PLEASE HELP! How do I get Time Machine to remove old backups?

It is my understanding that Time Machine will never fill up the drive it's on because it will remove old backups to make room for new ones. It's not doing that for me. The drive Time Macine is backing up to has filled up & will not allow any more to be written to it, so I can't do backups. I don't see anywhere that I can change a setting to fix this problem. It would be VERY helpful if someone would walk me though how to fix this problem. I've had to turn Time Machine off because it's locking up my system trying to write to the drive.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!!

Thank you. I've gone there & read what's at the link. I've tried going into Time Machine & for some reason I can only see backups (in Time Machine) that go back to earlier today. However, if I actually look on the disc that I'm backing up to, I see database files that go back to April of this year. I looked earlier today & I saw files that went all the way back to October of LAST year, but I just did a big installation & that must of put things over the edge.
Anyway, I'd like to say that I saw an answer to my problem at Pondini's site, but I've been there looking around since before I wrote this thread asking for help & I just don't see anything that looks like it will specifically help me on this situation.
I'm still stuck.

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How do I get Time Machine to delete old files?

On threads for earlier operating systems I've seen similar questions, and it seems Apple hasn't resolved the problem that although Time Machine says it will delete old files when the disc is full, it doesn't do it, even though my hard drive has only ~300 GB of files on it and my external hard drive has 1.5 T, it does nothing to delete old files automatically. This hasn't always been the case. The first few entries were deleted awhile back, freeing space, but that has stopped happening. Any suggestions? Do I have to start with a fresh external hard drive?

ringoiphone wrote:
Thanks. Although the reset did nothing, by deleting enough old backups (a VERY slow process) I could get it to free enough space for another backup. It's not clear to me why it cannot do this automatically.
Time Machine will delete old backups, if it can. So something must be wrong. See #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If nothing there helps, a clue may be lurking in your logs. Use the widget in #A1 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to display the backup messages from your logs. Locate the backup in question, then copy and post all the messages here.

Get time machine to see old backups

Hi all,
recently i had a problem that resulted in having to restore from a time machine backup. Since then i have been unable to see my previous backups within time machine
The sparse bundle is still intact, i have not allowed it to backup knowing that it will more than likely nuke my old backups.
So far i have tried:
- removing and reselecting the time capsule
- removing com.apple.timemachine.plist
- inheriting the existing sparsebundle.
any help on this would be much appreciated.
Cheers

While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.

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Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Click Time Machine
Click Options
Be default, the hard drive will be Excluded from backups. Click the drive to highlight it, then click the "-" (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from Excluded items.
The drive will be backed up on the next Time Machine pass
Everything above assumes that the hard drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as Time Machine will only backup drives in that format.

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Hi..
Thanks for the reply..
My original I Phone 5 was running IOS 6.12
My I phone 5S currently runs IOS 8..When I upgraded it, it had IOS 7 on it which made the I Photo app compatible with everything below IOS 8...( which the photo app is not compatible with ) so I just connected the I Phone 5S to my computer and thinking the new phone had IOS 7 on it that these was nothing to worry about..I thought all 900 + pictures in the photo stream would transfer but somewhere in the process, I Tunes decides to just go and install IOS 8 which requires that you run a " Photo Migration App" to transfer photos from IOS 7 & below. The problem was is that I didn't want IOS 8 on my new 5S so I thought I wouldn't have to do that part..
Anyway the phone emerged with IOS 8 on it and the only photos that remained were the ones that were actually on the phone..The 900 + I had in the stream didn't transfer because the Photos that works on IOS 7 and below isn't compatible with IOS 8..I guess you have to use the photo migration app that comes with IOS 8 & I phone 6..But I didn't ask to upgrade to IOS 8...It just did it on it's own!
I still have the I Phone 5 Back up that I did just before giving it back to Verizon but if I try to restore the I Phone 5S running IOS 8 those photos in the stream will not go back on the phone because IOS 8 isn't compatible with the I Photos" that ran on IOS 7 and below..
So I have an I Pad mini that runs IOS 7..should I try and erase it...and put that I Phone 5 backup on it and pray the photos that were in the stream come back on it so I can transfer them back to my computer...then erase the I pad mini again and restore it using it's original backup that I have on the computer and the in the cloud?
I know this sounds confusing but I'm at a loss as to what to do..This is what I found ...http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201386
but it doesn't help me..
Steve

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.

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There are a number of OS X apps, many free, that will save your messages, allowing to view and print them.
http://www.softwarebbs.com/wiki/How_to_transfer_SMS_from_iPhone_to_Mac,_backup_i Phone_SMS_message_on_Mac
Google, for other options
Your "other" of 6 GB may include corrupted data or file sytem errors. If after removing the messages there is still >2GB, you will need to restore the phone in iTunes, first using a backup (made after deleting the messages) and if needed as a new iPhone.
iTunes: Restoring iOS software

For updation of IOS 7.1.1 passcode required,I forget my passcode please help how can I get my passcode

Hello,
I forget my passcode please help how can I get my it

You will need to try to restore your iPad from the same computer that you most recently synced to.
Read this: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1212
If you can't do the restore then you will need to try Recovery Mode.
Read this: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1808
Follow the instructions very carefully.

