longer have??

So, i am trying to back-up a brand new MBPro to my Time Machine but it says there's not enough room. Only 13.5 GB avail and need 284 GB. Is there a way to go into Time Machine and delete all the old back-ups from my former MBPro? (I've already migrated all the files and data to the new MBP from my iMac, also on the same Time Machine.) If I could wipe out the old MBP back-ups that should create enough room.

Delete the backups.
Q12 here. http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Removing old Time Machine back ups from Time Capsule

I have just purchased a new iMac (2.7GHz Intel Core i5 running LION) that I am using to replace both my wife's old iMac (2GHz Intel Core Duo running Snow Leopard) and my 17" MBP Intel Core Duo - we've both made the switch to iPads for lap browsing. I migrated my user accounts from both the MBP and old iMac to the new iMac and I want use TimeCapsule as my back up disk. However, I cannot back up my new machine because the older back ups that I no longer need take up most of the TCs disk space.
How can I remove the older, no longer needed backups from TimeCapsule to make room to run back ups of my new iMac? I've tried deleting the sparsebundle, but that did not seem to work.
If anyone can help, please be as detailed as possible in how to remove the back ups. Thanks in advance.
- Ryan

Thanks for the tip.
You did forget to mention that it is necessary to click on the "MANUAL SETUP" button located at lower left part of the Airport Utility window to get to the Disk.
I went through the more generic/standard setup windows a couple of times because I was not seeing the disk and thought I was missing something. After I had an "ah-ha" moment and clicked the manual setup key, everything was there and erasing the disk was easy.
Thanks again,
RT

I cant restore old time machine back ups.?

Hi , so i went to restore my old itunes from time machine, but i can no longer access te old back up, its just clear line in time machine down the side.
Yesterday it was fine an i was looking through to see when i want to go back to to restore it.
I can see the old backed up files all dated?
CAn anyone please help
regards
Ricky

time machine with a 1tb hardrive, if i go into the hardrive i can see the back ups, but i cant get to them by selecting it from the side

Old Time Machine Back-Ups on new iMac

Hey Everyone..
So I got myself a new iMac today and I'm really pleased with it. I went for the 3.1GHz i5 in place of my old 2.8GHz i7.
Anyways - I restored the new machine from the most recent back up of my old iMac which has worked great and looks just like my previous computer. However..when I enter Time Machine it only goes back as far as today and when I try to do a back up it says there is not enough room. I would have hoped that my new iMac would recognise the back up as it's own and reinstate it as normal..but this doesn't seem to be the case.
If someone could give me some guidance on this I would appreciate it.
Many thanks..
Ricky

Time Machine will always treat a new computer's data as a completely new backup and start it from scratch. You can either get a larger backup drive or erase the current one.
About TM "Backup Drive is Full"
Alert TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Time Machine "thins" it's backups; hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first of the day; those "daily" backups over 30 days old, except the first of the week. The weeklies are kept as long as there's room.
So, how long a backup file remains depends on how long it was on your Mac before being deleted, assuming you do at least one backup per day. If it was there for at least 24 hours, it will be kept for at least a month. If it was there for at least a week, it will be kept as long as there's room.
Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.

Using old time machine back ups for new mac

I have upgraded to a new intel macbook pro from a g4 powerbook. I was able to move my files and apps to the macbook pro. How do I get time machine to use the old back up data on my new laptop. I have selected the hard drive that has the back up data from my powerbook but the macbook does not pull up the info.

First a couple of things you're posting in the iMac forum not the MacBook Pro forum. In addition there is a Time Machine Forum. I'd recommend reading the Time Machine FAQ's there. You can find the TM forum at:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1342
and the MacBook Forum is at:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=190
Roger

I can't empty trash. I get error code 8003. I am trying to delete some time machine back ups to make more room on my external hard drive.

My trash has files from time machine/Drobo, my external hard drive. It refuses to empty and prevents me from emptying other files from my iMac.

