HT3275 Time Machine not deleting oldest backups when the disk is full

Time Machine not deleting oldest backups when the disk is full

Unfortunately, when this happens, Time Machine cannot erase enough space to create room for the new backup. Your options now are:
1) Add a new Time Capsule or a hard drive to the USB port on the existing Time Capsule and continue with backups
2) Manually delete backups from Time Machine....which is a long and tedious process.  After a few hours, not much space will be reclaimed and it will not be long before the Time Capsule is full again
3) Erase the Time Capsule....if you really do not need all the old backups from months ago....and start over with a new Time Machine backup and move forward again

Similar Messages

  • Time machine not deleting oldest backup on full network drive

    Hi All,
    I backup my iMac over the network to a share on a mac Mini. After around three months, the share is full. I expected Time Machine to just start deleting old backups, but it is not.
    Time Machine gives me the following error:
    "This backup is too large for the backup volume".
    This is correct, but i thought Time Machine should have just deleted the oldest backup in this instance? Or does this not work when backing up over the network?
    Thanks in advance for help and advice.
    Cheers,
    mdavis75
    Message was edited by: mdavis75

    I have the exact same problem, but I am not using TM over a network... Only my local Mac Pro w/ a 600gb external drive. I recall back when I first got Leopard that time machine did in fact ask me if I wanted it to delete old backups after the drive filled up. Then one day it randomly decided to not delete old backups anymore... Instead displaying the same error message you get.
    Can anyone help? (Besides telling me not to back up certain files, and to do it less often. Those are BS solutions! I want my entire HD backed up every time automatically erasing old backups when necessary. Is that too much to ask for?)

  • Time Machine not deleting oldest backups?! Disc full.

    What is wrong with Time Machine in Yosemite?
    For years I have been using it and when the backup drive gets close to full I will be warned that the oldest backups will be removed to make space for the new ones.
    It even says in System Preferences. "The oldest backups are deleted when your disk becomes full"
    Why then does this not appear to work anymore? My Time Machine drive has become full and it REFUSES to back up now!
    What must I do? Erase the whole drive and start again? Any answers appreciated.

    Time Machine Troubleshooting
    Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

  • Backup disk is full ... Time Machine not deleting old backups

    In my Time Machine preferences it says "The older backups are deleted when your disk becomes full." Well ... my disk is full but Time Machine is not deleting its old backups to make more room.
    So now TM is failing to backup.
    Any suggestions for freeing up some disk space and getting back to getting backed up?
    Thanks.
    Ramone

    ramonekalsaw wrote:
    In my Time Machine preferences it says "The older backups are deleted when your disk becomes full." Well ... my disk is full but Time Machine is not deleting its old backups to make more room.
    So now TM is failing to backup.
    What message does it send? See #C2 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.
    Any suggestions for freeing up some disk space and getting back to getting backed up?
    Do you have other data on the disk, in the same partition? If so, that's not a good idea, and may be the source of the problem. See #3 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

  • Time machine not deleting old backups...

    I am on Mavericks 10.9.1 and get the following error:
    "The backup disk needs48.93 GB for the backup but only 30.99 are available.  Select a larger backup disk or make the backup smalled by excluding files."
    I recently had to unplug my external HD which I use for time machine back-ups, this error started when I plugged it back in just a few days ago.  I have exlcuded some files from the back up and still get the error.  My internal HD has 475.62GB of data on it, and I am trying to back up to a 500GB external HD, the total size of my backup is roughly 465GB. 
    Seems like I should have enough space for a back-up and TM should delete the old back-ups.  I have been through a search of the forum and online and have not found a solution.  Has anyone ran into this?
    Thanks for the help!

    I believe I was told that If you had older backups like ML and your disk is getting full it will not delete these because you are now backing up a new OS (Mavericks).  It only deletes older backups of the same OS you are now using.

  • Why does Time machine not delete old backups

    I dont understand Why time machine is not deleting old backups. As it worked first time with the same size backup drive as the drive its backing up, I assumed it would just delete the old backup as needed. Do I need a bigger backup drive?

    Roglee wrote:
    I just want it to delete the old backup & replace it so i just have a copy. I guess i could just re format the drive each time but that just seems a waste of my time when TM should do this for me!
    If this is all you want to do, turn off Time Machine, download SuperDuper! and use it for free. This will clone whatever drive you want and the free trial will erase your back up drive each time. I can't remember if it will let you choose what to back up or if it wants the entire drive. Also, I'm not sure if the Scheduler works with the free trial. Below are some verbiage for SuperDuper!. Looks like if you want Scheduling you will have to purchase a license.
    Download Now! 
    You can download SuperDuper! v2.7.1 right now and back up and clone your drives for free— forever! 
    Buy Now!
    Buy now to unlock scheduling, Smart Update (which saves a lot of time), Sandboxes, scripting and more!
    Time Machine will keep making back ups and when it determines it needs space, it will delete older back ups. But it doesn't delete older ones each time it backs up.

