Storing and deleting time capsule files

After reviewing a number of posts it seems partitioning the time capsule is very difficult at best. If I am using it to back up my computer and wanting to save other files to it, what happens when the disk reaches capacity? Can you delete backup files to make room for other files or will that corrupt the retrieval?

Time Capsule is not intended for partitioning by Apple. If you need additional storage space, an additional HDD is best. However, you can delete back up files, but only do this via the Time Machine interface. Deleting files via Finder is asking for trouble.

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I deleted time capsule files that were old, but now they won't delete from the trash

I deleted some time capsule files from the drive I am using for time machine. It placed them in the trash, but it won't delete them. It is asking if I want to delete only locked files or if I want to delete all files. I have tried both, but they are still showing up in the trash. It won't remove them. Does anyone have any suggestions, as I do not know what else to do. By the way I tried holding the option key and clicking empty trash and that did not work either.

Are these files being used by Time Machine. If so, this is how to delete files from a Time Machine backup. You can not delete them using Finder. Mac 101: Time Machine
Deleting data from a Time Machine backup
To delete all backups of one or more items from a Time Machine backup, follow these steps:
Click the Time Machine icon on your Dock to enter the Time Machine restore interface.
Click on the item you would like to delete. Command-click to select multiple items.
Control-click (or right click) the highlighted item(s) and select "Delete All Backups of..." from the contextual menu, or select "Delete all backups of..." from the Action Item menu.
Authenticate with an administrator password when prompted.
Important: Do not use the Finder to move to the items to the Trash, or to move or delete items in your Time Machine backup repository. The folder containing your Time Machine backup repository is called "Backups.backupdb" and is located on the external disk or Time Capsule you have chosen in Time Machine preferences.

How do I delete time capsule files and starting over

I installed a time capsule last week and backed up my HD using TM. After doing that, I started moving large movie files from my HD to an external drive, and backing up both the HD and external on the TC. Even though I have only 130 G worth of files in total, my TM is now nearing 400G, because it backed up several times during the process of transferring files. I tried to delete the TM backup, and even tried deleting everything on the TC using disk utility, but I can't get that memory back. I have not tried zeroing out the drive thru disk utility. How can I just wipe out the TC and start again?

You can reformat the hard disk in the Time Capsule.
Go to Airport Utility --> Manual Setup --> Disks --> Highlight "Time Capsule Disk" on the left --> Click "Erase" on the right.
Rename the disk and select the level secure erasure. You're done and ready to begin backing up again.
Hope this helps.

Deleting Time Capsule Files

I want to delete my backup files on my circa 2008 (1 TB) Time Capsule and start backing up fresh. I moved the sparsebundle to the trash, but it has been saying it is deleting for over 12 hours, and I continue to hear the Time Capsule working. Could it take that long to delete about 750 GB from the Time Capsule?

Just for future reference and clarification, a Time Capsule is a piece of Apple hardware that combines a wireless router and HD.
Time Machine is Apple's backup software that's included with OSX. It can back up to a Time Capsule or various other destintations.
To erase a drive in your Mac Pro, you need to use Disk Utility. If it can't unmount it, that means something else is trying to use it. Turn Time Machine OFF, be sure the "Star Wars" display isn't looking at it, etc. You might have to exclude it from Spotlight indexing, via System Prefererences > Spotlight > Privacy.
If it still won't unmount, try Restarting your Mac, then immediately going in to Disk Utility to erase the disk.
If all else fails, start up from your Recovery HD (if you're running Lion) or OSX Install disc and use the copy of Disk Utility there. See the yellow box in #1 of Using Disk Utility.

Can i get the time capsule to automatically back up my file from my Mac Book Air but have certain files which are only stored on the time capsule and not the computer? Then can i access these files only on the time capsule without connecting it?

