I moved some time machine back-ups to the trash and I cannot move or delete them?

I was trying to make room in my Time Machine back-up disk and I moved some files to the trash. Now I cannot delete or move them. What can I do?

The answer depends on exactly what you did to delete the files.
In general, it is not advisable to delete Time Machine backups using the Finder. Time Machine works in conjunction with Spotlight to organize Time Machine backups. Deleting files required Spotlight to work overtime, and it is possible that this action corrupted its database.
If this happened, it is fixable.
Read the following, courtesy of Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini:
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html
Scroll down to the grey box for a potential fix.

Similar Messages

Hi, Question about secure empty trash. I moved some Time Machine backup files to the trash from an external hard drive. Now I can't secure empty trash. It starts, finds 74,003 files, and does nothing. The external hard drive shows it's empty, but it isn't

I moved some time machine backup files from an external USB hard drive to the trash. Tried secure empty trash. It counts 74,003 items, then just sits there. The external hard drive window shows it's empty, but the info pane says it only has 50G of memory left. I left the secure empty trash on over night. It did nothing. Ideas?
Thanks,
Ron

Relaunch the Finder, then from the Finder menu bar, select
Finder ▹ Preferences ▹ Advanced
and uncheck the box marked Empty Trash securely. Try again to empty the Trash.

I dragged some of the Time Machine backup folders into the Trash and now I can't empty them out of the trash because it says the applicaiotns ar ruining - what can I do?

I have dragged soem of my Time Machine folders into the Trash. Now when I try to empty the Trash it says it cannot empty some of the files because the applicaitons are running.
What can I do to delete them and completely empty the Trash.
NOTE: the Trash is on my iMac, not the Time Machine backup drive.
Thanks!

Greetings Dennis,
Time Machine handles file deletion of its backups or you can use the Time Machine window to tell Time Machine to delete specific files: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
Follow the steps here: http://Pondini.org/TM/E6.html
Cheers.

Is it possible to make 2 time machine back-ups on the same disk

Hi, i have 2 MacBook Pros, I have a time machine back-up for the newer one on my 500GB hard drive
I went to boot camp my other mac and it says I have to format the hard-drive, so I want to back everything on the old mac up, is it possible to make a seperate time machine back-up on the same external hard drive as I don't want to overwrite the back-up for my new mac? How can I do this
Thanks

andy.lawrence wrote:
you might have mentioned this before, but once I have partitioned my external drive, how can I go about re-formatting the old mac hard drive and then restoring my data back onto it?
You don't have to re-format it first; you need to erase and restore to "pack" everything into the first part of the drive so there's enough room on the rest of it for +Boot Camp+ to make a partition.
See #14 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).
Then use +Boot Camp+ to make the second partition.
Also, would it be better to run the OS X install disc, re-format the hard drive, and then when running setup assistant migrate all my information from the time machine back-up?
No. You'd have to install OSX, then use +Setup Assistant,+ then download and install the "combo" update (and other updates) to get back to the version of OSX you're running. And you might have to re-authorize and/or reinstall some 3rd-party apps.
If i do this, at the moment Im running snow leopard but the install disc is simply leopard, will this matter once I've migrated all my data across?
Do not use a Leopard Install disc to restore a Snow Leopard backup. It can copy everything, but the result either won't start or will kernel panic on startup. You must use a Snow Leopard Install disc.
(And please update your signature, via the +My settings+ link at the right.)

I can't empty trash. I get error code 8003. I am trying to delete some time machine back ups to make more room on my external hard drive.

My trash has files from time machine/Drobo, my external hard drive. It refuses to empty and prevents me from emptying other files from my iMac.

Please look at the More Like This link to your right. Any with a green check mark indicated the question has been answered with a solution.

Will existing Time Machine back ups build after 1 account migration

I have one i-Mac happily backing up with Time Machine to an external hard drive.
I have just bought a second i-mac (the old one's filling up) and propose to use migration assistant to move an admin account from the old to the new i-mac leaving two other accounts (and their files etc) on the old one. I see from some posts that it seems as if Time Machine will start a new back up series for the new i-mac's back ups (cos its a new MAC address). But what about the old i-mac? Will that continue to extend the existing (old) Time Machine back up files, albeit without my transferred account and its files? I'd like to end up with the old i-mac continuing to work with and build its Time Machine back ups (less my account and its new files) and have a new back up series from the new i-mac building to a separate partition on the external drive.
Second minor point: I have read that putting a partition on the external drive is the best way forward as it will stop competition for space and allow changes in one set up in future to have no impact on the other. Is this the best way forward?
Does this all make sense?
Sorry but I can't see an answer in the forum to what must be a reasonably common issue in this expanding mac world.

