How to delete entire time machine backup folder? as well as any backups placed in the trash

trying to free up a drive by deleting the back ups folder. Tried to do it via trash and ended up getting error 8003 or somthing. tried deleting a backup individualy but found that i now have the file stuck in my trash. Did not think it would be this hard tbh. Is there any fast and effeciant way of getting rid of these files?

Just to be sure I understand ... you do not want to erase the TM drive because there are files that are not part of TM on that drive?
If that is the case you can copy those other files to some other drive, before you erase.
Or do you just want to purge the drive of theTM files and leave the rest in place?

Similar Messages

I tried to manually clear my Time Machine back up drive (a La Cie). But now the Trash is filled with files (over 130,000) and it doesn't seem to want to trash them - how do I get rid of them now in a quicker way?

I tried to manually clear my Time Machine back up drive (a La Cie) of some of the older backups. But now the Trash is filled with files (over 130,000) and it doesn't seem to want to trash them - it's taking forever!! how do I get rid of them now in a quicker way?

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

How can you erase old back up from my external drive which i placed in the trash?

I removed some old back up from time machine which are on my external drive and it now in the trash. But the old back up is not erasing from my trash can. How can you removed this from the trash without reformatting the external drive.

You really should not remove any Time Machine backups using that or any other method.
Go to > Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions 12 and scroll down to the section in gray at the bottom of the article.
For more great Time Machine info, see > Apple OSX and Time Machine Tips

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.
When I start a backup. Time Machine says "Oldest Backup: None; Latest Backup: None", so it seems like it should do a complete backup, but it only does a partial.

Hi I'd like to jump in here. Your app showed me this:
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 749.3 GB Disk used: 453.81 GB
          Destinations:
                    Plastic Wrapper [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 999.86 GB
                    Total number of backups: 64
                    Oldest backup: 2013-07-24 23:25:11 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-17 01:40:47 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
                              Backup size 999.86 GB < (Disk used 453.81 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
          /sbin excluded from backup!
          /usr excluded from backup!
          /System excluded from backup!
          /bin excluded from backup!
          /private excluded from backup!
          /Library excluded from backup!
          /Applications excluded from backup!
Aside from the size of my backup drive, which I will increase at some point, I'd really like to have time machine backing up all system folders, especially Applications. How to I reset this hidden exclusions?
Thanks,
Darcy

I am trying to update my time machine backup on time capsule, but time machine keeps trying to create an entirely new backup (evidenced by the 200GB backup size). How can I get time machine to modify my old backup rather than create a new one?

I am trying to update my time machine backup on time capsule, but time machine keeps trying to create an entirely new backup (evidenced by the 200GB backup size). How can I get time machine to modify my old backup rather than create a new one?

It must have found the old backup corrupt.. so you will more than likely have little choice. You can archive off the old backup if it is still useful.
You can also verify it. See A5 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
He also has some info on this problem. eg C13.

When Time Machine tries to back up to my Seagate HD before the HD is fully on, it fails. Then Time machine thinks it needs to back up the entire drive and there's not enough room. It won't just do the backup of new info now. Any thoughts?

When I try to do a Time Machine backup with my Seagate HD, and if I accidentally have Time Machine automatically on, it will fail if the HD is not fully on and recognized by the computer yet. But the problem is that when this has happened (twice now), it seems it loses all knowledge that it has backed up using Time Machine before and it will only try to back up the entire Mac HD to the Seagate. The Seagate already has 147 GB of data from prior Time Machine backups and I only need to backup the latest stuff since my last backup, but it won't let me do that. It tries to do the whole drive and it says it can't because there is only 135 GB of space left and it needs to backup 147 GB. Anyone know how to fix this and get it to start backing up again without erasing the drive and starting over? That's what I did last time. I erased the Seagate and then reset it as my Time Machine drive and it started working fine again until it failed and reverted to the problem. Thanks

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message that corresponds to an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included—anonymize before posting.