Please look at the More Like This link to your right. Any with a green check mark indicated the question has been answered with a solution.

Merge 2 time machine back ups on 1 back up drive?

I was running low on space on the USB drive I use to back up my Air, OS 10.6.5 with TIme Machine, and I had a new USB drive handy, so I just used the new drive. Now I have 2 USB drives and each has a time machine back up file, "Backups.backupdb"
I'd like to free up the first USB drive, and have the use of all of those old TIme Machine backups on the new drive.
It's clean up time, trying to reorganize my back ups and drives... is there any way to save the old Time Machine back ups from the old drive in usable format?
Thank you for any help
(btw, I do not want to upgrade to the latest versions of Mac OS's)

Funny you should mention... it was Pondini's TM FAQs that sent me here
If they answered this question, I missed it.
I have also read up on http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096
But neither could tell me how to manage the back up files when I had already started another external drive as backup disk.
I am currently copying all the files from the original back up drive to the new drive under another folder, it's taken about 10 hours so far, estimates 6 hours more to go.
And on the apple bulletin, it said I should uncheck "ignore ownership on this volume", which I failed to note.
Thanks for the link though, its a great one. If I missed it there, (and I checked Troubleshooting too) please let me know?

How do I delete Time-Machine back-ups on external HD

Hello everybody, I would like to delete all the Time Machine back-ups on my external hard drive and create a new full back-up. This is because after several months my HDD is quickly filling up and I would like to clean out all the old back-ups. What is the best way to do this? Sould I simply delete the old back-ups through finder, or is there another and better way to do this? Many thanks for your help!

peiper1 wrote:
....... the suggestion to enter the TM "Star Wars" display only applies to back-ups residing on my internal SSD, right? ...
No.
peiper1 wrote:
...Also, if TM is backed up to an external HDD, why does it also keep back-ups on the MBA's internal SSD?
As far as I know it doesn't. You may be meaning this...
Time Machine Local Snapshots Laptops
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878
peiper1 wrote:
.. I would like to delete the back-ups on my external hard drive, do I still do it the same way? ...
Follow Pondinis Instructions for Deleting Backups on the TM external Drive.

How do I delete a Time Machine back-up from my trash?

I use an external hard disc for my Time Machine back-ups.
In order to make some room on the external hard disc for some other files I wanted to store while I reformatted their original disc, I moved the Time Machine bach-ups into my iMac Trash.
Now when I try to delete thes old unwanted back-ups I get this message -
There are some locked items in the Trash. Do you want to remove all the items, including the locked ones, or just the unlocked items?
I've tried selececting Remove All Items but they just stay there.
I tried to darg them out onto the desktop but although that creates a new folder, the back-ups stay in the trash.
I've tried switching Time Macine off in the preferences bu that doesn't help.
Can anyone help me with emptying them?

dear Sue
i've tried the alt solution to empty trash but it does not work
I still got the -8003 error
for emptying time machine backups that i foolishly put in the trash
i've also tried this solution using terminal and it did not work either
http://www.imore.com/how-force-empty-trash-your-mac-using-terminal
any help you might offer would be greatly appreciated
i am using a 24 inch iMac
OSX 10.6.8
Message was edited by: summer_laughter

Will existing Time Machine back ups build after 1 account migration

I have one i-Mac happily backing up with Time Machine to an external hard drive.
I have just bought a second i-mac (the old one's filling up) and propose to use migration assistant to move an admin account from the old to the new i-mac leaving two other accounts (and their files etc) on the old one. I see from some posts that it seems as if Time Machine will start a new back up series for the new i-mac's back ups (cos its a new MAC address). But what about the old i-mac? Will that continue to extend the existing (old) Time Machine back up files, albeit without my transferred account and its files? I'd like to end up with the old i-mac continuing to work with and build its Time Machine back ups (less my account and its new files) and have a new back up series from the new i-mac building to a separate partition on the external drive.
Second minor point: I have read that putting a partition on the external drive is the best way forward as it will stop competition for space and allow changes in one set up in future to have no impact on the other. Is this the best way forward?
Does this all make sense?
Sorry but I can't see an answer in the forum to what must be a reasonably common issue in this expanding mac world.