I then tried to move it (TM back up files) off with Restore, whilst preserving the TM back ups but I couldn't seem to do it to the i-Macs hard drive nor to partition that to allow this to happen (assuming the lack of a discrete partition was the problem).
That's likely correct. This only works if you restore one entire partition to another, and check the +Erase destination+ box.
The problem was that I could not (maybe for the same contiguous reasons) create a new partition on the old i-Mac just to temporarily move the TM back up to. Without it I could not 'empty' the WDC firewire drive and partition it prior to returning the TM back ups to it albeit contiguously in a dedicated partition.
Unfortunately for me to retain the TM back ups for the account I moved to the new i-Mac, I will have to leave that account on the old i-Mac as well. I can't see a way around that? If I delete the account on it then surely I will lose the ability to Log onto it and then to click TM and see back in time on that account?
If I understand you correctly, that will be true eventually, but not immediately, as TM will, eventually, delete it's copies of anything that's no longer on your internal HD. That will depend, of course, on how long TM can keep it's backups. But while they're still there, if you log on with Admin privileges, you should be able to view the old backups.
Not sure I explained myself clearly. Sorry. Having understood from your earlier help that 'migrate' actually means 'make a copy in another place', I have the migrated account in two places: one now dormant, on the old i-Mac and two, where it is migrated to (the new i-Mac). But TM continues to back up all accounts, indeed everything, on the old i-Mac by dint of its MAC address. So to see the migrated account's past history I assume I have to access the version on the old i-Mac. To put it another way, when logged into one account on the old i-Mac I believe it is not possible to see the TM history and files of another account on that i-Mac despite TM backing the entire HD. You have to be logged in to that account to see it. On the new i-Mac, with its different MAC address, TM is busy creating the first TM back up and I assumed that in the migrate it did not bring TM history as I had read that it is MAC address specific.
The only issue (apart from having this account's history spread over two machines (pre-today on the old i-Mac's TM and today onwards on the new i-Mac) is that I have all the files on both machines. I am not worried about security only unnecessary usage of disk space. It isn't critical, there's lots of it, but it just seems wasteful and untidy. Unless you guys know otherwise?
If I understand what you've done, you do have duplicates of the current contents, but only one copy of the old backups (on the old F/W drive).
On the old i-Mac I have the two accounts I wanted to stay there plus the now dormant account I migrated. TM continues to work away at memorising ALL these although there will be no further changes to the dormant migrated account as I will not be running it on the old i-Mac. On the new i-Mac I have the migrated account of which TM is now creating its first (huge) back up but starting today. There is no history here. So I have copies of everything; its just that the old history of the migrated account remains on the old i-Mac and a new history (does that make sense?) is building from the new one. My point was that if I were to delete the dormant account from the old i-Mac, then I could not access it to use TM with it. I believe TM only shows the history of the account and screen you're in at the time?
There is an option in TM that will allow you to selectively +Delete all backups of+ selected items. +Enter Time Machine,+ locate and select the item(s), click the "gear" icon in the Finder window's toolbar, and select the +Delete all backups of ..+ option.
What you can't do is, keep the backups of only previous versions of things that were changed or deleted. It's all or nothing.
Not sure I understand this. What would have been nice but I do not think is possible is to have moved the account to the new i-Mac together with the TM's back ups of that account and continue to build it up (whilst having access to its history) on the new i-Mac. If that were (is?) possible I could have totally deleted the old account and with it its files from the old i-Mac, freed up some HD space and had a full AND growing TM history all on the new i-Mac.
Many thanks for staying the course and for your continuing help.

