Time capsule won't delete old backups

Time capsule working fine since months ago. After snow leopard upgrade started to give warning that not enough space is available. Delete old backup's option is on.

The Time Capsule was designed to work with Time Machine for backups. That doesn't mean you can't use other backup software to do the job, but Time Capsule is "relying" on Time Machine to perform backup maintenance ... like deleting the oldest files.
Because you are using a Mac with an non-Leopard OS, you will have to either rely on the backup program that you are using or self-maintenance. I would suspect that in order to delete the current backups, you would need to access the Time Capsule's hard drive directly through the Finder. You mention the connection fails. What exactly is the error you are seeing when attempting to access the Time Capsule?

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My Time Capsule won't remove old backups so that it can keep backing up

My TC is associated with a few Macs and has gotten to pretty much full capacity, so not when it attempts to back up it says no more room blah blah blah. I was of the impression that it'd remove old back ups so as to maintain its backing up function. At least that's what it says on the tin.
I'm confused.
Would I be correct in "assuming" that it will only remove old back ups of the first Mac it was associated with and that it won't remove back ups so as to fit in a new Mac.
Standing by.
Regards
Gav

When you upgrade the OS it gets confused.. and it stops being able to delete old backups because which are necessary to a viable install is no longer known.
That is a very big backup that you have posted the screenshot.. and the simple fact is with multiple computers sharing the TC it may simply not be able to reduce its backup enough to fit.
Here are your choices.
1. Different backup location.. USB drive plugged into the computer or into the TC and use that.
2. Archive off the old backups and start over with erase and redo the backup of all the computers.
3. Delete just the backup of the computer you are trying to backup now assuming that will leave enough space to actually do the backup..
But it is not worth bothering unless you have at least 2x the drive space used..
4. Open the TC (assuming it is gen4 or older and replace the drive with a new one.. say 4TB)
For a really old TC this is not worth it.. but gen3 or gen4 might last a while.
5. Buy a brand new TC.. and start new backups to that. Erase and dispose of the old one.

Time Machine won't delete old backups.

I keep getting an error that the backup failed due to not having enough space yet it says in prefs that old backups will be deleted when the drive is full. Does anyone have a fix for this?

I had a similar problem when I upgraded to 10.8. The TM searched and searchand had it brains semi-scrambled. I got tired of waiting for it to do its thing so I went to the Disk Utility and erased the TM drive. Then had it start over with a fresh backup. It has been working perfect.
It may be time to flush yours and start over.

Time machine will not delete old backups

time macine will not delete old backups....is there a manual way to do it

Just let it run. It will manage itself fine, you may benefit though from reading Pondini's Time Machine FAQs

Disk Full Error... Won't Delete Old Backups

Hello- Since upgrading to ML, Time Machine is notifying me that disk is full and will erase old backups on next backup. Problem is, its not deleting old backups. Thus, its not backing up any longer. This has only happened since upgrading to ML this week.
The setup:
- 2012 MB Air with 250GB SSD and ~ 75GB unused
- Latest ML Updates
- External 1TB HD totally devoted to Time Machine- 23GB remaining space available
It has been setup this way since 2012 and this is the 1st time Time Machine is unable to erase old backups.
Thoughts?
Thx!

See C4.
Time Machine Troubleshooting

TC won't delete old backups

My 1TB TC is full and suddenly stopped deleting old backups. I now simply get an error message saying that it's full. Well duh. It's been deleting old backups for a year now. The only change was updating the OS to Lion. Anyone think this is the problem?

It may be related. If you erased your internal HD, then installed Lion, then transferred your data via drag & drop or restoring from a "clone," Time Machine is trying to do a full backup, which there may not be room for.
Please clarify exactly how you upgraded, and the details of the message (post a screenshot if you can).
And/or, see #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Had to reset TC, Time Machine won't recognize old backups

Two problems really. Firmware "update" was a disaster, forcing several resets of TC and creation, eventually, of a new name. First problem is that when I start up Time Machine, it won't recognize the backups that were already made of the drive on the TC. Second problem is that it says I only have about 1/2 of the capacity left in the TC drive. It seems that it is treating the old backup files as a large unrecognizable file that it will not delete. Optimum solution would be for TM to continue backing up my hard drive on the backups already created by TM on my newly named TC. If that can't be done, can I at least erase those old backups so that the TC has the maximum capacity to start backing up again from this point forward. Thanks for any help.

To Reformat the TC Hard Disk:
Go to Airport Utility --> Manual Setup --> Disks --> Highlight "Time Capsule Disk" on the left --> Select "Erase" on the right.

