How do I delete all backups of Time Machine in OSX 10.7.2?

I had some huge photo files (100gb) that were on my computer for a few weeks and have now been processed and deleted. I suspect that Time Machine backed them up on my external hard drive. How can I delete all backups from Time Machine and start with a fresh series of backups?
Tks

That would work also.
I like to reformat the disk just to rebuild the directory when I clean one.
Allan

Similar Messages

How to safely remove all backups from Time Machine/Time Capsule?

I plan to 'clean up' my Time Machine/Time capsule completely, whereby I want to make it impossible for third parties to recover all or part of these old backups.
After I have accompished this I want to start from scratch backing up my Mac.
Can you please let me have a step by step procedure to accomplish my goal.
Thank you in advance!

Muizen wrote:
Thank you WZZZ.
1) I am now specifically looking for info regarding deleting emails from backups.
It is my impression so far, that this is not possible?
Delete all backups of <home folder>/Library/Mail, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12.
And exclude that folder from future backups, per FAQ #10.
2) In addition I feel that being somewhat better in control of TM that it would be an advantage to really clean out TH completely and start a new back up, thereby systematically blooking certain matters from backing-up since there is no need for doing so.
How would I best accomplish this?
If the emails are all you're worried about, the procedure above will be fine.
But if you want to erase the TC's internal HD, see #Q5 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule.

How can i delete a 'backups' from time machine for a computer i no longer have

i have been using my time capsule for a few years now, everything was great until my imac died and i had to replace it
when i did, the time capsule worked perfectly, as it allowed me to "migrate" all my backed up data onto my new machine, joy
but now, as it wants to start its backups of the new imac, there just isnt enough disk space on the drive, and i suspect this is due to every file on my new machine is marked as never have being backed up which means i need like 400G, and most of the time capsule's space is still consumed by the old backups
how can i remove this old back up from the time capsule without reformatting the whole drive (i have other machines that are still using the backup service and i dont want that interrupted)
it just seems like, since i am no longer on the old machine, i cant access that machine's backup in order to delete them (through the time machine interface), and i cant seem to find a single tutorial on how to do this that is written in non-programmer speak (i really dont feel comfortable cracking open terminal and command-lining this sort of thing)
am i just nuts or is this really all that uncommon a problem with no easy solution?!?
any advice is appreciated, thanks in advance

how can i remove this old back up from the time capsule
click here for instructions.

How to completely delete all backed-up time machine files but not other files in my external hard drive?

I use a 500G WD as my external.. I have documents and movies there that i do not want to delete. Simply i just want to delete my time machine files completely and for my mac to not recognised it as a time machine HD.. TY guys p.s. A video would be nice

If you have the external HD setup as one partition, you cannot delete only the TM files as a unit. You will have to use the brute force method of deleting directory by directory.
If you have the drive partitioned into a TM backup partition and another partition for your other work, you can simply reformat the TM backup partition.
So, the first question is, how is your drive setup, as one or as two partitions?

How to recover deleted browser history using time machine on osx lion

I turned my time machine backup on. Deleted some of my browser history. And restored the entire App, Google chrome, hoping my history would reappear. However it didn't. Same with Safari.
What am I missing? Or rather, how to restore just the hisotry and not the rest of the application?

I'm surprised because I just opened History.plist in TextWrangler and all the history listings are in there. There may be some interaction with other parts of what Safari saves during a session, and the only other approach that comes to mind is more serious surgery. The History.plist you found is contained in a folder called "Safari" along with a bunch of other stuff. At the risk of losing anything else you've done in Safari since then (e.g., new bookmarks), try restoring the entire Safari folder from Time Machine, being sure that the TM point you've selected is before the deletion. You might want to copy the current Safari folder to the Desktop first, just in case. And, again, Safari must not be running during the attempt.
There is also a Safari directory in /Users/username/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari which has a history component in it but I'm not sure if you need that restored, too.

How to delet old backups in time machine

How to delete old backups in time machine.
I have no space left for new backups

See Here > Should I delete old backups? If so, How?
From Here > http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Delete multiple backups in time machine?

Is there a way to delete multiple backups in TIme Machine and not have to delete old files one by one by slow one by one?

pcp0827 wrote:
Is there a way to delete multiple backups in TIme Machine and not have to delete old files one by one by slow one by one?
Yes, sort of. You can delete indiividual backups, or all backups of selected items,via Time Machine. See #12 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. You can only select one backup at a time, but they're deleted in a separate process, so you can select another before the first one completes. When you exit from Time Machine, you may see one or more progress bars for the individual deletions. (As noted there, never delete anything from your backups via the Finder.)
But you really shouldn't have to do that. Time Machine will delete your oldest backups automatically, when it needs room for new ones.

How does one delete restored email from time machine?

I would like to delete recovered email from the time machine that I no longer need these. How do I delete these?

Right click should give the option to "Delete all Backups of [file or folder name]".
If it doesn't, check the permissions of the folder on your HD.

How to erase iPhoto picture backups in Time Machine

Hello.
I can't seem to find a way to erase pictures directly in iPhoto while beeing in Time Machine as I do with the finder's wheel button. Delete key or ctrl-clic won't work. How does one do that ?
Thanks for your reply.