Can i get the time capsule to automatically back up my file from my Mac Book Air but have certain files which are only stored on the time capsule and not the computer? Then can i access these files only on the time capsule without connecting it?

igonneau wrote:
Can i get the time capsule to automatically back up my file from my Mac Book Air but have certain files which are only stored on the time capsule and not the computer?
You can, but how are you going to back up those other files? When (not if) your Time Capsule fails, you risk losing them. See #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for details.
Then can i access these files only on the time capsule without connecting it?
Not sure what you mean. You have to connect a computer, either via Ethernet cable or wirelessly, to read or write to the disk.

URGENT: Deleting file on Mac will not delete Time Capsule copy?

Hi, I seem to have run out of disk space on my iMac, and my Time Capsule (2 TB, latest model) was supposed to be my solution, however: Seeing as Time Capsule takes "snapshots" and so on, will deleting a file from my computer also delete it at the next Time machine backup, or will it be safely stored in my Time Capsule ((I know Time Capsule also deletes the oldest backup "snapshots", but that´s only when it gets full, right? Any idea how to prevent this, as well))?

You MUST not do this..
http://pondini.org/TM/20.html
TM can at any time delete the file.. Eventually it will note that the file is missing and delete it from the backup.
Use another utility.. CCC, Chronosync..
Better still copy the files to the TC.
Simply drag and drop them to a new folder .. not inside the backup.
Big fat ugly BUTT... you then have but one copy of the file.. one day the TC will die..wipe itself, hdd crash.. you will have no backup. TM cannot backup a network drive.. TC is a backup device.. it cannot back itself up.
Think long and hard where you are going to move stuff.
In an imac as a desktop computer, buy external drive.. FW800 or Thunderbolt much preferred and faster than USB. Use external to provide extra space and TM can then do what it is best at.. backing up.. and TC can store backups as it is designed to.

Need help understanding Time Capsule file structure and how to get it back

I have the original Time Capsule on which I backup both my Mac Pro and my wife’s Macbook. When Snow Leopard came out, I successfully used the ‘Restore from Time Machine’ feature on my Mac Pro so I know it has worked. However, my wife’s MacBook harddrive died the other day and I was trying to do the ‘Restore from Time Machine’ and all it would find was a backup from April (when I put her in a new larger drive). Time Machine would not find any backup files newer that April. She stated that she had seen the the Time Machine backup notices regularly and as recent as the day the haddrive died (Nov. 23) so I figured that I should have no problem. Here is what I have found in my trouble shooting and what leads to my questions below.
This is the file structure I found: (note that our ID’s are ‘Denise’ and ‘John’)
*Time Capsule* (the drive as listed in my Finder window sidebar under ‘shared’)
>Folder called ‘Time Capsule’ (when logged in as either ‘Denise’ or ‘John’)
>>Denise Sparsebundle
>>>Backup of Denise’s iBook (mounted image)
>>>>Folder called ‘Backups.backupdb’
>>>>>Folder called ‘Denise’s iBook
>>>>>>Single folder with old April backup (not the right files)
>>John Sparsebundle
>>>Backup of John’s Mac Pro (mounted image)
>>>>Folder called ‘Backups.backupdb’
>>>>>Folder called ‘John’s Mac Pro’
>>>>>>Folders containing all my backup files
>Folder Called ‘Denise’ (if logged as ‘Denise’)
>>Denise’s Sparsebundle (a disk image)
>>>Backup of Denise iBook (the mounted image. Name from old machine)
>>>>Backups.Backupdb
>>>>>Denise’s iBook (Contains the backup I need)
>Folder Called ‘John’ (if logged in as ‘John’)
>> (empty)
For some reason, my wife’s backup files are stored within a folder located at the top level of the Time Capsule drive called ‘Denise’, however, mine are within a folder called ‘Time Capsule’ which is at the same level as the ‘Denise’ folder.
For some reason, when trying to use Time Machine to recover, it bypasses the top level ‘Denise’ folder which contains the correct files and goes into the ‘Time Capsule’ folder and finds the outdated backup files.
I would assume that both my backup files and my wife’s should be at the same level of the Time Capsule.
I was eventually able to use Migration Assistant to recover the files after installing a fresh OS and mounting the correct Sparsebundle image.
So, my question, how do I get this fixed so that if I have to recover a drive with Time Capsule, it will find the correct files.
Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for any help.

