How do I delete a sparse bundle in Time Machine?

I backup two computers over a home wireless network to a Time Capsule. But there are three TM sparsebundles on the TC; one is from a computer that is long gone. I need to create space on the TC as I got an error message stating that; I have a new disk and TM is trying to create a new backup for that.
I read the TM FAQs that are often cited in Discussions but I don't know what vintage those recommendations are; can someone give me an up-to-date proceedure for deleting the uneeded sparsebundle? It is 123 GB and my TC is 500 GB.
Thansk;
Bruce

I tried this:
If a sparse bundle is very large, and OSX says it will take many hours to delete it, there is a faster, but more tedious, way:
•Cancel the deletion.
•Right-click the sparse bundle in the Finder and select Show Package Contents.
•Open the bands folder (it may take a while to show the contents).
•Select a large number of bands (up to about 8000 at a time), and delete (trash) them.
•When they’re all deleted, delete the sparse bundle.
I got an error message:
"This operation cannot be completed because df4 [one of the bands] is in use."
Next step?

Similar Messages

How can I delete undesirable backup files from time machine?

Can anyone give me details of how to delete undesirable backup files from Time Machine,
I'm trying to remove mackeeper which has been running since 2011
And I'm stuck at the first hurdle......
Thanks

The problem I have is that i dont have an option to delete backups of this file on the options menu, and when I click delit or try to drag it to the trash I get a box saying " This operation can't be completed because backup items can't be modified"
Iam really tempted to just delete mackeeper from HD library and Applications but it is stressed that I need to do the TM deletes first?
Am stuck please help

How can I delete a sparse bundle for an old machine from a Time Capsule?

I have multiple Macs backed up to a Time Capsule. I have given away one and want to delete the backup for the old system completely. Trying to move the sparse bundle for the named system to the trash seems to hang with the barber pole forever. Do I need to wait several hours for the delete to happen?

You might want to take a look at the blue box at the bottom of this document from Time Capsule and Time Machine expert Pondini
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/TCQ5.html

How to limiting the size of an existing Sparse Bundle for Time Machine?

There seems to be a solution for locking the size of a new sparse bundle to be used for Time Machine backups (see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2383738?tstart=0). However, I have a Time Machine sparse bundle with a year's worth of history that is getting very large and I would like to limit its size. Is there a way to constrain the size of an existing sparse bundle without trashing it.
Appying the suggested techniques"
hdiutil resize -size 300g xyz.sparsebundle
and
SetFile -a L PATHTOSPARSEBUNDLE/Info.*
on an existing sparse bundle somehow corrupts it and TM wants to start from scratch.
A method for constraining the size of a TM sparse bundle without trashing it would be very appreciated.

budden10, please try this:
Disconnect the external drive to simulate it not working or having failed
Open Time Machine on your Mac and wait a few minutes for your backups to load fully
Go back in time and select a date when you were backing up the external drive
Now look at the Finder window and locate your Mac on the left side of the window under DEVICES
Click on your Mac
What do you see in the window there just to the right?

Can't manually mount sparse bundle, but time machine works fine

I use an external drive off my AEBS for time machine. Time machine successfully performs backups and I can use time machine itself to browse files starfield (thing). However if I try to manually mount the time machine sparse bundle, it gets stuck at "checking volume" indefinitely. I had tried connecting the disk directly to my MBP with similar results and also tried repairing it but no errors found. I can mount the disk if I just skip "checking volume". I just erased my time machine disk and made a new sparse bundle back up. Same issue still. Any thoughts?

"checking volume" shouldn't last longer than repairing the bundle with disk utility. how long does that take? in any event I don't see that you have an actually problem. there is normally no need to mount the bundle manually and you can do it anyway if you skip verification step. what more do you want?

How do I delete a system file from Time Machine?