Hi Barry ! Thanks, I'm happy to be finally subscribed.
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough before, let me restate it.
(excuse my english)
erasing pictures is no problem in iPhoto, but I can't seem to find a way to erase backups while browsing iPhoto Library in the past in Time Machine. Say I have pictures I've deleted, some pictures I don't want anymore (in the present), but Time Machine made a backup of them during many days, weeks, months maybe, how to erase these pictures in Time Machine ?
I found how to erase backup in the Finder by pressing this button that has a wheel on it and then click on "erase all copies of this file" (I don't know how it's called in english, my system runs in french), but the iPhoto window (while being in Time Machine) doesn't seem to have any kind of buttons. Pressing delete (or backspace) while selecting a picture or an event doesn't erase it. In fact, there's nothing I found that can be done in iPhoto's Time Machine browsing except swiping events and restore pictures.
My question is: how do you erase backup pictures in Time Machine ? Is it possible to erase directly in Time Machine iPhoto pictures, events ?
I've look many different forums, including this one, everybody talks about restoring, but I could find very little subjects about deleting backups, and nothing while being in iPhoto directly.
in fact, the same applies for adressbook application. How to permanently erase contacts ? If I erase them in the program, there's still a backup in Time Machine, and there seems to be no way of erasing them directly in Time Machine, just like in iPhoto. No button or normal functions work for that matter (backspace, ctrl-clic > delete eventually, etc.)
Sorry for the long post.
Message was edited by: Nordlaser

Deleting email backups in Time Machine

How do I delete all copies of a particular email from Time Machine backups? Opening Mail, then going into Time Machine allows me to find the email, but not delete it. Going directly to my Time machine drive, I cannot search for the email as it is stored in emlx format, so cannot find it

The Pod wrote:
How do I delete all copies of a particular email from Time Machine backups?
not possible AFAIK.
you can do it with files in finder but nt with email messages when starting TM from Mail.
Opening Mail, then going into Time Machine allows me to find the email, but not delete it. Going directly to my Time machine drive, I cannot search for the email as it is stored in emlx format, so cannot find it

How do I delete old emails from time machine?

How do you delete all old email backups from time machine?

Could we please get one more clue?
What email application are you asking about?

HT203177 how do i clear old backups from time machine to make more space

My 2TB Time Machine is nearly full. I am trying to back up a drive in a Mac Min that is starting to fail and wanted to do so on Time Machine. Unfortunately since my Time Machine is nearly full it will not back up drive without eliminating nearly all of the files on this Mini. I am okay overwriting the other backups already on the Time Machine but do not know how to force Time Machine to do so. Please any clues on how to make Time Machine overwrite other backups would be greatly appreciated.

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.
As you can see Time Machine does prune old backups to make space, but eventually it may no longer succeed. Then you will get the alert. You can delete old backups if you wish, but only using the Time Machine application.

How do I delete folders listed in Time Machine that are no longer good?

I AM TRYING TO DELETE FOLDERS ON MY TIME MACHINE THAT I NO LONGER NEED:
MY TIME MACHINE FOLDER SHOWS AT PRESENT:
DIGI FILES_PE
DIGI FILES-PE-ACDS
DIGI-ACDS
HARD DRIVE
IPHOTO-PHOTO-PREV-PE
PREV-ELEMENTS
WORKING
I WANT TO DELETE:
PREV-ELEMENTS
DIGI FILES_PE
DIGI FILES-PE-ACDS
When I checked the Help INstructions it tell me to Highlight the file and click the Actions menu (Gear icon) from the toolbar.
Select “Delete all backups of <this file>”.
BUT...when I do that the Gear icon only shows "Move to Trash" Not “Delete all backups of <this file>”.
So when I try to move the old folders to the trash it tells me that the operation cannot be done?

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

How do I delete one Mac from time machine?

I have a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro that back up to the same 2.0 GB Time Capsule via Time Machine. Both are running 10.8.3 Mountain Lion. Time Capsule has been giving me the following error:
"This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 6.10 GB but only 3.70 GB are available."
I have purchased a separate hard drive for the Macbook Pro that is configured to do backups through Time Machine. I want to delete the MacBook Pro from the Time Capsule backup so that only the Mac Pro is backed up on it. How do I remove only the MacBook pro from the backup? I do not want to remove any of the backups for the Mac Pro (only the PBP backups).
I would appreciate any help you can give me.
Tony in Arizona

http://pondini.org/TM/12.html
And then link to
http://pondini.org/TM/TCQ5.html
But unless you are connected by ethernet this can be super slow.. it is slow even over ethernet.. but wireless is killing.
There are long discussions in a number of places about different ways to do this.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2224110?tstart=0

How can I make a backup without Time Machine?

I'm finally upgrading to Mountain Lion, but my Seagate GoFlex harddrive isn't letting me backup via time machine. do I have to reformat the harddrive to be used with time machine? or is there an app I can download so I can get a clean install of OS X without having to loose any of my files or apps?

The disk for Time Machine should be firmatted as HFS+
If you want to do a backup so that you can do an erase & install, I suggest that you make a bootable clone with either CCC or SuperDuper.
Allan

How do I delete all backups of Time Machine in OSX 10.7.2?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for