How do I retrieve Time Machine folder from Trash

Hello All,
This is my first posting!
I've read quite a bit on these forums, and found some great info on Time Machine, particularly Pondini's posts and website (thank you!).
Here is my issue:
iMac (2007) with Mountain Lion getting slow, and last week start-up got stuck on grey screen. Looks like hard drive failing, according to Apple Store Genius. They manage to get me back up and running in Mountain Lion thanks to a recent Time Machine backup on external hard drive via USB.
I get the beast home, and start a new TM backup on the same external HD. It says disk full, can't complete backup.
In Finder (bad idea, I now know), I open the TM folder in the external HD, only to find duplicate copies of the Macintosh folder, with months worth of backups in each (identical). Thinking this will confuse the Mac/Time Machine, I figure I should delete one. I call the Apple store to make sure it's ok to delete one copy. They say YES. I drag it to the trash, but when I go back to check the backups.backupdb folder, they're BOTH gone.
I try to drag it back out of the trash, but after a few hours of "preparing to copy" the iMac freezes. Back to the Apple store, and it's now limping along in OS version 10.6. A new iMac purchase is close on the horizon...
So, I have a recent TM backup that I would like to use, but it's in the trash on my external HD!
I've used Finder to look through the folder in the trash, and retrieved individual documents and desktop folders that I need.
Email, calendar and contacts are all safely duplicated on my MBP.
However, I have music and a few years of photos that I desperately would like to recover.
Ultimately, I plan to use the most recent TM backup to migrate to my upcoming new iMac.
All is not totally lost, as I have a second TM backup on another external HD - although it's from March 2013. Not the end of the world to lose photos from March to now, but if I can get them back, I'd like to. They seem so tantalizingly close, sitting in the trash.
So, my question is: can I retrieve my Time Machine Macintosh folder from the trash?
Options I've considered so far:
Simply use the "Put Back" option that comes up with Right-Clicking the folder. Too chicken to try this up to now.
Drag and drop it? Huge file, will take a looooong time.
Copy one recent backup in the trash to a separate drive and use that to migrate to new iMac (from Pondini's FAQ#18, I'm doubting this will work - but I'm trying this now; several hours in and file is 317Gb).
Copy the photos from an individual backup. From what I gather, with my version of iPhoto being '11, I can't see individual photos and I'll have to copy the entire library as one file and import it later. Again, huge file, long time.
I would appreciate any suggestions!
Many thanks in advance.

Old discussion (2009), but you might read what Pondini typed.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/10161899#10161899

How migrate from older time machine backup (not the latest)?

My old Snow Leopard Mac had a dying hard drive. In the last few days, files were disappearing left and right.
I bought a new Lion Mac, but I don't trust the Time Machine backup for the last few days and I would like to migrate the backup from just before the problems started.
I can't figure out any way to do this. Migration Assistant only offers to import the latest backup
And the full Time Machine Restore feature, which DOES allow you to pick a backup, only works on the original machine, which will not boot any more.
Can I somehow trick Migration Assistant by deleting the last few backups from the Time Machine drive and renaming the one I want to use to Latest? (I've made a copy of the entire Time Machine folder just in case...)
Any other way to do this? I'm sure many people are in this situation.

I have this same question. My hard drive died, and the last few Time Machine backups appear to be incomplete or corrupted. New hard drive installed now. Migration Assistant and Setup Assistant first refuse to even recognize my backup drive, then insist on migrating data from the newest backup instead of an older (but definitely complete and reliable) backup. So I haven't migrated anything and am still using my old (OS 10.4) computer until i get this straightened out. Ideas?

I deleted my Time Machine backups using Finder, now the trash won't empty

Hello
I've just been to the Apple genius bar and thought this was solved, there the trash emptied no problem. But I realized that the problem has to do with two external drives that have time machine backups on them. I deleted some of the older back ups because my drive was filling up and I didn't see any other way to delete them.
Now they can't be reinstated back where they were, and the trash won't empty using any method. I've even tried the Terminal SUMO methods on here and other sites, and the Trashi It app, and Cocktail app - nothing works.
The only solutions I've found say to wipe your back up drive completely and start over but that is NOT an option as I have ALL of my photos on there. I use my external drive for my images (I am a photographer) and use time machine to back up my MacBookPro onto there as well. I had no idea deleting those was going to be an issue. Now I've tried to delete other things on both external drives and they are all stuck in the trash.
Someone please help!

photogirl67 wrote:
I use my external drive for my images (I am a photographer) and use time machine to back up my MacBookPro onto there as well.
Not a good idea, as you've learned the hard way.
And especially bad in the same partition, as you can't just erase the TM partition.
Plus, how do you back up the images?
For best results, consider getting another external HD; one for the images, and one for TM. Then you can have Time Machine back up both your Mac and the external. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #32 for details and considerations.
But my question for Pondini is this - if I use that command will it erase that entire drive, or just the trash on it?
Just the trash folders. I've reworded those instructions a bit, hopefully more clearly and safely, and put them in #E6 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Delete old time machine backups?

