Time Machine deleting too many old back-ups

I connect Time Machine (external drive) and start the back-up. TM takes a while to clean old back-ups to create space. Fair enough, as I have not been backing up since a month ago. This takes too long though, I get suspicious and I check Console and see that TM has deleted 5 old back-ups. It does not make any sense, I know that deleting one, at most two, would have been enough. I check the Console log and see the text below:
1/10/15 10:19:33.109 PM com.apple.backupd[415] Deleted backup /Volumes/LaCie/Backups.backupdb/John Doe’s MacBook Pro/2013-09-29-211629 containing 1.76 GB; 140.71 GB now available, 194.75 GB required
This is curious as I am sure a single TM back-up is much larger than that, at least 130GB. I get into TM via Finder and notice that each back-up for a given date has the expected size there, with all the many files from my laptop correctly saved in the back-up. And yet, when TM deletes a given back-up, it frees up only much less in terms of space and so it keeps deleting back-ups.
I have had some issues in the past with this external drive and I recently had it fixed. I have another one and I plan to switch to it as TM. Yet, I do not understand why this happens.
Macbook Pro OS X 10.9.5, 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Time Machine External Drive: La Cie Porsche 500GB

140.71 GB now available, 194.75 GB required
It appears Time Machine needs 194.75 GB to do the latest backup, but only 140.71 is available. So it keeps deleting more in an attempt to make enough space available.

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Time machine makes too many full back-ups

Yes, this has been written about ad nauseam almost since Time Machine's been around. But I am really tired of going through 3 and 4 TB hard drives because of a Time Machine bug/error/glitch/what-have-you. The latest message (from the Time Machine Buddy widget) is this:
Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/LaCie reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
Why? Nothing's changed with this drive. Nothing's changed with the Time Machine Drive.
Thanks in advance for intelligent help.
James

Thanks for the quick reply Eric.
Yeah, I'm certainly aware of these pages. I'm running Mavericks, and there is nothing after 10.8 listed in the otherwise comprehensive resource. But more to my issue, there was only a small bit (D3) that I could find about doing full backups, none of which applied to my situation. Basically I'm wondering why there is a "new" event data base.
Same drive
not many, if any new files (it's an external sound library storage drive),
Weeks went by with none of these issues
but I have noticed issues when waking from sleep
I'm not aware of any potential issues with the Mac's routine maintenance operations. But again, it's an external drive (via FW)
The 2nd link did not work.

HT201250 I want to use Time Machine to back up my pictures because my hard drive is full but I'm wondering if once I back up the pictures then delete them will time machine delete them off the back up too?

I want to use Time Machine to back up my pictures because my hard drive is full but I'm wondering if once I back up the pictures then delete them will time machine delete them off the back up too?

Evetually yes.
If your pictures have been in the same location (same folder, same subfolder, ...) for more than a week, then copies if them will remain in your TM backups until it fills up. They are then vulnerable to being deleted.
If they've been there for less than a week, TM could delete them as early as a month from now. If they've been there for only a few hours, chances are TM will delete them tomorrow.
This is why TM is not the best tool to use to archive data that you will be deleting from your main hard drive. Copy them to a dedicated external drive, or burn DVDs.

I recovered my back up via a wired connection. now Time Machine does not recognise older back ups wirelessly and wants to do a first back up

I recovered a back up from my time machine via a wired connection after getting the 'white screen of death'. Now Time Machine does not recognise any back ups on the time machine when connected wirelessly and wants to do a first back up of the whole machine. How do I get my mac to recognise these older back ups? It connects to the wifi network the time machine creates fine, with the same name and password.

I recommend the following.
1. Reset the TC to factory.
Universal Factory Reset.. any model TC or AE.
Unplug your TC/AE from power or turn off at the power point.
Hold in reset. and power the TC/AE back on.. all without releasing reset and keep holding in for about 10sec. (this is often difficult without a 2nd person or a 3rd arm).
Release it when the status light flashes rapidly. If it doesn’t flash rapidly you have missed it and try again.
Note..
Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel.. add no more pressure after that.
TC/AE will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations of the router.
No files are deleted on the hard disk in a TC.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.
2. Rename the TC to SMB standard.
That means short names.. 2-20 characters but less than 10 is excellent. eg TCGenx (use number for x that is actual generation of the TC)
No spaces.
Pure alphanumeric. No apostrophe.
3. Ensure IPv6 is set to link-local..
Do the same thing for ethernet if that is used.
4. Manually mount the TC disk in Finder.
Use Go in the top menu.. connect to server.
Type in
AFP://TCname.local (where TCname is your new short name for the TC and local is default domain .. it helps using the domain I found).
You will then find the computer either can or cannot find the network resource.. if it fails something else is wrong with the actual network and you will need to fix that.
It will request the password if it is found.. password is public by default unless you changed it.. type in the password and check to keep it in your keychain.
5. Delete current TM setup and redo it with the newly named TC.
See A4 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
If your backups cannot be found, try B6 again, now that you actually know that the disk has been properly discovered.