I then tried to move it (TM back up files) off with Restore, whilst preserving the TM back ups but I couldn't seem to do it to the i-Macs hard drive nor to partition that to allow this to happen (assuming the lack of a discrete partition was the problem).
That's likely correct. This only works if you restore one entire partition to another, and check the +Erase destination+ box.
The problem was that I could not (maybe for the same contiguous reasons) create a new partition on the old i-Mac just to temporarily move the TM back up to. Without it I could not 'empty' the WDC firewire drive and partition it prior to returning the TM back ups to it albeit contiguously in a dedicated partition.
Unfortunately for me to retain the TM back ups for the account I moved to the new i-Mac, I will have to leave that account on the old i-Mac as well. I can't see a way around that? If I delete the account on it then surely I will lose the ability to Log onto it and then to click TM and see back in time on that account?
If I understand you correctly, that will be true eventually, but not immediately, as TM will, eventually, delete it's copies of anything that's no longer on your internal HD. That will depend, of course, on how long TM can keep it's backups. But while they're still there, if you log on with Admin privileges, you should be able to view the old backups.
Not sure I explained myself clearly. Sorry. Having understood from your earlier help that 'migrate' actually means 'make a copy in another place', I have the migrated account in two places: one now dormant, on the old i-Mac and two, where it is migrated to (the new i-Mac). But TM continues to back up all accounts, indeed everything, on the old i-Mac by dint of its MAC address. So to see the migrated account's past history I assume I have to access the version on the old i-Mac. To put it another way, when logged into one account on the old i-Mac I believe it is not possible to see the TM history and files of another account on that i-Mac despite TM backing the entire HD. You have to be logged in to that account to see it. On the new i-Mac, with its different MAC address, TM is busy creating the first TM back up and I assumed that in the migrate it did not bring TM history as I had read that it is MAC address specific.
The only issue (apart from having this account's history spread over two machines (pre-today on the old i-Mac's TM and today onwards on the new i-Mac) is that I have all the files on both machines. I am not worried about security only unnecessary usage of disk space. It isn't critical, there's lots of it, but it just seems wasteful and untidy. Unless you guys know otherwise?
If I understand what you've done, you do have duplicates of the current contents, but only one copy of the old backups (on the old F/W drive).
On the old i-Mac I have the two accounts I wanted to stay there plus the now dormant account I migrated. TM continues to work away at memorising ALL these although there will be no further changes to the dormant migrated account as I will not be running it on the old i-Mac. On the new i-Mac I have the migrated account of which TM is now creating its first (huge) back up but starting today. There is no history here. So I have copies of everything; its just that the old history of the migrated account remains on the old i-Mac and a new history (does that make sense?) is building from the new one. My point was that if I were to delete the dormant account from the old i-Mac, then I could not access it to use TM with it. I believe TM only shows the history of the account and screen you're in at the time?
There is an option in TM that will allow you to selectively +Delete all backups of+ selected items. +Enter Time Machine,+ locate and select the item(s), click the "gear" icon in the Finder window's toolbar, and select the +Delete all backups of ..+ option.
What you can't do is, keep the backups of only previous versions of things that were changed or deleted. It's all or nothing.
Not sure I understand this. What would have been nice but I do not think is possible is to have moved the account to the new i-Mac together with the TM's back ups of that account and continue to build it up (whilst having access to its history) on the new i-Mac. If that were (is?) possible I could have totally deleted the old account and with it its files from the old i-Mac, freed up some HD space and had a full AND growing TM history all on the new i-Mac.
Many thanks for staying the course and for your continuing help.

Deleting Old Time Machine Back ups

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