Time machine doesn't delete old backups when disk is full

TM disk is 750GB. It tells me there is not enough room for backup…then I look into TM and find there ARE NO BACKUPS anymore. (There were a few days ago.) All backups are gone, except for one two days ago, which was when I began getting the "no room" error.
I assume I've lost everything, as the TM disk shows only the backup from 2 days ago. True?
Do I just format and start again?
Is there a fix for this "no room" message? (It says oldest backups are deleted when disk becomes full. But it doesn't do it.)
Do people rely on this?

How much data is TM backing-up? (What's shown for +Estimated size of full backup+ under the exclusions box in TM Preferences > Options?)
Note that your Time Machine disk should, in most cases, be at least twice the size of the data it's backing-up. See #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
It appears that Time Machine needed to do a large backup, perhaps a full one, for some reason, and deleted as many old backups as it could (but it won't ever delete the last remaining one, as that would leave you with no backup at all), trying to make room.
If in doubt, Click here to 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 the backup in question, then copy and post all the messages for that run here, along with the amount of data that TM is backing-up.

Time Machine Won't Continue Old Backup

My computer was being repaired at Apple for a few weeks and I just got it back. No hard drive data was modified during the repair; the optical drive needed work. Anyway, I plugged in my external hard drive a few moments ago and it's backing up the whole system and won't let me return to the previous backups that I already have. I'm trying to recall a few files and Time Machine won't let me find them even though they're on the external drive. I did, however, accidentally rename the external hard drive when I was using it without Time Machine a few days ago.
Is there a way for me to continue where I left off with my old Time Machine backups? I'd hate to lose them all and I don't want to re-install the entire system from a previous one from a month or so ago; I just need to look at a few old files. Thanks for any help!
Greg

So, here's what happened.
Time Machine uses the xattr system to assign specific folders hidden attributes. Time Machine sets each folder up in its hierarchy with a xattr tag for the Ethernet MAC address of the machine it is backing up. This is all done invisibly. So, when I got a logic board, and a new MAC address, it wouldn't treat the old archive as concomitant with the new machine. So, here's how you fix this:
- remove the ACLs from the Time Machine DB
- use the xattr command at Terminal to put your new MAC address on the folder.
Full details are available here:
http://www.tombridge.com/rta/2008/01/after-the-apple.html

Time Machine doesn't delete old backups

Hi,
I keep getting errors from the TM backup that the disk for backup is full. It appears that TM doesn't delete the old backups that are on the disk. Any idea why it is not deleting the backups to make space? I also checked the button to notify me when deleting....useless....I am using Lion/Mountain Lion
Thanks

When you have issues of this sort.. Pondini is your man..
See http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
There is no need for admin / Root / SU login to TM.. that will not achieve anything.
You can delete the current set of TM preferences and start over.. See A4.
You have to delete the whole existing backup to start over. Or archive it off as I said if you want historical record, and erase the disk.
You erase the TC by using Airport Utility, under disk is erase option.. that is the fastest way. A quick erase via AU takes about 1min. Do use any other erase option, as they will take several hours.
You can also delete a sparsebundle.. but it is a long and time consuming process. That is important though if you have multiple backups on the TC you do not wish to lose.
See Q12 here http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
There are many many posts about how to speed up deletion of large backups.
eg https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2224110?tstart=0

Time machine will not delete old backup when space is needed

Time machine says there is not enough space to complete backup yet will not delete old backups

Start with C4.
Time Machine Troubleshooting

Time Capsule / ime Machine all old backups gone - help!

The TC is almost full so insufficient space for a full backup and a flashing amber light I perhaps mistook for a fault - someone told me it means short of disk space! The Backups.backupdb folder in Time Machine Backups (green icon) shows a DateTime.inprogress file. The Backup of iMac (white icon) Backups.backupdb folder shows a list of all of the backups. Time Machine only mounts whichever of these contains nothing before today. How do I force selection of the image/folder/volume containing what are clear the still existing backups?

Considering the disconnection problem in your other thread, your backups may be corrupted. Try repairing the sparse bundle per #A5 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum.
If that doesn't help, a clue may be lurking in your logs. Click here to 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 the backup in question, then copy and post all the messages for that run here.
Also . . . are you backing-up more than one Mac to your Time Capsule? And is there any other data on it?