John Ormsby wrote:
What I was trying to determine is why different backups for one particular machine are located at different file structure levels on my Time Capsule and why the most resent one for that machine is at a different level that for my other machine. Also, what is the correct level that both machines backups should be at.
well John, first can you clarify if you are on 10.4.8 as your profile suggests ? if so, i'm wondering how you can use TM at all because TM was introduced with Leo. if you're not on 10.4.8, please update your profile. if you could, please also indicate details of your machine such as available RAM, processor, etc.
second, what OS is your wife's machine running ?
third, i frankly don't know too much about TM's file structure or if there indeed is such a thing as the correct one. however, i do know that it is best to leave TM to do its thing (as long as it's working). FWIW, though off-topic, you may want to have a look at this read for further information.
last but not least, i see TM backups to my TC only as a part of my backup strategy. the backbone of my strategy is to create bootable clone of my startup disk(s) using e.g. Carbon Copy Cloner on a regular basis. while TM is capable of doing a full system restore, i don't trust it as much as a working clone. i use TM to retrieve a file i accidentally trashed a week ago but you cannot boot from a TM backup if your startup disk goes belly up.
If I have missed this information in either the FAQs or the Troubleshooting article, I would greatly appreciate being pointed to it .
i expect you didn't miss anything and i'm sorry you didn't find any help there. perhaps if Pondini (author of the FAQ and troubleshooting user tips) reads this thread, you will get the necessary advice on the file structure and more besides.
good luck to you !

I have two users on the same MAC and want to have separate ITunes libraries stored on my time capsule. what's the best way to ensure that is done?

I have 2 users on a MAC each with separate accounts (email, photo, ITunes) and I want to migrate my ITUnes Library over to a time capsule so that each usewr still has their own library bu don't want to duplicate songs. What is the best way to have both Itunes pointed to separate libraries both stored on the Time Capsule?

A bit of basics on iTunes. iTunes does 99% of what you see through a library.itl file in the iTunes folder. This file is a database and in it are references to the actual media files. These files can be anywhere in theory, but if you have iTunes set to default then they are nicely organized in media folders in the iTunes folder. You have probably moved them to some central shared location in the past, then built up two individual libraries around that central location.
iTunes is very fussy about a person dragging files to a different location, and that goes double if the other location is on a different drive. You can move files, but it is best to let iTunes do it so it can keep track. If this was just for one person I'd say go into preferences, select the other drive for media location, then close preferences. My understanding (never done this before) is iTunes will then ask you if you want to move your media. Say yes and iTunes will move it and keep track of it -- for your library. Now when you go to the other person's library, it opens and you see loads of ! because their library is still looking for the media on the same drive as the library is located on. I don't think it will work (but you could always try) to re-assign the media location to the external drive because the reference in the database is to look for such-and-such a file on the internal drive. iTunes did that for the first library as part of the move, but not for the second one. Note that typically when you want to move a single user's collection from drive to drive we advise moving the whole iTunes folder, library files and all, to another drive, but you don't have that structure.
So I'm not sure what to advise. If it were me and I was absolutely gung-ho on doing this I would re-assign the media with one library. Then edit the .xml version of the library file for the second library so it points to the new file locations and import this into a fresh iTunes library for the second user. This isn't the perfect solution because nominally the .xml version does not 1005 replicate all the characteristics of the original .itl file (which cannot be edited).
Or maybe some other user bas a better idea.

I have "migrated" my Time Capsule files to my new iMac and most of the files to me "I don't have permission to view files" I am they admin....will I thought I was. What gives?

I have "migrated" my Time Capsule files to my new iMac and most of the files to me "I don't have permission to view files" I am they admin....will I thought I was. What gives?

You should be able to change the permissions on the files.. this is yet another bungle by Mavericks I suspect.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13799
Sometimes it is because you Migrated wrongly.
http://pondini.org/TM/E10.html
It is not up to Mavericks because sadly the guy who wrote all this great info died recently.