Complicated corrupted main drive and lost Time Machine back-ups question

Here's tough one I can't pin down answers to: I have an iMac Early 2008 running Lion. The main hard drive system (probably) corrupted over the course of 2-3 months until it became unusable. I had Sophos on it, but removed it about a month ago and reliability improved but only for about a week. Finally the hard drive crashed. I used the Recovery partition while able to have Disk Utility add a second partition to my back-up drive, which contains Time Machine back-ups, my iPhoto folder and a few other files but no system. I installed Snow Leopard from disk to the new partition, checked the first partition, which seemed fine, then upgraded the Snow Leopard partition to Lion and updated and ran under a temporary user. Next I explored the main drive, which Disk Utility said was fine, but doesn't always show up. While in Disk Utility, I noticed that the first partition on the back-up drive showed up as empty! After some panicking, I've a second back-up drive on the way, but how do I access the TIme Machine back-ups, get my original user back and get access to over 15 years of files that are locked into that user?
My (2nd) back-up drive arrives tomorrow, so I'll able to get to work soon.
Thanks for any help.

Ok so wahat you mean is I need to name a partition "Time machine" in order for TM to back up any volumes and TM will always start with the volume titled Timemachine ?
so as I stated
A. All my OS applications _________Rename this to time machine or can I ues the volume name it is now?
B. All my files for those applications ---------Once that is done TM will back this up?
C. All My Itunes / Music etc---------Once that is done TM will back this u last?
Also I did a test run and I geet the error msg that the backup disk of my OS needs 1.36 TB but only 1.34 exists. The orignal OS disk has only 232GB of data why is tome machine asking for all that space?
I set the partition at 1.34 so there would be way more than enough space to copy.
R

Merge 2 time machine back ups on 1 back up drive?

I was running low on space on the USB drive I use to back up my Air, OS 10.6.5 with TIme Machine, and I had a new USB drive handy, so I just used the new drive. Now I have 2 USB drives and each has a time machine back up file, "Backups.backupdb"
I'd like to free up the first USB drive, and have the use of all of those old TIme Machine backups on the new drive.
It's clean up time, trying to reorganize my back ups and drives... is there any way to save the old Time Machine back ups from the old drive in usable format?
Thank you for any help
(btw, I do not want to upgrade to the latest versions of Mac OS's)

Funny you should mention... it was Pondini's TM FAQs that sent me here
If they answered this question, I missed it.
I have also read up on http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096
But neither could tell me how to manage the back up files when I had already started another external drive as backup disk.
I am currently copying all the files from the original back up drive to the new drive under another folder, it's taken about 10 hours so far, estimates 6 hours more to go.
And on the apple bulletin, it said I should uncheck "ignore ownership on this volume", which I failed to note.
Thanks for the link though, its a great one. If I missed it there, (and I checked Troubleshooting too) please let me know?

Snow Leopard OS will not "see" older Leopard Time Machine back-ups

I upgraded to OSX Snow Leopard from Leopard using a new hard drive (I wanted a bigger drive so it was actually a fresh install rather than an upgrade). OSX SL could see Time Machine back-ups from the Leopard system initially (before performing an OSX SL back-up). Now that the OSX TL back-up is completed, the previous Leopard back-ups cannot be seen by Time Machine. Any ideas on how/if I can get it to see them (as I could before I did a full back-up)?
I can see them on the drive, but just can't get to them via Time Machine.
Thanks!

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Yes, Time Machine normally only shows you the backups for the Mac you're on.
You need the +*Browse . . .+* option. See #17 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Can I use my time capsule for time machine back ups and as an external storage device?

I have a time capsule and have set it up so that my time machine back ups are saved on it, but I would also like to use it as an external hard drive. Is this possible?
I know nothing about computers so please tell me in very basic terms. thankyou!

