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?

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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

Photos. They are on my macBook, backed up on time machine. Copied them (hours and hours) to external hard drive. They are now in alphabetical order (19,000 of them) NOT IN THEIR EVENTS or date order-and have been taken with different cameras- help!!!!!!

Photos.
They are on my macBook, backed up on time machine. There are 19,000+ of them, some rescued from a pc crash- which I used the nifty iPhoto to put back into date order.
I want to take them all off my laptop, now............as I need to use it for WORK!!
Copied them (hours and hours) to another external hard drive.
They are now in alphabetical order (all 19,000+ of them) NOT IN THEIR EVENTS or date order. (-They have also been taken with different cameras over the years and some of the generic camera numbering remains.)
I have tried to copy them (only a few as an experiment) one event at a time, but that again "opens up" the Event "folder" and tips them out as individuals and therefore just lists image letters and numbers alphabetically.
How can I copy
the whole library still in "Events" to an external hard drive?
the folders/albums I have already made on to this hard drive?
and how can I add to this back up monthly, again keeping events and folders separate and updated?
Mac is so user friendly - there must be a way.........
Thanks

UPDATE : I have re-installed from disk, various apps that were no longer functioning such as iLife, iWork etc. So, I now can access my photos again.
Also, I had to re-install all the software for my printer ( Stylus Pro 4880 ) and reset it so the printer is working again.
Photoshop CS4 won't open. I think I will have to get in touch with Adobe as basically, I guess they have a built-in "blocker" which prevents me from opening the app as the license is for only 1 user and having re-installed the OS, there are now, in effect, 2 users ( Me and Me 1, I think ).
So, having added on a new external HD, Time Machine has made a copy of most of the files, folders, apps etc onto the external HD. The internal HD is still nearly full ( 220 GBs out of 232 GBs ).
I am guessing the way to go now in order to free up space on the internal HD is to delete/trash older photos from my iPhoto library and hope that if needed, I will be able to access them on the external HD.
Am I correct ? Please advise before I do something I will regret.
Thanks, Sean.

Anyone got Issue with Time Machine on Mac OS 10.9.5 on External Hard Drive?

Mac Book Air June 2012, Mac OS 10.9.5 (fully updated) external Hard Drive, USB 3
Dear all,
Just realized that my regular Time Machine back-ups don’t work anymore: despite several back-ups, Time Machine tells me that I did not back-up for 10 days but I did not get any error message.
Suspected an issue with my external Hard Drive, so took a brand new one 1TB, labelled Mac OS, USB 3, sold at Apple Corner.
Registered this new drive in Time Machine, started a full back-up of about 350 Gb, and it is hanging up, 13Kb copied in one hour.....
This become very critical as I don’t have back-up since a few days....
Your help will be upmost appreciated.
Best regards to all,
Bernard

Temporarily turn Time Machine "off". Make sure a backup is not in progress, then rebuild the Spotlight database according to the following instructions: Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes
(summary: drag the entire source volume to the exclusions list, click OK, then remove it by clicking the minus ("–") button.)
This will have no effect on any existing backups.
Let Spotlight finish reindexing and then turn Time Machine back "on". Select "Back Up Now".

Time Machine Backup Interrupted. Im using a Sony External Hard drive

i have a white macbook, version 10.6.8. I wanted to back up my mac so i connected my Sony External Hard Drive and used time machine. About a quarter way through the back up, i get this message saying to "You need to restart your computor. Hold down the power button until it turns off, then press the power button again." I cannot press/move the mouse in anyway or do anything when this message comes up. When i open my mac again a window comes up saying "You shut down your laptop because of probelm". The backup stops and fails. This has happened 3 times now and has never happened until i tried to back up . What seems to be the problem and what should i do to fix it?

Hi. This is called a kernel panic. You should make sure your software is updated, including any third party software you have. Keep in mind any software you may have recently installed. You may have to erase any files that installed in the backup drive as they could be corrupted. Read this. http://support.apple.com/en-us/TS3742

Time Machine: Can I backup to more than 1 external hard drive?

would anyone know about this: i have a TM at home in boston which i use when i am there; however, now i am in taiwan where i will have a second TM to use here: apart from naming the two TMs differently on the laptop (macbookpro, tiger), is there anything i should look out for? with many thanks, steven totosy

Other users have successfully backed up their Mac to more than one Time Machine drive. As you stated, name them differently. You also need to switch TM drives, but that's only once after you've arrived at your new location. Note that after extended absences, TM may not want to continue with a backup and force you to create a new backup. I don't recall how much time has passed, but someone has stated 10 days, but I cannot confirm that.

How do you remove back up data from the memory storage? my storage data states that i have over 80gb of data used for back ups and i dont know why as i use a external hard drive as a time machine .now my 250gb flash storage is nearly full

how do you remove back up data from the memory storage? my storage data states that i have over 80gb of data used for back ups and i dont know why as i use a external hard drive as a time machine .now my 250gb flash storage is nearly full.. HELP!

When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.

I am not much of a computer technician. I bought a time capsule thinking I could use this for an external hard drive and keep my MAC hard drive free. Was I mistaken? One I back everthing up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC?

I am not much of a computer technician. I bought a time capsule thinking I could use this for an external hard drive and keep my MAC hard drive free. Was I mistaken? Once I back everything up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC and then use my TC as my hard drive??

