How do I delete Time Machine files in my trash?

I foolishly moved a backup from Time Machine to my desktop’s trash. Now it won’t leave. I’ve tried the Option key force empty but that doesn’t work; I’ve seen a very complicated answer that requires getting into the system, which I’d rather not do. Any in-between solutions? I get a message that says: “Operation can’t be completed dues to unexpected error (error code -22)” Thanks.

NEVER try to erase files from your Time Machine drive, however you probably got that didn't you. To empty your trash click Solving Trash Problems and read the article completely and follow the steps offered.

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Deleted Time Machine files stuck in trash

Please help. I've (foolishly now, I realise) placed Time machine back-up files into my trash when my external back-up drive was getting full. Having checked around, I've now tried ejecting, restarting and repairing everything more than once but everytime the external hardrive mounts, my trash is full of stuff again. When attempting to empty it, I get an error code of -8003.
Is there any other way of clearing this problem without using the 'pondini.org' solution of messing with the Terminal. I'm too frigthened to do this. I'm on my own here and this mac is my workhorse and pays the bills. I'm not savvy enough to go digging with code.
Looking, with fingers crossed, for a less risky sequence to solve this problem please.
Many thanks
OSX 10.6.8
Iomega 1TB external hard drive

Just to let anyone know who may read this, I did manage to solve my problem.
'Trash it' did work - eventually - I just didn't give it enough time originally. I had no idea it was still chugging away behind the scenes and had started the long task of backing up my Time Machine external hard drive onto another. The idea being that I would then reformat the original, wipe it clean and hopefully clear the trash.
Then, half-way through the afternoon, 'Trash it' popped up briefly and - hey presto! the trash was empty.
So if you use it - give it a bit of time to work.

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive

How can I delete time machine back up from my computer hard drive?

How to Delete a Time Machine Backup - YouTube
If you want to remove an entire Time Machine backup on a backup drive, then the easiest way to do that is to erase the backup drive using Disk Utility. However, this will delete everything on the disk:
Drive Erase Snow Leopard and Earlier
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
If you are preparing an external or a non-startup drive, then open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select the volume you wish to format from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.

Deleting time machine files off external hard drive

Can someone please help me?? I stored my time machine backups on an external hard drive which is now full because of time machine! I just want to delete the time machine files so I have space again on my external drive. Can anyone please explain how to delete this? Nothing seems to be working.

Can someone please help me?? I stored my time machine backups on an external hard drive which is now full because of time machine! I just want to delete the time machine files so I have space again on my external drive. Can anyone please explain how to delete this? Nothing seems to be working.

Cannot delete Time Machine file from external hard drive

Hello,
I'd like to delete my original Time machine file from an external hard drive ( Lacie mini ). I move the file into the trash bin and it constantly "deletes". At one time I left it deleting overnight and the file still wasn't trashed.
I am going to hook up Time Machine to a different, dedicated external hard drive, but I'd like to gain space on the drive that Time Machine is currently on.
I currently have Time Machine turned off ( I do have everything backed up with my home folder on another external HD ). Should Time Machine be turned on for me to trash the file? Is there a better way to delete the file?
Much thanks in advance.

V.K. wrote:
... the best and the quickest way to delete it is to erase the TM hard drive....
But what if a person doesn't want to erase the TM drive? My MacPro came with tiger installed, but since tiger-intel-retail discs don't exist, my copy of tiger is what i have. I was all manner of foolish directing TM to that drive, but damage is done. What can someone in my position do?

How can i RECOVER a time machine file from the trash

I hope someone can help me... I have spent hours and hours reading forums but none that have addressed my problem.
My daughter gave me her old backup drive. She also has a MAC so she had Time Machine backups on the drive already. I started backing up onto this drive about a year ago. Backups have been done now for a year or so. Last night I got the message that I was running out of space so I looked at the drive and realized that her backups were still on the drive so I moved them into the trash. Then Time Machine wouldn't work anymore and I realized that not only did her backups get moved but all of mine did as well. I need the backups because after I upgraded to Mavericks many of my photos dissappeared from iPhoto. These are photos that I can't recreate - I sell jewelry and take pictures before I send the piece out. Everything is one-of-a-kind so it's very important for me to get these back. I realize now that I never should have moved the backups into the trash as I will have a problem deleting it once I separate her backups from mine but I will deal with that after I figure out this problem.
Is there anything I can do to move the backups back from out of the trash and into Time Machine again? (BTW - I don't know which version of Mavericks I have - I have done all available updates so I assume it is 10.9.3)