After consulting this support document, I tried to delete a Safari cache file that was captured by Sophos's Quarantine Manager as containing a common phishing hook. But it's in Library and Time Machine can't locate it. The Library folder, as you know, is typically hidden, and it wasn't there when I went to the starfield.
It's not a big threat to me, and will soon disappear from my cache, but it bugs me that I can't get to it.

Enter Time Machine from within your user Library folder. That will bring you to your user Library within Time Machine. (Your user Library is visible under the Go menu in Finder if you hold down the Option key.)

How do I delete old back ups in Time Machine?

Is there a way to selectively delete back ups on TM?

start Time machine, go to the backup you want, click on the "gear" action button in finder toolbar and select "delete backup".

HT3275 how do i delete old Back ups from time machine off my mac ?

I recently Tried to delete back ups from my external drive from time capsule i moved old backups to the trash but when i try to empty my frash they wont go away
i keep getting 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? iwent to get info and i set them both to read and write but i still get the same Message ,
Please help
Gbasscleff

More info here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1526

How to delete a sparse bundle

I have added a new Mini to my network and repurposed a former Mini. I would like to remove the sparse.bundle for the former mini to free up space and start a new TM backup.
I am unable to delete or mount the former Mini sparse.bundle. Disk Utility doesn't recognize the image for mounting. Trash attempts to delete the item, but after 6 hours with the message Items to Delete: 0, nothing has happened.
Trying to have Time Machine on the repurposed Mini continue with backups fails as well.
Is there a way in Terminal or something to delete this file which must be damaged without erasing the whole TC and starting over. I do have other sparse.bundles from other machines on there I would like to keep.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

Molson2043 wrote:
Is there a way in Terminal or something to delete this file which must be damaged without erasing the whole TC and starting over.
First mount the internal Time Capsule disk, assumed in the example below to have the default name "Data". Launch Terminal, then type these commands:
cd /Volumes/Data
ls
That's a lower-case letter "L" at the beginning of that last command. You should see all your "sparsebundle" volumes.
Then type this command (including a trailing space) but do not yet press "return":
sudo rm -rf
Now open the "Data" volume. Drag the "sparsebundle" file you want to delete from the "Data" volume's Finder window to the Terminal window. This should cause the path and name of the volume you want to delete to be copied into the Terminal window. Now select the Terminal window. Double-check that the correct "sparsebundle" file is in the command, then press "return". You'll be prompted for your administrative password.
If you're at all unsure that you can do this safely, then you probably shouldn't try it this way.

How do i delete multiple emails at one time from iphone Mail account with iphone 4s?

how do i delete multiple emails at one time from iphone Mail account with iphone 4s?

Better than that!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKa-KFjUIGE
Select a message, hold the move button, deselect the message while still holding the move button.
A new window appears allowing you to move all messages to the trash.
Bingo!

How do I delete one item at a time from trash?

How does one delete one item at a time from trash?

In general, one doesn't.
I suggest you create a new folder (I use "Trash Soon") on the desktop near the trash icon. Move all the stuff out of the Trash bin into the Trash Soon Folder. Then move the things you really want to eliminate to the Trash can. Empty Trash.
DO NOT store anything you want to keep in the real Trash can. There are many activities that may cause "Empty Trash" a a side-effect.
If you have multiple drives, The Trash is an illusion created for your convenience. The actual Items may be on several different drives, but all marked as "in Trash". Moving them to a folder on a different drive may cause unexpected copying.

The memory on my MAC is full. It holds 4GB of RAM of which 79GB are photos. I would like to back up my photos to an external drive but just don not know how. I do not wish to use time machine. How do I back up my photo library, then delete the them t

The memory on my MAC is full. It holds 4GB of RAM of which 79GB are photos. I would like to back up my photos to an external drive but just do not know how. I do not wish to use time machine. How do I back up my photo library, then delete them from my MAC to free up that 79GB? Thank you.

