Manually erasing some older Time Machine backups?

I need to move a bunch of stuff from my HD to my external (I am pushing the 10% limit on my HD) but my external is getting pretty full itself. Can I delete older backups, say from September from my backup?

TM will automatically delete the oldest backups if space is needed. See:
About TM "Backup Drive is Full" Alert
TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Data are deleted to make space for a new backup, but if TM is unable to delete enough files to free up space for the new backup, then you will get a disk full error. Normal thinning during a backup occurs during TM's periodic weekly and monthly consolidation backups. Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.
In order to delete any files from a TM backup drive the only way it should be done is by using the TM application. Open the Finder to the file's location, then open the TM application. Navigate back in time. Then select the file. Use the Tool icon in the Finder's toolbar and select the Delete option.
Do not delete anything from the TM backup drive manually. Use the TM application per the above.

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How do I restore a system from an older time machine backup?

How can I restore my full system from a time machine backup using a "snapshot in time" older than the most recent time machine backup?
For context: I am doing work on my machine that required making a full backup (in time machine), working on the computer, then doing a full restore. Unfortunately, when I briefly connected the my external disk during step 2, time machine started and added a "newer" backup than the one I need to restore. Any advice?
Thanks!

Recover your entire system
Time Machine – Revert to Previous OS

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 can't erase my old Time Machine Backup hard drive.

Hi,
I have a hard drive that I was using for my Time Machine backup. It now doesn't show up in Finder, but when I go to disk utilities it shows up but I can't erase it so I can use it again.
It is a WD hard drive and isn't too old.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

Try repairing disk & repairing permissions on the drive in disk utility.
Have you tried partitioning it again?
Otherwise it sounds like it's dead.

Cannot access older time machine backups

I recently installed a new SSD in my MacBook and after reinstalling OSX Mountain Lion I chose to restore from a time machine backup. Everything went smoothly and all my files were restored. However, I tried to access a backup from before my restore but it's not showing it as being available even though the Time Machine preferences confirm that my oldest backup is from June 2011 and I can still access the folders that far back via finder. But I've never had this happen. Why it because its a new hard drive? Was it because of the recent 10.8.3 software update? Was it because of the "restore from time machine backup"? Every time I had done a clean install I just copied over the critical folders such as documents and itunes from my drive, never used the restore feature. My files clearly aren't gone, but I'm curious as to why this happened. Please help. Thanks in advance.

Have you done a new backup yet? If not, yes, Time Machine is looking for the backups on a different disk. As mende1 says, the procedure in #E3 should let you see them.
Once you start a new backup, Time Machine should automatically "associate" the new drive with the old backups, only do an "incremental" backup of the changes, and treat the old backups as if they'd been made from the new drive.
If not (ie, if it starts doing a full backup), you may be able to cancel the backup and do the "associatedisk" yourself, per #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting, especially the pink box there.

Erase Hard Drive;Time Machine Backup

I recently discovered that I have some bad directories in my main hard drive which is causing some performance deficits on my computer. I always use an external hard drive exclusively for Time Machine, and it backs up several times a day. If I wipe my hard drive, will I be able to select my Time Machine drive and restore everything I had prior to erasing the disk? In my Time Machine preferences, I have not excluded the backup of any kind of file. Will my computer (all settings, preferences, etc.) be exactly as it was before the disk erase if I back up from my Time Machine drive? I just want to make sure that I don't lose anything? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-P.

Hey there,
Yes, if you backed up everything and restore everything, your computer should seem as exactly as it was. More on restoring from Time Machine can be found in the link below. Hope this helps.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/15638.html
B-rock

Can you delete older time machine backups

I recently upgraded to a new iMac. I had been using an external drive for backing up my previous computer. I would like to use this same drive to back up my new computer; however, I need to delete some of the older backups in order to have enough space.
My understanding is that Time Machine backs up incrementally; therefore, I am wondering if I go in and arbitrarily start deleting the oldest BUs if I will mess up the integrity of the backups. I am reluctant to delete all of them until I am absolutely certain I don't need anything from them.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thank you.

I would let Time Machine 'do its thing' and delete backups as it is designed to. You probably won't hurt the integrity of the backup, but you could delete something you might want. How big is the drive? You could always buy a new drive and backup both computers to that and keep backing up the older computer to both drives. Having 2 separate backups on 2 separate hard drives is desirable because hard drives do fail.

Older Time Machine backups missing

I recently upgraded my hard disk, and restored from my TM backup. After the subsequent full backup, and the (apparently) normal glitchy next few days (backups failing or preparing for ever)things seemed back to normal. However, I went to find some accidentally deleted Mail notes and discovered that no backups seem to be available from before the date of my full restore. As no new sparsebundle has been created is there any chance that my older backups are still in there somewhere, in a form where I might be able to access them?

Download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to that full backup after the restore.
That should show exactly which backups it deleted to make room for more. If you're unsure of what you see, copy and post the messages here (be sure to get them all, as sometimes they overflow the small window).

Manual restore from a Time Machine backup from a failing disk?

The hard drive on the iMac seemed to be having issues. I called apple and they said to bring it in for a hard drive (recalled) replacement. So, I unplugged the TimeMachine backup drive, and took the iMac in to have the hard drive replaced. When I got it back, it had a fresh install of the OS.
I plugged in the external TimeMachine backup disk, and it wouldn't restore. After running Disk Utility several times (always errored out on the catalog file), I used disk drill to recover all of the files off of it. I saved all of the recovered TimeMachine files to the new internal hard drive. How can I retrieve my files from these backups?
I need mostly the latest version of my Documents folder (and contents), and Desktop folder contents. Eveything else would be a sweet bonus.