As long as you don't delete the trash, the files should be recoverable.
I suspect using the Put Back command could take a long time, so be patient.
If your Time Machine backups are mixed with your daughter's backups you might want to buy a larger drive and move the Time Machine files to the new drive.
Regarding missing photos in iPhoto...There might be options to rebuild/recover that data from iPhoto rather than trying to revert to a Time Machine backup.
Check out this third party app, iPhoto Library Manager. It has a demo.
http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/
Options for a larger drive.
I like the Seagate USB 3.0 Backup plus drives. Works on USB 2.0 ports. They come formatted for PC but easy to format in Disk Utility.
I don't recommend Western Digital because of the boot problem with some of their drives.
LaCie makes good drives.
All Mac formatted drives will cost more and it’s easy to reformat with Disk Utility. Do not use the software that comes with the drives. It’s recommended that you use Apple’s Disk Utility.
Prices vary but this gives you an idea of what you’ll find. As you notice the second and third TB is usually only $15 more per TB. Normally, you’ll find these prices but right now the 1T is more than the 2T
Seagate Backup Plus 1 TB USB 3.0 $85
Seagate Backup Plus 2 TB USB 3.0 $99
Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB USB 3.0 $115
I have seen the 3T on sale for $99.
Locally, Best Buy seems to have the best prices.

How can I delete time machine backup folders moved into the trash from an external drive?

I made the mistake of moving Time Machine backup files into the trash, but I can't seem to delete them. I tried the option key when clicking on "Empty Trash" and "Secure Empty Trash" (before and after rebooting), but that always led to error 8003. The files won't allow me to change their name. Using approchaes to Terminal from three different Mac-related webpages also failed. I also tried Trash It, but it seemed to be making little progress after letting it run 48 hours. Any other suggestions before calling Apple?

Assuming these were not backups made over a network (thus not in a sparse bundle disk image), see #E6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
But any way you empty the trash on that disk/partition is probably going to take a very long time -- there's no doubt several hundred thousand files there, perhaps a million or more.
You may have to just erase the disk (with Disk Utility) and start over.
You really shouldn't have to delete Time Machine backups, as it will do that automatically when the destination gets full. But if you really want to, see #12 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

How to delete time machine files from external back up drive?

When connected to my Macbook I deleted some old backups to the trash. When I try to empty trash, a message comes back saying there are locked files and files cannot be deleted. I have turned off time machine, and tried to delete files but get the same message. Time machine does not delete oldest file when space is needed. How do I clear these files? I'm trying to delete 2 years worth of backups.

You can drag the Backups.backupdb folder to the Trash, hold down the option key, and try to empty, but often it doesn't work. In that case, you'll have to erase the volume and restore the non-backup data from a backup.

How Stupid Was I ??? Deleting Time Machine Files

After getting a message that my TM drive lacked enough free space, I impulsively used Finder to delete the oldest back up files (14 months ago). When the Finder didn't show any more free space, I did the old empty Trash. Now after reading through this Discussion board I am wondering if I screwed up.

rjp49 wrote:
Oops screwed up my answer, too. It seems to have done fine but I only have 28.3 GB available out of 465.4 GB. This is for my MacBookPro and I do not back up on an hourly basis but only when my laptop and TM drive are in the same room/time zone. How do I delete files so it will have enough room to easily back up when everything is hooked up?
As V.K. says, TM normally will delete it's oldest backups, automatically, when it needs room for new ones. But it will only do that if you do not have the +Warn when old backups are deleted+ box checked in TM Preferences > Options.
The deletions you did may have corrupted your backups. Do a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on your TM drive via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder). If it finds errors it can't fix, run it again.
If it fixes any and all errors, your backups may be ok, and you may get some space back.
If it cannot fix them, your best bet is probably to completely reformat the drive and let TM start fresh. See item #5 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
EDIT: Do not feel stupid. You are far from the first to do this. Apple, unfortunately, does not do a very good job of warning folks not to change, move, or delete things from TM backups except via TM.
Message was edited by: Pondini

Deleted time machine files/items

if my backup disk is full and time machine starts to delete old backups, how does it decide what to delete?
if i have a document from 2 years ago, for instance, that i have not used since then, but i need to keep it backed up, how may i be certain that this file will not be deleted?
do i need to make some small edit to it to "force" TM to see it as a new document, would this work for a whole folder?

Or if you prefer you can do as I do instead of doing as Linc suggested and create an external disk and/or partition which you call Archive or something like that where you keep important files that you don't want to have lost by Time Machine.
|_____________________
Allan
<img src="http://homepage.mac.com/eckertallanp/2313.gif" alt="tiger" align="right">

How can I access Time Machine files?