Time Machine appears to be doing back-ups, but they do not appear on the external hard drive. The last one I can find is June 30. I did a utility scan of the hard drive disk and it is fine.

Time Machine appears to be doing back-ups, but they do not appear on the external hard drive. The last one I can find is June 30. I did a utility scan of the hard drive disk and it is fine. What do I do?

Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar. The time of the last backup is shown in the drop down.

How do I get the Time Capsule to automatly erase old back ups?

I have a 1TB Master HD in my Mac Pro that I back up using a 1 TB Time Capsule. So far I've used just over 500GBs on the Hard Drive which has really stumped my Time Capsule because it comes up saying it needs 400 odd gbs to do a full back-up of my Master HD. So now when ever its on and trys to do a back up it comes up failed because it says it doesnt have enough room to do its thing. Arnt Time Capsules supposed to delete the older back ups once its full? I exclude all other HDs from the Time Capsules back-up but I cant workout what more I can do....I can understand it if a 1TB Time Capsule could only back up 900gbs of Data but I'm only asking this 1TB TCaps to back up 500odd gbs. Anything I could or should be doing? I dont use the Airport as I only bought it to do backups. And because I have a wireless router for the houses PCs, Apple cant even tell me why I cant back up wirelessly so I have to use an ethernet cable.
Any advice or help would be much apperciated!

Time Machine has no problem automatically erasing old backups if your new backup is a normal size for an "incremental" backup. So it can handle things up to approximately 2-3 GB without running into trouble.
If the backup is too large, then you have to decide whether to erase the Time Capsule disk entirely and start over with a new "master" backup and move forward.....or.....manually delete enough backups to create enough space on the drive....which can get tricky.
See Pondini's excellent Time Machine - Troubleshooting, in particular #C4 and the pink box.
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/C4.html

Time Machine Doesn't Show Previous Back-Ups

Hi,
Just reconnected a TC after a 2 year hiatus. I can connect as a shared disk and see the the contents of the TC which includes a sparsebundle - so I know content is there. But when I launch Time Machine I dont see any previous content. I haven't performed a Time Machine back-up yet.
What would be the best way to proceed? I dont want previous back ups to get wiped. Also, I take it connecting via wired Ethernet would speed up what initial back-up I might perform as much on my computer has changed in two years.

mrhifi wrote:
Hi,
Just reconnected a TC after a 2 year hiatus. I can connect as a shared disk and see the the contents of the TC which includes a sparsebundle - so I know content is there. But when I launch Time Machine I dont see any previous content. I haven't performed a Time Machine back-up yet.
What would be the best way to proceed?
What's changed in those 2 years? Any hardware repairs, especially a new logic board?
If not, try Repairing the backups, per #A5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
If that doesn't help, try the Browse... option, per #E2 there.
I dont want previous back ups to get wiped.
2 year old backups? That makes me wonder if you deleted things from your Mac, counting on Time Machine to keep the backups indefinitely. If so, see #20 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 the +Time Machine+ forum).
After that long, Time Machine will almost certainly do a new, full backup. That, of course, will take a lot of space, so if there isn't enough room on your TC, it will have to delete old backups, perhaps a LOT of them, to make room. Depending on the sizes, it may delete all but the most recent one, then fail because there still isn't enough room.
See how much space is available on the TC. If that's less than 120% of the amount of data on your Mac (or the estimated size of a full backup under the exclusions box in +Time Machine Preferences > Options,+ backups will have to be deleted. How many is impossible to predict.
Also, I take it connecting via wired Ethernet would speed up what initial back-up I might perform as much on my computer has changed in two years.
Yes, absolutely!
If old backups have to be deleted, that can be an excruciatingly slow process, even via Ethernet. Because of the way sparse bundles work, TM must mount it, delete the oldest backup, dismount it, compact it, then mount it again to see if that made enough space. If not, repeat, repeat, repeat . . .
So, if it looks like a lot of old backups will have to go, and you really don't want that to happen, your best bet is to connect a USB or FireWire disk directly to your iMac and start backing-up to it. That's much faster and more reliable anyway. You should still be able to see and restore from the old backups via the Browse... option.
By the way, please click +My Settings+ at the right of this page, and update your Mac and OSX specs. I'm assuming you're still on the iMac, but clearly not 10.4.5 )

Replacing Time Capsule - can I move old back ups to new TC?

I've just bought a 2TB Time Capsule to replace my 1TB. How do I move my back ups so as not to lose the old data?
Thanks,
John

This should provide the answer:
http://blog.fosketts.net/2008/07/26/move-os-x-time-machine-backups-new-disk/

Time Machine won't create diff. back-ups despite sufficient disk space

Hi,
I have one full back up on my external HDD, and several differential back ups. However, despite there being over 80GB left on my external HDD, Time Machine will fail to complete further differential back ups when I disconnect my external HDD and then reconnect (say a week later or so). Time Machine seems to want to create another full backup when I reconnect my external HDD (or it seems this way). My questions are: why won't Time Machine create further differential backups based on my original full backup when I reconnect my external HDD and/or can I change a setting so that TM will create ONLY differential backups (given that one full back up already exists)?
Advice appreciated,
SM

I should add that when TM attempts to create another backup after I reconnect my external HDD, it fails, stating 'not enough disk space' - which is why I assume it's attempting another full backup. Cheers, SM.

