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?

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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?

Why does Time machine not delete old backups

I dont understand Why time machine is not deleting old backups. As it worked first time with the same size backup drive as the drive its backing up, I assumed it would just delete the old backup as needed. Do I need a bigger backup drive?

Roglee wrote:
I just want it to delete the old backup & replace it so i just have a copy. I guess i could just re format the drive each time but that just seems a waste of my time when TM should do this for me!
If this is all you want to do, turn off Time Machine, download SuperDuper! and use it for free. This will clone whatever drive you want and the free trial will erase your back up drive each time. I can't remember if it will let you choose what to back up or if it wants the entire drive. Also, I'm not sure if the Scheduler works with the free trial. Below are some verbiage for SuperDuper!. Looks like if you want Scheduling you will have to purchase a license.
Download Now!
You can download SuperDuper! v2.7.1 right now and back up and clone your drives for free— forever!
Buy Now!
Buy now to unlock scheduling, Smart Update (which saves a lot of time), Sandboxes, scripting and more!
Time Machine will keep making back ups and when it determines it needs space, it will delete older back ups. But it doesn't delete older ones each time it backs up.

Time machine not deleting old backups...

I am on Mavericks 10.9.1 and get the following error:
"The backup disk needs48.93 GB for the backup but only 30.99 are available. Select a larger backup disk or make the backup smalled by excluding files."
I recently had to unplug my external HD which I use for time machine back-ups, this error started when I plugged it back in just a few days ago. I have exlcuded some files from the back up and still get the error. My internal HD has 475.62GB of data on it, and I am trying to back up to a 500GB external HD, the total size of my backup is roughly 465GB.
Seems like I should have enough space for a back-up and TM should delete the old back-ups. I have been through a search of the forum and online and have not found a solution. Has anyone ran into this?
Thanks for the help!

I believe I was told that If you had older backups like ML and your disk is getting full it will not delete these because you are now backing up a new OS (Mavericks). It only deletes older backups of the same OS you are now using.

Backup disk is full ... Time Machine not deleting old backups

In my Time Machine preferences it says "The older backups are deleted when your disk becomes full." Well ... my disk is full but Time Machine is not deleting its old backups to make more room.
So now TM is failing to backup.
Any suggestions for freeing up some disk space and getting back to getting backed up?
Thanks.
Ramone

ramonekalsaw wrote:
In my Time Machine preferences it says "The older backups are deleted when your disk becomes full." Well ... my disk is full but Time Machine is not deleting its old backups to make more room.
So now TM is failing to backup.
What message does it send? See #C2 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.
Any suggestions for freeing up some disk space and getting back to getting backed up?
Do you have other data on the disk, in the same partition? If so, that's not a good idea, and may be the source of the problem. See #3 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 this forum).

Time machine not deleting old backups of recovery partition

I have a Mac Mini running Lion Server. I have an external disk partitioned with a space for network backups and a smaller partition for backing up the server itself. The server has a 160GB disk, it is only using 29.27GB, the partition for backing up the server is 152GB (it's what was left over after creating the partition for the network backups). I figured since I'm only using about 30GB, 152GB should be plenty of space. However after 3 months of use I get the error "the backup is too large for the backup disk". In the past I have formatted the partition and restarted the backups, however it always fills up after 3 months. This time I decided to dig into it a bit more. I looked to see what was available in my backup, it only has one previous restore point. I browsed the disk and opened the backups.backupdb folder, checked the size of the folder with the computer name, it is only 9.44GB. I was wondering where all of the space went so I enabled hidden files, I found the .RecoverySets folder and found it was taking up 141.95GB. I looked at the recovery sets, there are 295 copies of com.apple.recovery.boot which all seem to contain the following files:
.disk_label                         749b
BaseSystem.chunklist       2KB
BaseSystem.dmg              454.6MB
boot.efi                              864KB
com.apple.Boot.plist          431b
kernelcache                       24.1MB
PlatformSupport.plist         2KB
SystemVersion.plist           478b
Of those files, the only file not dated Aug 11, Oct 6 or 12, 2011 is com.apple.Boot.plist which has a date that corresponds to when the backup was performed. These backups go all the way back to Jan 30, the last time I formatted the partition, but the user data backups only go back to the 27th and it hasn't been able to complete a backup since.
I thought Time Machine was supposed to only backup data that had changed since the last backup, and delete old revisions when space is running low, it seems that it is copying more than just the data that changed since the last backup and only deleting old revisions of user data, not system data. Is there a way to fix this permanently?