By external hard disk we usually mean one plugged into the computer by USB or Firewire or Thunderbolt.
None of those works on the TC.. it is plugged in by ethernet or use wireless connection.. that means it is a network drive.. not an external drive. The difference might not mean much to you.. but it is totally different to the computer. In the former case the computer has full control of the disk. In the case of the network drive, the disk is controlled by the TC firmware and the files are stored and accessed by network. This has large implications.
So here is my standard response.
Store files on the TC.
This is asked several times a day.. obviously people are struggling with their latest SSD being too small.
The TC is not suitable for network file server.. but many people having no choice press it into service as such.
Major issues.
1. No backup.. no way Time Machine can backup a network drive. No place to backup to.. So all your files will be at risk. And you will need to buy a third party like CCC to do backup.
2. The TC cannot be partitioned and mixing TM backups and data is not great. It was and is and ever shall be a backup device for Time Machine.
3. The drive is slow to spin up and quick to spin down.. there is no control. In fact the TC is so lacking in controls for even the router side.. that you cannot do more than the most basic of setups.
The following are controls on the hard disk side.
Reformat it. You can name the share. You can do a full archive of the whole disk. This will go at a speed of aprox. 30-50GB/Hr so calculate how long an archive of a full 2TB will take.
4. iPhoto in particular can easily corrupt its entire library with wireless networking causing a disconnection to one photo. Even if you do this;;; do not move your photo library... you have been warned!!
Even apple btw say don’t do it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168 Although mostly about FAT32 it adds network drives.
5. iTunes can constantly lose connection to the library. The disk is slow to respond.. itunes on the computer will constantly spit out errors. Even in the midst of streaming the TC can spin down the disk due to caching.
6. Do not use any live files on the TC no matter what else you do.. if you edit files in whatever program the file must be on the local hard disk.
7. The only suitable location for most libraries is a computer. You can plug in an external hard disk.
Read pondini for some work arounds.
Q3 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html

I have 2 macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only loged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk

I have 2 Macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only logged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk. Is it possible to update her account on my macbook using her external disk without overwriting my stuff on the same Macbook and vice versa?

Time Machine does not do individual accounts. It records the complete drive. So if you were to use her TM backup on your Mac it would make your Mac just like hers. Both yours and her account on your MAC.
Just copy the missing files over from her Mac to yours. If there are differennt programs on each then they would need to be installed on both.

Can I make one iphoto library from two time machine back-ups?

Hi
I have recently purchased a new Mac Book. I previously had two MacBooks, which I backed up with time machine onto two separate external hard drives.
I did a straight transfer of all data from one of these time time machine back-ups to my new laptop. I'd like to migrate select data from the second time machine back-up to my new Mac Book, and I'd like to start by transferring photos.
My laptop has an iphoto library, so I would like to know if I can import select photos from this second time machine back-up, and how do I do that?
many thanks
Linda

First you need to restore the second Library from the back up. You need to restore the whole library, you can't just gather bits of it, I'm afraid.
Once that's done you have two Libraries. The easiest way to do what you want is to merge the Libraries with the paid version ($20) of iPhoto Library Manager This can be set to avoid duplicates. See the Help on it for more.
This is the only way that will get all the versions and all the metadata.
Other than that you'll need to export from one Library and import to the other.
Regards
TD

HT201250 I have thousands of pictures on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac I don't want them lost. I do time machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough for making sure my pictures don't ever get lost?

I have thousands of photos on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos. I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?

tgs6164 wrote:
I have thousands of photos on my Mac. If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos. I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week. Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?
Purchase a couple of these when they go on sale.
Start burning all the photos onto DVDs.
At least you'll have all your photos if your computer, time machine or any other backup you use goes bonkers.

I had to reformat my OSX 10.5.8 and i can't restore my emails from my time machine backup from an external hard drive - only the latest (post backup) time machine back ups are available to restore. Please can any help

I had to reformat my OSX 10.5.8 and I can't restore my emails from my time machine backup from an external hard drive - only the latest (post backup) time machine back ups are available to restore. Please can any help? I can find the mail folder in my libraries, but the Restore Button is grayed out

OSX treats the reformatted drive as a different one; it's the same as replacing it, and the old one is no longer connected.
See #E3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting to see and restore from the "old" drive.
And, you may not want to restore via the Finder; see the blue box in #15 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

External hard drive for time machine back-ups

Can anyone please suggest the best external hard drive to use for time machine back-ups on my iMac?
I also use a 1TB external hard drive for my iTunes library, but I've noticed that it can be slower to access the music than if I used the iMac hard drive......any suggestions? My iTunes library is currently sitting at around 200GB.
Thanks.
Brian

i'd recommend a firewire 800 drive. many folks here speak highly of drives supplied by [OWC|http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire> and [LaCie|http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11156].
JGG

I moved some time machine back-ups to the trash and I cannot move or delete them?

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