NEW back up drive for Time machine, can I move old back up to new drive?

I have been backing TM up to a GRAID external. I just bought a new 'toaster' with mirror back up for TM to use. Is there anyway to move the old back up files from the GRAID to the new toaster?

Clone the old backup drive to the new one:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4.Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new backup drive.
Source means the old backup drive.
Use the above procedure only. Do not attempt to copy by Drag and Drop or use a third-party backup utility unless it states that it qualifies for cloning TM backups.

HT4847 If you have to manny old back ups on iCloud can u delete them with out loosing current and old things

If you I cloud memory is low can u delete all the old back ups w out loosing data

Yes you could delete backups without loosing anything on your device, but iCloud storage has nothing to do with your local device capacity. I guess that your device is just full and that you have to delete something like apps, movies etc to free up some space for other content.
iCloud uses its storage only for
Photos and videos in the Camera Roll
Device settings (for example: Phone Favorites, Wallpaper, and Mail, Contacts, Calendar accounts)
App data
Home screen and app organization
Messages (iMessage, SMS, and MMS)
Ringtones
Visual Voicemails
purchases of apps, music, videos do not count against your iCloud storage capacity ( but please see also iCloud backup and restore overview http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4859).

Time Machine not deleting old back ups?

I keep getting the error
"This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires...."
I use the same 500GB volume for backups all day, every day. I thought the program was supposed to automatically delete old back ups to make room? I do not see any additional settings to confirm this but if you manually delete back up files, it really kind of screws things up. I see back ups that are 4-6 weeks old on the back up volume so there are plenty it could delete. Has anyone else seen this and how do you resolve this problem?
TIA

mqcarpenter wrote:
I keep getting the error
"This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires...."
I use the same 500GB volume for backups all day, every day. I thought the program was supposed to automatically delete old back ups to make room? I do not see any additional settings to confirm this but if you manually delete back up files, it really kind of screws things up.
Do you mean via the Finder? If so, yes, it does.
If you have deleted any this way, do the following:
1. Turn TM Off.
2. Use Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) to do a +Repair Disk+ (not permissions) on your TM drive. If it finds errors that it can't fix, try again until it does or you get the exact same results. If they can't be fixed, stop here and post back with the results.
Download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget from: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/timemachinebuddy.html. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Copy and post the messages here (be sure to get them all, as sometimes they overflow the small window).
Also, is there other data on your TM drive? If so, is it in the same partition as TM's backups?

Can I use the harddisk that I used for Time Machine on my previous computer on my new computer without deleting the old back-ups?

Can I use the harddisk that I used for Time Machine on my previous computer on my new computer without deleting the old back-ups?

Yes. See:
http://pondini.org/TM/4.html
My only concern is that you may not have enough free space on the drive.

Time capsule full - will not delete old back ups

When a back up is attempted on time capsule, I get this message:
Time Machine Error
This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 2.52 GB but only 1.53 GB are available.
Latest successful backup: 10-01-20 at 3:09 PM
The option to delete old back ups is checked.
Any ideas? Thanks!

Kaalass wrote:
Ok, update. It would seem that I cant access the backups. I can see the disk image of the back up on my desktop, but cant seem to select it as the back up disk. The only one that I can select is "Time Capsule". There is only one Mac that is being backed up. It says that 784.38 GB of 998.06 GB is available.
So there's about 214 GB used on your internal HD?
Again, please: How large is the Time Capsule? Is there other data on it, besides backups? If so, how much?
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://Firsname%20Name@Computer Names-Time-Capsule.local/Time%20Capsule
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Firstname%20Vanasse@Computer Names-Time-Capsule.local/Time%20Capsule
Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule/Computer Name’s Computer_001b6392bd73.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Computer Name’s Computer
Time Machine, for some odd reason, sometimes gets cranky about some particular names. Change yours per #C9 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/Time Capsule-2
Are there two (or more) +sparse bundles+ on your Time Capsule's internal disk? It looks like Time Machine has started a whole new set of backups (thus the "-2" in the name). If so, it won't delete any backups in the first set to make room for new backups in the second one.
Since you started backing-up to this Time Capsule, have you had any hardware repairs done to your Mac? If so, what?

How to recover old Back ups made with time machine?

After a recovery with time machine to a very early back up, it completly deleted my old back ups from my back up drive? I had almost everything there. how can i get it back? is there any way?

Hi Patsmith7,
i think I understand what you're asking. You'd like to move the current Time Machine backup to a new HD so that it will never be written over as you continue to use the current HD where the data resides. If that is correct, then just follow the below link which will show you a very simple way of accomplishing this.
If you only want to move a specific date then you will have to follow the same instructions in the link but click on the drop down arrow on the current backup which will show you each instance (date) of the backups. Grab the date that you're interested in and complete the move as instructed in the link to the new HD.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Good Luck and let me know if you have any other questions.

Time Machine deleting too many old back-ups

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