See C18 in the first linked article. Also, your backup drive should be 2-4 times your hard drive capacity.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Time machine corrupts all old back ups

This is possibly the straw the breaks the camels back!
We had issues with smb in Lion almost causing a complete a complete breakdown in our rendering at the studio, now we have a complete and utter failure of time machine in Mavericks!!!
We had 4tb free on the back up 8tb thunderbolt drive with a small back up of 40gb needed after installing Mavericks. The back up failed stating not enough disk space avaialble as 4.2tb was needed!!!
I can only assume after upgrade mavericks decided to back up the entire disk again, it failed and has now deleted all old data.
In this case luckily we didn't actually lose any critical data as this is backing up a raid 5 drive as a secondary line of safety.
That said this a getting very worrying, every update from Apple in the last 4 years has caused us one issue or another. We are getting to the point where we simply can't trust Apple with Enterprise level support or relaibilty.
I can only assume from other cases on here this is a known issue but was realeased anyway?
Think we are at the point where we simply won't upgrade any Apple products until 12 months after release, hopefully giving them time to iron out all the bugs. Which is not what I expect from Apple, and kind of ruins the point of why one might use Macs in the future.

Can anyone suggest a more reliable back up software solution?

OS X 10.7 Time Machine not deleting old backups to make space

after upgrading to 10.7, Time Machine no longer deletes old (over a year old) backups to make space when needed. Drive now full. Cannot manually delete and Time Machine does not seem to have a function to perform a deletion.

See C18 in the first linked article. Also, your backup drive should be 2-4 times your hard drive capacity.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

I recently took my imac in for a recall on the hard drive, they replaced my hard drive, i used time machine to restore all my files. Now when I turn time machine on it says back up failed not enough space, it is not overwriting old back ups.

I recently took my imac in for a recall on the hard drive, they replaced my hard drive, i used time machine to restore all my files. Now when I turn time machine on it says back up failed not enough space, it is not overwriting old back ups. Why? Please help

http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

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

HT5622 my Icloud back up is full but it won't let me delete old back ups. I don't want to buy more storage. how do I clear it out

My I cloud account will not let me delete old back ups. All of this trouble started when I downloaded the Apple 701.1 I can't do anything. Very frustrated! I have restored my phone several times and I'm losing everything. Not a happy customer right now.!

What happens when you try to delete old backups?

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.

HT3275 Time Machine not deleting oldest backups when the disk is full

Time Machine not deleting oldest backups when the disk is full

Unfortunately, when this happens, Time Machine cannot erase enough space to create room for the new backup. Your options now are:
1) Add a new Time Capsule or a hard drive to the USB port on the existing Time Capsule and continue with backups
2) Manually delete backups from Time Machine....which is a long and tedious process. After a few hours, not much space will be reclaimed and it will not be long before the Time Capsule is full again
3) Erase the Time Capsule....if you really do not need all the old backups from months ago....and start over with a new Time Machine backup and move forward again

R&R 4 Does Not Delete Prior Back-Ups

TP T61p 6459 GTO, Win XP SP3 Fully, Fully Patched TV System Update computer
My R&R does not delete prior back-ups, I just get the hour glass over and over and over....
Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

Hi,
just try to use the rrcmd.exe utility to delete the backups, that you want to.
In the Admin manual you can find the description, on how to do it.
Cheers

I'm deleting old back ups in time machine but it's not freeing up any space

Time machine cannot back up because it is full and is not deleting old backups.
So I delete back ups myself and it doesn't fire up any space!

The problem is that the backups of the old computer are still on the volume, and Time Machine won't delete them to make room for more backups of the new one.
At the top level of the folder Backups.backupdb, there should be a subfolder with the name of each computer that has ever been backed up to that volume. Delete the one with the name of the old computer by dragging it to the Trash and emptying. I warn you, though, that sometimes the Trash will fail to empty, and then you'll probably have to erase the volume and start over. Do this only if you have at least one other complete backup of all current data (which you should have anyway.)

Time Machine not deleting old back ups?

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