I know that once a time machine disk fills up, it will delete an older backup. But is there any way to do this manually?
I recently learned that Time Machine has been backing up my entire Parallels virtual machine every night (50GB), because I didn't have the settings configured correctly in Parallels. I want to go back and delete a lot of those 50GB days when it backed up.
I know how to delete a particular file from a specific backup day, and maybe I can do that, but I was wondering how to delete entire backups the way that Time Machine does when it is full?
Thanks
Bob

Ah, nevermind, I just went and deleted all backups of the virtual machine. Went from 3TB drive totally full to having 2.4 TB free!
Bob

Can I manually delete old Time Machine backups?

I've got a 1TB ext. HD that has 950GB of TM backups on it from my Mac Pro. The Pro has to go in for repairs so I'm using my Macbook Pro. Can I (& HOW) remove some of the older backups from the drive to make room for things off the Macbook Pro?

Of course. To do it, open Finder and choose the Time Machine drive in the Finder sidebar, under "Devices". Then, open the "Backups.backupdb" folder, open the folder with your MacBook Pro's name and delete the old backups. You can delete as many as you need.
Then, you have to create a volume in the external drive, as you can't use the Time Machine volume to store other data or you might damage the Time Machine structure. See > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU3.html

How can I force Time Machine to use existing backup sparsebundle files?

I backed up both my OSX Mountain Lion MBP and MacOSX Snow Leopard iMac to the same USB Disk. I then plugged this USB Disk into my Time Capsule, and configured Time Machine in both macs to use it through the network. But Time Machine insists on creating new backup sparsebundle files, ignoring the existing ones. How can I force Time Machine to use the existing backups.backupdb sparsebundle files instead of creating new ones?

How can I force Time Machine to use the existing backups.backupdb sparsebundle files instead of creating new ones?
You can't. Time Machine works differently over a network than it does with a locally-attached drive. What you could do is delete the folder named "Backups.backupdb" at the top level of the volume, which contains the backups you made via USB. You should then be able to backup to the same sparsebundle locally and over the network. But I wouldn't recommend doing that. Certainly don't do it unless you have at least one other complete backup (which you should have anyway.)

When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

I am tring to installe OS X Mavericks. When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

Open up your Finder and click on Go on the top menu bar. Select Computer and then double click Macintosh HD. In here delete the backup folder. Might be called backups.backupdb.

I am trying to delete a Time Machine backup from a Time Capsule.

I am trying to delete a Time Machine backup from a Time Capsule. The file is about 400GB and my MacBook has been trying to delete it for 5h now. It still says "deleting" but has not given me a "time remaining" yet. Any idea of what I could do????

You should not attempt to delete backups using the Finder. The result can be a corrupted backup.
I recommend you let it complete, no matter how long it takes. That could be days, if your TC is connected via wireless.
It is not necessary to delete backups, since Time Machine will delete old backups some time after they have been deleted from your source volume. For more information read Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini's explanation here: Should I delete old backups? If so, How?

Can't Completely Delete a Time Machine Backup

How do I completely delete a Time Machine Backup? In Snow Lepord I had no problem with deleting a Time Machine Backup. I back up my HHD on a external HHD. Since using Time Machine with Lion the back ups are not being fully deleted. My trash can each time I connect my external HHD is displaying deleted files. When I go to delete from trash I am told there are locked items. So I select the option to delete locked items, hear the deleted trash can sound but the trash can still indicates the files haven't been perminetly deleted yet. What is my problem here?

hopesdead wrote:
None of that worked. I used the Terminal method. No good.
What does "no good" mean? What happened, or didn't happen? That should empty the trash on the disk. As mentioned, it may take a long time, if there's lots of files there.
Repairing will be no good to be cause my external HD contains everything on one partition. The backups are not on there own partition like that site assumes. Repairing did no good.
Do you mean you didn't try it? If so, try it. It may or may not be able to repair them, but it's worth a try.

How to delete entire time machine backup folder? as well as any backups placed in the trash

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