I installed an external 500 gigger external drive and dedicated it to Time Machine in June 2011. In October 2012 I upgraded to Snow Leopard and checked Time Machine only to find that all dates prior to that date were grayed out. I thus lost access to some important files since the automatic back-up began anew in November 2012.
The Finder indicates that the external drive contains over 100 GB of saved files which must be the ones under the grayed-out dates. There are no photos or movies on the Time Machine drive as I am using another external for those. I have used every trick and tried every advice given in this forum including a Utilities-Repair of that drive - to no avail.
How can I regain access to the contents hidden under the dates which do NOT light up when I pass the mouse over them?

I suggest you read Pondini's Time Machine articles; http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html

How can I delete time machine backups from my external hard rive

My 2 TB hardrive is starting to fill up, so i went to check on what is taking all the space up, aparently time machine has use 321.90GB of space on my hardrive.
if it is possible I want to be able to delete a couple of backups but if i cant delete a couple of backups then i would not mind to delete all of the backups.
Thankyou

Time Machine manages space automatically. You should not delete snapshots yourself. You also should not use the backup drive for anything but backups. If there are non-backup files on the drive, move them to another drive (which must also be backed up.)

Deleting Time Machine Files

I am sure I am missing something quite obvious but I am unable to find a way to delete TM files from within the application.
I have moved my Music Library to a new external hard drive. I wish to start backing up the NEW hard drive and erase the old music back ups from TM since they would be redundant as the new backup would contain the entire music library.
I thought I was supposed to delete from inside the TM but there is no interface when I am in the "space" mode.
Thanks

What might appear to be an actual file in your TM backups might just be a hard link instead. Browsing and deleting stuff with Finder might not delete what you think is being deleted. More than likely it is going to cause the delicate system of hard links to be unglued.
Apple has published the correct method (bottom of link) for deleting items from Time Machine backups, and it isn't with Finder. Deviate from this method at your own risk. The risk isn't worth it for me.

How do I delete time machine backups if I can't zoom back in time?

Hi,
I'v been backing up my 250GB HD using time machine very successfully over the years. I store additional home movies that aren't on my HD on my time capsule machine in a seperate folder from the backups that are made daily. My 250GB HD is now full and it has been duplicated and placed on a much larger 1TB HD drive back inside my iMac. Because it is a new HD, time machine is wanting to do a new 250GB backup of it (which is ok), BUT there is not enough space on my time machine drive to do a 250GB backup. I need to delete the prior time machine backups to make space. However, because the HD is new, I'm unable to zoom back in time with time machine and delete backups from the time capsule. When I open time capsule in finder I see a .sparsebundle folder which I assume must contain all my old HD time machine backups. To free up time capsule space, can I simply delete the .spersebundle folder? I'm nervous to do that and don't want to mess anything up, so I'm asking for advise. Any advise would be much appreciated. Thx.

brettnbee wrote:
Hi,
I'v been backing up my 250GB HD using time machine very successfully over the years. I store additional home movies that aren't on my HD on my time capsule machine in a seperate folder from the backups that are made daily.
That's a problem, as you now see. When you get this sorted out, see #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for an explanation and some workarounds.
because the HD is new, I'm unable to zoom back in time with time machine and delete backups from the time capsule.
You can see and delete individual backups from an old drive, per #E3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. Deleting a lot of them will take a very long time, of course.
When I open time capsule in finder I see a .sparsebundle folder which I assume must contain all my old HD time machine backups. To free up time capsule space, can I simply delete the .spersebundle folder?
Yup, that's an option, too but will also take quite a while. See #Q5 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for details.
Whatever you do, by all means, connect via Ethernet cable if at all possible. It will still be slow, but be 2-3 times faster than a good wireless connection.

How do I move time machine files from one external drive to another?

My original external drive isn't big enough. So I've bought a second larger one. How do I move the earlier Time Machine backups from Ext Drive #1 to Ext Drive #2 so I can access my full history, and leave Drive #1 for other backup items?
Ext Drive #1= SimpleTech 120 GB
Ext Drive #2= WEstern 500 GB

When you are ready to pass the 320GB drive on, I would format it. That will make the entire drive available to him to use as his TM. I would be sure that each drive has a unique name so that there will be no confusion for TM as to which computer goes with which drive. If you want to start fresh with the 500GB drive, I'd format it as mac-extended-journaled. When you connect it the first time to your computer, you will be asked if you want to use it as your TM. If you are not prompted to select it as your TM, you can configure TM by opening system preferences, click on TM, click on "change drive" and choose your new drive.
Another choice is to follow the steps in my previous response for restoring your current TM to the new drive by booting from a Leopard start up disk and accessing Disk Utilities from there so you can restore the drive. It is essential that the new hard drive is the exact name as the old TM hard drive. In this last scenario you would continue adding to your current set of backups.

How do I delete Time Machine files in my trash?

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