How do I get Time Machine to back up my iTunes movies and tv shows?

How do I get Time Machine to back up my iTunes movies and tv shows?

They're backed up automatically unless in a folder in the exclusion list of the Time Machine pane of System Preferences.
(59927)

HT201250 How do I get Time Machine back on my dock? I made a mistake and removed it from dock, somehow ended up in trash, what do I do

How do I get Time Machine back on my dock? I made a mistake and removed it from dock, somehow ended up in trash, what do I do?

Uh…you're saying two entirely different things here. If you removed Time Machine from the Dock, it could not be in the Trash. But if you removed it from your Applications or Utilities folder and put it in the Trash, that's a problem.
So, which one did you really do?

How do you get time machine to reset your computer to the specific date you would like?

How do you get time machine to reset your computer to the specific date you would like?

Hey carlleeh,
Thanks for the question. The following resource may guide you through that process:
OS X Mountain Lion: Recover your entire system
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11192
Thanks,
Matt M.

HT3275 I received this message and I'm unsure how to fix it "Time Machine couldn't complete backup to Time Capsule the backup disk image"/Volumes/The Vision Board/Alex Parry.sparsebundle" is already in use

I received this message and I'm unsure how to fix it "Time Machine couldn't complete backup to Time Capsule the backup disk image“/Volumes/The Vision Board/Alex Parry.sparsebundle” is already in use

Look at the more like this on the right column of the web page.
This is the most common error here.. we answer it 5-10times every day.
Simple method.. pull out the TC power cord .. count to 10.. plug in the TC power cord.
Look at the other references for more info.

Time Machine deleted my old backups and crapped out midstream

I had just gotten my failing hard drive replaced, and restored from Time Machine backup. So far so good.
So a week later, I wanted to upgrade to Mountain Lion, but figured I should be responsible and run Time Machine backup again before doing the upgrade just in case something goes wrong.
The Mac has a 4TB drive, which has 2TB free. The backup drive is a 4TB external drive, which has (or had) Time Machine backups going back two years or so. It still had over a TB of space left. I clicked on Backup Now and let it run overnight. I noticed it said "Deleting old backup to make room" or something like that, which I thought was normal.
I woke up in the morning to find that Time Machine had crapped out in the middle, and said that it couldn't complete. I realized that it had deleted all my old backups. It didn't need to do that, since the only files that had changed would have been less than a GB, and it had over a TB of space to work with.
It must have thought that everything on the drive had changed since the last backup, and it wanted to backup the entire drive. As such it tried deleting all my old backups! But it failed, and stopped in the middle.
Now I have a drive that still says there is only 1.2 TB of space on the drive, but I can't see the files! Even with Tinkertool, I can't see anything beyond the one most recent backup.
Can these files be recovered? I am totally ticked that there isn't some kind of confirmation like "Are you sure you want to delete X?"
I actually need to have some of these older backups, as they include files that had been deleted before the latest backup that I may need to retrieve. Any hard drive experts out there? Any terminal commands that can make these files accessible, even if I have to retrieve them manually?

To clarify, this all happened under Snow Leopard as I had said. My profile lists Tiger, since I haven't cared to update my personal profile since using that OS, and in fact I still use Tiger among other versions. I manage a lot of users. And I never got to upgrade to Mountain Lion on this system, as explained in the post above. So I don't see the confusion.
I don't think the model of Mac makes a difference for this type of problem, but in case it does, the incident was on a 2010 Intel iMac with a 4TB hard drive and 8GB of RAM. I would have mentioned that if this was a problem with hardware specific to the model of Mac. But this is more of a universal issue.
But to stay on topic, I'm guessing my old backups are toast. But if anybody has any experience with recovering from Time Machine deleting their old backups, I would be happy to hear from them. In the meantime, I am going to try to do some old fashioned file recovery, and see what I can salvage.

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

HT201250 How do I get Time Machine to resume backing up?

Time Machine is supposed to delete old backups automatically when it is full to make room for new back ups.
After years of use it suddenly is giving me the message that it can't complete a backup.
It lists the "Details" as follows"
"Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Time Machine Backups"
The backup disk needs 114.76 GB for the backup but only 103.95 GB are available.
Select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files."
I do not wish to select a larger disk or exclude files.
How do get it to resume deleting old backups to make room for new?

I've got the same issue as OP, but I haven't backed up more than one volume.
My last successful backup was from 2 weeks ago, before going on vacation (I didn't take my Time Machine drive with me). When I look in Time Machine, I can see a number of backups from the intervening days, when my TM drive wasn't connected, and I can't see any of my backups from before the last successful backup.
When I came home from vacation, I connected my TM drive and Time Machine ran on schedule.
I don't know why the system thinks it was making Time Machine backups when the drive wasn't connected, but it seems to have decided these backups were made using a new volume. I'm going to look for troubleshooting options that will allow me to delete this erroneous thread of backups and hopefully force Time Machine to recognize the original volume.
Any other bits of advice would be appreciated. This appears to be the (secondary) result of a bug.

PLEASE HELP! How do I get Time Machine to remove old backups?

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