Hi
Just to clarify a couple of points in your post.
RAM (memory) is different from hard drive space. You have 4GB of RAM, but that has no bearing on the amount of drive space you have, of which we know that 79GB are photos.
If those photos are in iPhoto, you should be able to move the entire iPhoto Library, from the Pictures folder, to your external hard drive. You can just drag and drop. Do not have iPhoto open while you're doing this. Once it's done, you can double-click on the moved iPhoto Library file to associate it with iPhoto, so that the app remembers where the library is for next time.
One more thing. When you move a file to a different location, and then delete the original, you don't have a backup. You still only have one copy. So if that external drive dies, you will lose all your photos. Time Machine is a very good way to prevent this from happening. You should dedicate a different drive for Time Machine backups.
Matt

Hi I. Was take random picture in face time and I want to delete it how can I delete a picture from face time ?

Hi I. Was take random picture in face time and I want to delete it how can I delete a picture from face time ?

In addition to johngrussel's suggestion the delete key by itself will run the Remove from Album comand.
Note that's the delete key with no modifier.Command-delete will delete the version from the project.

I deleted a pop email account from mail. How can I recover those sent messages without Time Machine?

I deleted a pop email account from mail. How can I recover those sent messages without Time Machine?

Thomas,
"Note that you were warned that this would happen and approved it. When you delete an e-mail account in Mail, you are shown a message like the following:"
You didn't read my problem - I said I deleted a POP email account. I always read the messages that pop up and in Mail when you delete a POP account - IT DOESN'T TELL YOU NUTHIN! It just deletes it - which *** for me. Fortunately, I had an iPhone and on that device I had about a 1000 messages that I could recover but on all my POP accounts I download them from the server onto my Mac so they were only on Mail (the really old ones that I wanted to keep.) I had to move them into another directory one by one basically because when I would move 50 some of them would move and some wouldn't and I never did figure out that problem. Basically the ones that would not move are the ones that were associated with my domain changes with GoDaddy, and there were a lot of those. Have no idea as to why only those were resistant to moving but I can get all that data from GoDaddy anyway.
This thread is now moot seeing as how I've recovered everything I can and am going to just move on - and back up more often. ;-)
Apple and Mail need to rewrite that program to include a WARNING MESSAGE when deleting an Account in Mail that says ALL YOUR MESSAGES ARE GOING TO DISAPPEAR NEVER TO RETURN IF YOU DELETE THIS ACCOUNT, SO YOU DANG WELL BETTER HAVE A BACK UP IF YOU WANT TO KEEP ANYTHING BEFORE PRESSING THAT MINUS SYMBOL! ;-)

How do I restore Groups to Contacts from time machine?

How do I restore groups to Contacts using time machine? I somehow managed to duplicate many groups and contacts in Contacts, so I deleted everything and tried to restore them using time machine backup from a few days before. It restored all my contacts, but none of my groups. If you select a group and click restore it will restore all the contacts in the group, but not the group itself. I had many groups with many contacts in each and would really prefer not to do this manually. I can see the groups in the time machine backup, but cannot figure out how to restore them. I know from researching online that with Address Books and previous operating systems you could go to ~Library/Applications Support/AddressBook and restore the whole file, but either this operating systems hides the necessary files or Contacts is set up differently than AddressBook was. I am using OS 10.9.5 and Contacts version 8.0 on a MacbookPro 13 inch mid 2010.

Here is what I have tried:
1. Finder>Go>(Option)Library>Address Book(highlighted)with files showing in right column. Opened Time Machine and Address Book folder is there. Tried to go back to several previous dates from several months ago. None will highlight in order for the Restore button to light up.
2. Finder>Mac HD (under Devices)>(Option)Library>Address Book (same as above). Again, cannot go anywhere back in time to highlight a date for Restore button to light up.
Note: I was able to use Time Machine to restore my Contacts with no problem. However, they are All Contacts only and did not restore my Groups. I do know how to make groups again and highlight and drag them back, but wanted to see if there was a way to restore the groups. I will post another question as to why my Time Machine won't let me restore the Address Book as well as the Contacts. Thank you for your time and patience.

How do I delete a sparse bundle in Time Machine?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for