Time machine was not working. I bought a new time machine and migrated time machine files to new time capsule; not recognized by yosemite

Time machine was not working after yosemite upgrade on new and old MacBooks in my house. I bought a new time machine and migrated time machine files to new time capsule. I changed the names of the older sparse bundles to the default values. Yosemite still does not recognize them.

I presume the bought a time machine means a time capsule.
How did you migrate the Time Machine files?
From where? A Time Capsule or external drive?
It is difficult to get TM working with Yosemite.. since it doesn't work after the upgrade on the old TM backup.. it will not work on the migrated files either.
You simply start a new backup and store the old backups for a few months until you are ready to dump them.
The instructions for inheriting old backups is B5 and B6 here.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
However it is just unlikely to work.. TM in Yosemite is very different. Broken even.
I also strongly recommend people to use Carbon Copy Cloner or some other 3rd party backup until Apple get the bugs fixed. And after several months.. they are still rampant.

Time capsule file sharing, store mac and pc data

Hi All,
I am sure that there exists numerous questions similar to mine, however, I would like to be sure. I have a PC, macbook pro, and air port time capsule.
What I want to do:
1) I will move the contents of Time machine in an external HDD to new time capsule
2) I will backup my macbook pro via time machine using time capsule (this is ok)
3) I would like to store my PC data to the time capsule
Then,
a) I would like to share either mac file or PC file in Time capsule to the other users, may use mac or PC
b) Finally I would like to connect it from outside of office (I am in a university and we do not have a static IP)
I would like to learn that is it possible to do all of them with new time capsule. Indeed for the request 2, it is not necessary to back up PC data regularly, I can move data manually, I mean I do not want to use backup program for it.
I am really sorry for duplication of similar questions, however, I need help since I have started to use mac in a couple of months ago instead of using PC more that 25 years:)
My recent question was replied and it helped me, now, I extended my questions a little bit:)
Thanks for all your replies
estuans

I would like to ask you, if I connect an external HDD to USB connection of time capsule, then, is it possible to back up PC data to external HDD using time capsule as a router. I mean I looking for possible solutions to achieve :
2) I will backup my macbook pro via time machine using time capsule (this is ok)
3) I would like to store my PC data to the time capsule
That is what Pondini recommends.. using a USB drive to the TC works fine and is treated separately to the internal disk.. but is slow.. very slow..
PC can backup to the TC.. but it cannot use MSBackup if you have home versions.. because MS decided home versions should not need network backups.. anyway MSbackup is the most horrible program.. so just buy or download a suitable backup software.. anything.. anything at all has to be better than MSbackup.
Your point 3. Is this separate to backup.. ie do you want a backup and store your data on the TC.. you can do both.. But do not rely on the TC for your backups if that is the only place you have those files.. and you cannot backup TC files to TC... well not easily and it will be excruciatingly slow.
You can use the internal disk of the TC.. what you cannot do is partition the drive or make it functionally separate from Mac backups and that can lead to issues.. although I don't think it happens until you run out of space.. Note the use of fixed sparsebundle sizes as that can work as a parition for the Mac backups.
. Now, if I connect to an external HDD to USB port of time capsule and use time capsule as a router, is it possible to access the contents of HDD from MAC and PC,
And then, by using Icloud, can I access External HDD connected to USB port of time capsule.
Last question. How time capsule is used for PC
Either PC or Mac can access the hdd plugged in by USB.. but there are some issues.
1. Drive compatibility is not straight forward.
2. The drive can spin down and never spin up again without a restart.
3. You sometimes need to use a powered hub even with powered drive. The USB port is slow and underpowered.
4. The drive must be formatted on the Mac.. TC only has FAT32 or HFS+ formats.. and the FAT32 is poor. The fact that you use HFS+ is not an issue but the PC may still have issues with large files. It might still think the drive is FAT32 when it isn't.
BTMM with iCloud will work with both internal and USB drives plugged into the TC. But only from Mac. PC cannot access anything.
How time capsule is used for PC
I do not understand the point of the question.. all your questions are about using the TC with PC..
The TC is a dumb as a board hard disk inside a router.. nothing more.. you use it same as any router with a lousy USB drive plugged in.. slowly.. without brains.. what more did you want??