Once I back everything up on the TC, can I delete everything off of my MAC and then use my TC as my hard drive??
TC was designed to backup your Mac. The TC literature is pretty clear about this:
If your Mac's hard drive has a problem....it will sooner or later....you can use your backup on the TC to rebuild your Mac.
But.....if you move all of your data to the TC from your Mac....you only have one version of that data now, and it is on the TC.
Have you thought about what will happen when....not if....the TC has a problem? Since the only version of your important data was on the TC, and the TC has failed......you lose all of your data.....because you have no backup.
A much better plan would be to add a USB or FireWire hard drive and connect it directly to your Mac. Move the data on your Mac over to the hard drive.
Then, the TC will backup both your Mac and the hard drive. So, you have original data on on one drive and backups on another drive.
That would be a minimum backup plan. Most of us have more than one set of backups.

HT3275 My Time Capsule has been backing up without any problems and all of a sudden it stops reading on my computer. The external hard drive beeps three times and the motter wont run within. What happened?

My Time Capsule has been backing up without any problems and all of a sudden it stops reading on my computer. The external hard drive beeps three times and the motter wont run within. The light that usually blinks while in use is no longer blinking and is on constant. What happened?

abailey46 wrote:
My Time Capsule has been backing up without any problems and all of a sudden it stops reading on my computer. The external hard drive beeps three times and the motter wont run within. The light that usually blinks while in use is no longer blinking and is on constant. What happened?
Sorry we are unclear as to the external hard drive and its connection to the TC..
For instance the light that blinks.. is that the TC or external hard disk or what.
Did you try just rebooting / restart the whole network in correct order.. modem.. router / TC.. external drive.. clients with 2min gap between each.
Are you actually running Snow Leopard as the profile states?
How old is the TC?

I am trying to confirm the time at which a particular backup occurred using an external hard drive that I have since misplaced. Although time machine lists the backup times for some backups, it does not list them for all. Can someone help?

I am trying to confirm the time at which a particular backup occurred using an external hard drive that I have since misplaced. Although time machine lists the backup times for some backups, it does not list them for all, including the one in question. Can someone help?

Okay, I've sussed it. I saw a link to another discussion that hadn't turned up in any of my searches before I posted the question above.
My Tosh HDD was formatted to FAT 32 and therefore would not be backed up by Time Machine. I removed all data from it - nightmare as I hadn't enough space to put it on the macbook HDD, but, after trawling through numerous photos and deleting rubbish for hours, I finally made enough space and copied all data across. Then, after clearing the data from the Tosh HDD, I used disk utilitity to reformat it to Mackintosh OS Extended. Chose the option without kournalling because I'm not baking up onto this disk and so don't need it - according to some other discussions I found.
When it was done I check on time machine in system prefs and once I selected options, I was able to remove it from the excluded from backups list. Hey presto. Now I'm moving my photo library and my music library onto the Tosh HDD and my macbook should start to breath again. Hurray.

Can i use my time capsule to wirelessly backup my macbook and its external hard drive, which up until now was it's time machine and storage? How?

Can i use my time capsule to wirelessly backup my macbook and its external hard drive, which up until now was it's time machine and storage? How?

The external drive must be connected to the Mac using either USB or FireWire
You must remove the external hard drive from the list of items that are "excluded" from backups in Time Machine Preferences.
Here's how:
Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock)
Open Time Machine
Click Options
Look for the name of the hard drive in the list of "excluded" items and click on it to highlight it
Click the -- (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the hard drive from the list of "excluded" items....so it will now be backed up
Strongly recommend that you do the first backup using Ethenret from your computer to the Time Capsule since the entire contents of the external drive will be copied on the first pass. Ethernet will be 3-5 faster than wireless.
Once you have the first backup done, you can use wireless for subsequent backups since they will nornally be much smaller....unless you add large files to the external drive.

I perviously transfered all my iTunes music to an external hard drive. But now when I connect the external hard drive and try to play a song, I get an error message saying that I need to "locate" my music. I don't how to find it on my external hard drive.

I perviously transfered all my iTunes music to an external hard drive. But now when I connect the external hard drive and try to play a song, I get an error message saying that I need to "locate" my music. I don't how to find it on my external hard drive. Please help for I am not that computer savy and don't want to mess anything up.
Thanks!

I called Apple Support and they walked me through it. They told me to basically copy and paste my music to the external hard drive. (I think.) Or maybe it was they had me transfer a folder to the EHD. I don't exactally remember it was a few years back. But I tried to plug in the EHD before starting and...nothing. Still says same thing, "locate file."

I use an external hard drive as a Time Machine back up, but I want to use another external hard drive to save movies, photos on it, but it won't give me the option to save anything on the new external hard drive. Nothing is wrong with the external hard.

I use an external hard drive as a Time Machine back up, but I want to use another external hard drive to save movies, photos on it, but it won't give me the option to save anything on the new external hard drive. Nothing is wrong with the external hard.

Hi Clarkett99,
To use an external hard drive for your iTunes library, see the steps in this article -
iTunes: Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
iPhoto can be used in a similar way, follow the steps in this previous discussion -
how do I save photos and their albums...: Apple Support Communities
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3744259
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

How do i copy photos still in their events folders from my macbook to my imac? also can i back up my photos still in their events folders to an external hard drive?

how do i copy photos still in their events folders from my macbook to my imac? also can i back up my photos still in their events folders to an external hard drive?

how do i copy photos still in their events folders from my macbook to my imac? also can i back up my photos still in their events folders to an external hard drive?

Time Machine shows a backup this morning at 11:58 but I didn't have the external hard drive plugged in. How is this possible?

Time Machine shows a backup this morning at 11:58 but I didn't have the external hard drive plugged in. How is this possible?

Because the drive was disconnected Time Machine made a local snapshot on your Mac.

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

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