Can you open Time Machine at all or can't it find the backup?
If the backup doesn't mount:
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1170
Inherit a backup: http://pondini.org/TM/B5.html
http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html
General troubleshooting:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11194
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275 (note - older article)

I cannot access an older time machine backup after installing an new hard drive.

After installing a new hard drive I tried to access my older backups in time machine but cannot. They are there but do not light up and allow me to access them, or select them.

First, if you're worried about the possibility of losing a backup set, then your backup strategy is inadequate. You will certainly lose those backups, no matter what you do, when the drive hosting them fails, as it will eventually. If you take data safety seriously, you should have at least two complete, independent backups of all your data, one of which is off-site at all times. I suggest you make a second backup now, before doing anything else.
The action I suggested won't delete all the snapshots; only the selected one -- unless something goes wrong, which is always possible. Without adequate backups, nothing you do is safe.

Can I delete older Time Machine backups?

I have an extensive set of Time Machine back-ups on an external drive for a machine that I no longer own. I want to keep a back-up of that machine...but just one copy, not the multiple copies that exist now.
My first thought was to simply delete all of the backup folders except the most recent one. But I don't know enough about how Time Machine works to know if that approach will work, or if the most recent backup somehow depends on all those previous folders, and I'll end up deleting important content.
Can I delete the older folders? Is there a way to "compress" the backups so I have just a single, last snapshot of the machine?

As Kappy says, you can do this via the TM interface, and from another Mac, but it's rather tedious.
+Enter TIme Machine+ won't show you the backups from another Mac. But if you hold the Option key down while selecting the TM icon in your Menubar, it will change to +Browse Other Time Machine Disks,+ that will.
Locate the backup you want to delete via the "cascade" of Finder windows.
Then select the "gear" icon in it's toolbar and +Delete Backup.+
You'll see a confirmation prompt, then one for your Administrator's password.
When you delete an entire backup, it will disappear from the timeline and the "cascade" of Finder windows, but it will not actually delete the backup of any item that's also present in any other backup. Thus you may not gain much space on any one backup. The deletion is usually fairly quick, but sometimes quite lengthy (if you exit TM, you may see a progress bar for it). Unfortunately, you cannot predict which will be quick and which won't.

Older Time Machine backups not available in Mountain Lion?

My wife relies heavily on Time Machine to restore old files that have been deleted or previous versions of a file. Recently I upgraded her Mac OS from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. Today she discovered that she is unable to search and/or restore files from any point before the upgrade to Mountain Lion, although she can see dates along the timeline that indicate that there are backups present. She has backups going back almost 3 years now, so this is a pretty serious potential loss. Is there a work around for this? If not, we'll have to roll back to her Snow Leopard OS from theTime Machine. Just FYI, her system specs are: iMac (24-inch Mid 2007) Mac OS 10.8.x 3GB RAM

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055

How can I "Put Back" a time machine backup from the trash to my external hard drive?

Basically what happened was I accidentally put an older time machine backup from my external hard drive into the trash on my macbook. Since then, time machine has made new backups onto my external hard drive. How can I either "Put Back" or replace the deleted backup back into my hard drive?
Whenever I try to move it it says "A newer item named “Backups.backupdb” already exists in this location. Do you want to replace it with the older one you’re moving?" I click replace and after a few minutes of loading, it says "Cannot replace. An item named "" already exists."

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.

I have a MBP running Mountain Lion. Tried to install Mavericks, but it keeps telling me that my disc is used as time machine backup, and cannot install Mavericks, any help appreciated

I have a 2011 MBP running Mountain Lion. Tried to install Mavericks, but it keeps telling me " cannot install Mavericks because disc is used for Time Machine backup". I tried disabling TM by issuing the command in console " sudo tmutil disable local". Still no luck. Is there a way of erasing all the time machine backups from my system disc?
Thanks.

Thanks Matt. I tried erasing the "Backups.backupdb" folder. It does not allow me to do that, inspite of "sudo"-ing. I ended up installing Mavericks on another disc, and use disc migration assistant to transfer my data, before swapping out the old disc from the MBP.
ST

Time Machine backup to my NAS drive (MyBookLive from WD) stopped working after Lion Upgrade

After my upgrade to Lion OS, I noticed that Time Machine backup failed to connect to my MyBookLive WD NAS drive. It was perfectly working while the machine was still on Snow Leopard. This is the error I am getting.
"The network backup disk does not support the required AFP features.
Open Time Machine preferences to select a different backup disk."
Any help with workaround would be greatly aprreciated. Thx for your help and support.

OK I ran into issues. I'm doing the play by play on Q18 for copying a locally connected backup to a network connected backup - so I start the backup with the backup disk connected to the TC and then stop it when the XXX of YYY copied shows up. I disconnect and connect the disk directly. The problem is I don't seem to have permission to mount the sparsebundle:
So I get info and click the lock and enter my admin password and change the everyone from no access to read and write. Then I try to open the sparsebundle and I get:
So I did that twice with the same effect. Then I noticed I can mount the sparsebundle if I leave it connected to the time capsule. So its mounted - good. Then I go into disk utility and try to erase the mounted "time machine backups" drive and it didn't like that much - I wish I took a screenshot but I didn't. It basically said I can't do that.
So now I don't know what to do. I'm currently starting a backup set fresh and this time letting it run to completion however I excluded my entire user account so the backup size is only 25 GB. When it finishes then maybe I can move the disk local and go in and see if I can mount the partition and erase the contents and copy over my backup file into the sparsebundle.
So does anyone know why I can't access that sparsebundle the way Pondini says I should be able to? Any suggestions? If my latest attempt doesn't work then I'll just do a full backup and say to heck with my history although that would be unfortunate.

Manually erasing some older Time Machine backups?

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