  • Time Capsule not deleting old backups when full

    I have a number of drives attached for alternating backups through Time Machine. When a generic USB drive I have gets full, it sends out a message saying that it will have to delete the oldest BU, which is fine by me. My relatively new tall Time Capsule just tells me to reduce the number of files I'm backing up or get another drive.
    Also, form the numbers in the screenshot, it looks like it's trying to do a complete backup of my iMac drive when it should just be incremental, as it has been doing all along. Using 10.10.1 on a 2-year old iMac.
    Any ideas why? Thanks to all in advance.

    Incremetnal backups are small, so Time Machine usually does not have any trouble deleting a few of oldest incremental backups to make room for new small incremental backups.....but....450 GB is not an incremental backup, and Time Machine will not be able to delete enough data to make room for the large backup that it is being asked to complete.
    If you want to keep all of the data on the current Time Capsule, you can add another USB drive to the Time Capsule, or another Time Capsule for that matter and continue backups that way.
    Another option....the least expensive.....would be to erase the current Time Capsule drive and start over again with a new backup set.

  • Time machine not deleting old backups of recovery partition

    I have a Mac Mini running Lion Server. I have an external disk partitioned with a space for network backups and a smaller partition for backing up the server itself. The server has a 160GB disk, it is only using 29.27GB, the partition for backing up the server is 152GB (it's what was left over after creating the partition for the network backups). I figured since I'm only using about 30GB, 152GB should be plenty of space. However after 3 months of use I get the error "the backup is too large for the backup disk". In the past I have formatted the partition and restarted the backups, however it always fills up after 3 months. This time I decided to dig into it a bit more. I looked to see what was available in my backup, it only has one previous restore point. I browsed the disk and opened the backups.backupdb folder, checked the size of the folder with the computer name, it is only 9.44GB. I was wondering where all of the space went so I enabled hidden files, I found the .RecoverySets folder and found it was taking up 141.95GB. I looked at the recovery sets, there are 295 copies of com.apple.recovery.boot which all seem to contain the following files:
    .disk_label                         749b
    BaseSystem.chunklist       2KB
    BaseSystem.dmg              454.6MB
    boot.efi                              864KB
    com.apple.Boot.plist          431b
    kernelcache                       24.1MB
    PlatformSupport.plist         2KB
    SystemVersion.plist           478b
    Of those files, the only file not dated Aug 11, Oct 6 or 12, 2011 is com.apple.Boot.plist which has a date that corresponds to when the backup was performed. These backups go all the way back to Jan 30, the last time I formatted the partition, but the user data backups only go back to the 27th and it hasn't been able to complete a backup since.
    I thought Time Machine was supposed to only backup data that had changed since the last backup, and delete old revisions when space is running low, it seems that it is copying more than just the data that changed since the last backup and only deleting old revisions of user data, not system data. Is there a way to fix this permanently?

    See C18 in the first linked article. Also, your backup drive should be 2-4 times your hard drive capacity.
    Time Machine Troubleshooting
    Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

  • OS X 10.7  Time Machine not deleting old backups to make space

    after upgrading to 10.7, Time Machine no longer deletes old (over a year old) backups to make space when needed.  Drive now full.  Cannot manually delete and Time Machine does not seem to have a function to perform a deletion.

    See C18 in the first linked article. Also, your backup drive should be 2-4 times your hard drive capacity.
    Time Machine Troubleshooting
    Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

  • Time Machine is Deleting Old backups

    Disconnected my MacBook Pro from its hard drives for two days. Re-connected, and ran Time Machine. It backuped up as normal. I walked away, seeing "49.8GB free of 499GB" on that external hard drive. I come back and Time Machine is "Deleting Old Backups ... " - and now 135GB free, and still deleting.
    I realize that TM auto-deletes ... but does this sound "normal" to start its own deletions when there was 49GB remaining on a 500GB drive?
    It's still deleting ...
    Clint Bradford

    If I said I connnected two disks, I apologize. One 500GB external hard drive is dedicated to just being a Time Machine backup for my 17" MacBook Pro.
    Not sure what has happened ... but Time Machine cleared up space, and is now performing a 110GB backup ... kinda like it doesn't know it's the same computer attached to it.
    This is NOT a critical problem ... I have full backup elsewhere. Just a little weirdness today ...
    Clint Bradford

  • Time machine not consolidating hourly backups

    For some reason my time machine isn't consolidating backups at the end of the day/week/month. On my time machine drive, I currently have hourly backups going back over 2 months.
    As you may imagine, this eats up a lot of storage.
    Does anyone have any ideas what might be causing this?

    That's odd. Mine go away after 24 hours like clockwork.
    As VA2020 says, it's probably not a significant space problem, but worth investigating, especially after that long a time.
    I'd suggest downloading the Time Machine Buddy widget, which extracts TM's messages from your logs and displays them in a little window. Check your last few backups, especially for messages about "thinning".
    As an example, here's my most recent set, showing routine deletion of an hourly:
    *Starting standard backup*
    *Backing up to: /Volumes/TmBackups/Backups.backupdb*
    *No pre-backup thinning needed: 133.2 MB requested (including padding), 175.83 GB available*
    *Copied 492 files (2.7 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.*
    *Starting post-backup thinning*
    *Deleted backup /Volumes/TmBackups/Backups.backupdb/JPs.G5.iMac/2009-01-19-191145: 175.83 GB now available*
    *Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed*
    *Backup completed successfully.*
    If yours look hinky (pardon the technical term), especially any sort of failure message, or not being able to delete old backups, copy and post them here (be careful to get all the messages, as they often overflow the little window).
    One question: have you used any of the 3rd part apps or postings about modifying TM's preference file to alter the backup schedule?