If I got a new hard drive on my computer and plugged in the time capsule afterwards, would I be able to recover the information from my old hard drive that was stored on the time capsule prior to the replacement?

If I got a new hard drive on my computer and plugged in the time capsule afterwards, would I be able to recover the information from my old hard drive that was stored on the time capsule prior to the replacement?

This may be of some help to you...
http://pondini.org/TM/14.html
From the FAQs Here...
http://pondini.org

Time Capsule file permissions

Whenever I copy a file to the time capsule (either via finder by moving it there, or via terminal with cp) the file permissions of the file end up with -rwxrwxrwx, independently whether the file was an executable, or whether it only had reading permissions for all or group. Running chmod on the Time Capsule files has no effect.
This is really silly and makes the Airport Disk sharing useless. This way I will never share files with my friends over the Airport disk because the files loose their property and all files are executables at the end.
Is there a way to mount or configure the Time Capsule so that it conserves the file permissions?
I am aware that time capsule cannot handle different users, but at least it should conserve the file permissions. I imagine it could be like a scp or ftp of files to another server. My files on the other server will not have my user name, but at least they conserve the file permissions. A -rw-r-r- file will still be a -rw-r-r- file even if I copy it 10 times from one server to another.
I would lik to encourage Apple to take this problem seriously and provide an update for this issue. So many other Apple products are just so well integrated in a networking environment, even if it is a heterogeneous one, but not Time Capsule with this flaw.
Best wishes,
Reto

Agree, this is a serious flaw, that makes the device very dangerous to use as a central server for shared files, for example, the family's photograph collection. Since there appears to be no way to write protect anything, how can I ensure the files don't get modified or deleted?
Here's a nasty case I am seeing:
We unload a digital camera onto the TC's disk, then someone goes to their iPhoto app, and adds these files to their iPhoto library. Then they do something simple, like rotate the photos, and voila! The master file on the TC has now been modified! Horrible.

I have a time capsule with my iTunes library from a previous computer. I now have a new computer with new songs on my iTunes library. I'd like to retrieve my songs from my iTunes library which is stored in the time capsule. How do I do this?

Hello there. Wondering if there's any way I can retrieve songs that are stored in my time capsule that was backed up from my old previous computer?

Actually you always use ethernet..
MBA does not come with ethernet port.. but apple sells both a cheap usb to ethernet and a much more expensive and much faster thunderbolt to ethernet adapter. With ethernet to eliminite this silly situation of setting up wireless over wireless, so if you make any change you instantly drops you off the network. Like cartoons of people sawing off the branch they are sitting on.
But you can reset.. no reset will do anything at all to the material on the hard disk. You must deliberately erase it.
Read the info because you may only need to do a soft reset. That is hold the reset for 1sec (2-3sec is fine) as long as you don't hold it for a full reset.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3728
Even a full factory reset will not harm your files in any way, (or any further!!)
I am "concerned" that you have no backup to vital files on your TC. That is not wise. TC are no more immune to failure than any other hard disk.. (actually latest ones use the cheapest green WD drives money can buy) and keeping files in only one location is a receipe for disaster. An external drive is much more accessible.. cheaper and tend to be more reliable. There are too many things to break in the TC.. it is designed as a backup target for TM. Not a file store.

Can I access time capsule file without using imac

can I access time capsule file without using imac

From a time machine backup? No. If you mean just a regular file stored on there? Not directly. There are a couple of apps out there where you can indirectly get to a file but it's a pain. If you have need of accessing a file both from the mac and the iPad then I suggest DropBox. You get 2GB free and it's a good way to share information between machines and devices.

Storing and deleting time capsule files

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