Time Machine won't recognize old backups

I have an external hard drive with about a dozen backups on it. I tried to backup today, and instead of looking at the last back up, from a few weeks ago, and updating from there, it insists on creating a new folder for my computer (My Computer 2) and doing a back-up of the entire thing.
I looked at the Troubleshooting guide, and tried a few things: turned TM off, trashed the prefs, and reselected the drive, but to no avail.
It still lists "Latest Backup -- " in the menu bar.
How can I get it to see my old backups and then backup from the last one?

hrishikesh wrote:
instead of looking at the last back up, from a few weeks ago, and updating from there, it insists on creating a new folder for my computer (My Computer 2) and doing a back-up of the entire
This is likely the cause of the problem. If you go several days (at least 10) without a backup, TM may do a new, full backup instead of an incremental one. Exactly how many days is not clear; some folks say it happened after two weeks, others say they've gone about a month without it happening. Some of us suspect it's a combination of being over about 10 days and the volume of changes, but none of us mere mortals really knows exactly.
So, once you've followed one of V.K.'s suggestions and have TM working again, try not to go so long without a backup. Not only does that mean you can lose many days of additions and changes when your internal HD dies (yes, when not if), but TM may do this again.

Time Machine Still Not Deleting Old Backups and Hence Running Out of Space

... and this with a 1TB external drive there just for this purpose.
You'd have thought they'd have fixed this by now as it's an old issue.

Hi Richard, thanks for the messages. How much disk space is used up on your MacintoshHD? I ask because if you for example have around 850GB of MacintoshHD used, TM would only be able to keep one full backup on the 1TB external drive. All of the other backups will be smaller, incremental backups. When TM needs more space, it can only delete the oldest incremental backups, as the full backup is needed in case of a complete restore. If, at some time in the past, another couple of hundred GB were needing to be incrementally backed up, then the 1TB external drive will not have the space, and your messages seem to bear out this scenario. Since the first occurrence of the failure, the amount of data requiring backup would be increasing by a small amount each week.
Even if the very first full backup on the TM drive was of a small MacintoshHD (say, from just after installation), you might have hundreds of GB of music or pics or movies etc. These files would have been part of a later incremental backup, but, if they never change again, they're never backed up again. This also means that, there being only one copy of these files on the TM drive, they will never be deleted to make space for more backups. This could be an explanation of why, in your log messages, you see so little data actually deleted when it tries to make space; you may not have many files that change often.
By way of comparison, my full backup is only 27GB As all my data, music, etc are stored on a network drive, and my incremental backups are of the order of hundreds of KB rather than hundreds of GB. Because my network drives are fault tolerant, I only need to use TM to backup my MacintoshHD and the TM drive is therefore set at only 256GB.
It seems the only two solutions would be:
1. Move movies, music etc. to another drive or, more sensibly,
2. Get at least a 2 TB external drive for TM to use. I seem to remember that there is advice out there to have a TM drive of at least double the size of your total data size that needs to be backed up. Mine is overkill at a ratio of ten times the size, but you get the idea.
if, on the other hand, you only have 50GB of disk space used up on MacintoshHD, then there must be more than one full backup of it on the TM drive. In this case, if you are prepared to, you can start the TM drive from scratch by deleting its files or reformatting it. This would make TM take a full backup of the MacintoshHD as it currently stands and then the 1 TB drive will have plenty of room for incremental backups again. The down side is that you would lose any past versions of changed files; this point in time is the furthest back you can go to from then on.
I hope this helps and I'd love to know the outcome.

Time Machine won't show old backups after reformat

Hi there -
So I have a time machine backup that I made about 1 year ago. I have let it do its thing, backing up files automatically every hour. I decided to reformat my computer to start fresh before downloading Lion, so I unhooked my external drive and went to work. The install went fine, but now my old time machine backups are gone!
For example, I will go into my Pictures folder, then enter time machine, I can only go back to July 18th, 2011. Previous to me reformatting my computer, I had no problem going as far back as I wanted. Now all of a sudden, I can't do that any more!
I have NO idea what's going on, and NO idea how to fix this. I've exhausted myself reading through the communities trying to get support, but to no avail.
Hopefully someone can help!

Many, many weeks ago there were articles (MacWorld and others) that described how to check and see if you had any PowerPC apps. It was stated that these apps would not work with Lion because Rosetta, which they require, will no longer be supported. Here is how you check. Hold down Option and click the Apple in the upper left. While holding Option click System Profiler. Under Software, click Applications and wait for the list to load. Toward the right side of the window click the column header called "Kind" to sort the column. Scroll the column to see if you have any Power PC apps. If you do, they won't work in Lion.
Regarding your Office 2004...... I do know that the new version of Office will work.
Hope this is helpful.

Time capsule won't delete old backups

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