  • HT3275 My time machine is sending me messages that the disk image is "already in use" as the reason it can't complete a backup. What gives?

    My time machine is sending me messages that the disk image is "already in use" as the reason it can't complete a backup. What gives?

    That is our most common error.. ever since Mountain Lion came along with its inability to remember beyond a few hours. where the devices are located.. and so forgets to dismount properly.
    Look at the right hand.. More Like This.
    A simple restart fixes it. ie pull out the power cord.. count to 10.. plug the power cord back into the TC.
    More details C12 here.
    http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

  • "could not complete your request because the disk is full"

    I have Photoshop Elements 3 on an older desktop I use for editing photos. Yesterday, I tried to pull up a photo from my connected camera to the PE3 window and got the following error mesaage instead: "could not complete your request because the disk is full."
    I have researched the Online help and Forum but can not seem to find a solution to this problem. I have gone through the Edit -> Preferences -> Memory & Image Cache, I have reset all the options there, increased the memory available to PE3 and, have uninstalled and re-installed the program without luck. I also deframented my unit but the issue persists. I now find that I also can not load photos that are already saved on my hard drive as well.
    I am running a P4 system with 1GB of RAM, 52GB of free space, and XP Pro. The only changes made to this unit recently is the installation of Kaspersky Internet Security 2012. I would greatly appreciate any insight I can get on this problem. Thanks.

      Are you able to get the files on to your hard drive using a card reader? You can the use the Organizer menu, File à Get Photos à from Files & Folders.
    The only other suggestion I can make is to try closing other processes running in the background. You do that by launching the task manager (press Ctrl+Alt+Delete)
    Go to the processes tab and then highlight individual programs and tasks and hit the end process button. Then launch Elements again. Also try temporarily disabling your internet security and see if that makes any difference.
     

  • Stopping Time Machine from deleting older backups?

    Dear Folks,
    I'm using Time Machine Editor to control how often TM does its backups and it works great. Because I have a large TM drive and am not doing super-frequent backups, I have plenty of free space on the drive; it'll easily take 6-9 months before the drive would be full of daily backups. Accordingly,I'd like it if there were some way to preserve the daily backups that are older than a month(TM preserves only the weekly ones).
    Does anyone know of a third-party app that will let me control the frequency with which TM deletes older backups?
    Thanks!
    pax / Ctein

    (none) Ctein wrote:
    Dear Folks,
    I'm using Time Machine Editor to control how often TM does its backups and it works great.
    Do note that if you ever decide to stop using it, you must use it to revert to Time Machine's default behavior before deleting the app. Otherwise, Time Machine will continue use the last settings it made. See #13 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    Because I have a large TM drive and am not doing super-frequent backups,
    Time Machine was designed to do hourly backups, and will protect you best if you let it back up as often as practical. If they're done frequently, the backups should be quick and unobtrusive. If they aren't, something is wrong.
    I have plenty of free space on the drive; it'll easily take 6-9 months before the drive would be full of daily backups. Accordingly,I'd like it if there were some way to preserve the daily backups that are older than a month(TM preserves only the weekly ones).
    Does anyone know of a third-party app that will let me control the frequency with which TM deletes older backups?
    No. The actual Time Machine application doesn't actually perform the backups; it just lets you control where, when, and what gets backed-up. The backup programming, including the "thinning," is built-in to the "works" embedded deeply into OSX.
    If you were to keep all the daily backups, it would reduce the length of time before the oldest weeklies start getting deleted. That's usually a pretty good trade-off.
    And remember, every Time Machine backup is, in effect, a full backup -- it's a complete "snapshot" of the way your entire system looked at the time of the backup.

  • How to prevent time machine from deleting certain backup folders?

    So, I have problem undrestanding time machine. Time machine has made a backup of my files in Nov 2012 and another backup from Jan 2013. There is some files in Nov 2012 that I want to keep them forever and never be deleted. So, they were backed up by Time machine (I have deleted those files from my computer so they're no lonegr excist in my compuetr). Althought they do excist on my time machine under the Nov 2012 folder, I am not able to modify them at all for example, I'm not allowed to copy them somehwere else. Since, I can not make another copy of them, I am worried if time machine delete my Nov 2012  in future and then they will be gone. Can someone please help me in modifying/ controling my folder so it won't be deleted in future? 

    You are using Time Machine incorrectly, your files will be deleted from Time Machine after you delete them from your Mac, the only variable is when.
    Time Machine is a backup, not a storage system.
    Restore them now and copy them to long term storage (another hard drive)

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