Time Machine not deleting to provide adequate free space

This is similar, but not identical to the recent post.
I am backing up my internal system hard drive, which contains 111 GB, to a 1 TB external. But the disk has filled up to the point that I now get a TechTool Protection Alert every few minutes warning me that the free space is less than 15%.
Sure, I can turn off the warning, but I agree with TechTool; I'd like to to maintain an adequate amount of free space so that overcrowding files don't create their own problems.
Is there anyway to get Time Machine to begin the replacement of old files with newer ones prior to completely running out of space? What is the empty space threshold that Time Machine uses; surely not 100% full. Or is something not working right for me.
Thanks

B User wrote:
I am backing up my internal system hard drive, which contains 111 GB, to a 1 TB external. But the disk has filled up to the point that I now get a TechTool Protection Alert every few minutes warning me that the free space is less than 15%.
Less than 15% free space on your Time Machine disk is not a problem. That volume is not used for swap files, caches, or even active files, like your OSX volume is.
If you have other data in the same partition, that can cause a problem, but Time Machine was designed to use up all the empty space available to it; there's no advantage to keeping any more of it free than it needs.
By the way, if you're using the +Directory Protection+ feature of TT pro, exclude your Time Machine volume from it; and the files it keeps on your internal HD from Time Machine backups. It won't help if there's a problem, and having Time Machine back up the files can cause extra-large backups for no real benefit. See #D4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Similar Messages

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

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

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.

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...

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.

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 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?

Time machine not deleting oldest backup on full network drive

Hi All,
I backup my iMac over the network to a share on a mac Mini. After around three months, the share is full. I expected Time Machine to just start deleting old backups, but it is not.
Time Machine gives me the following error:
"This backup is too large for the backup volume".
This is correct, but i thought Time Machine should have just deleted the oldest backup in this instance? Or does this not work when backing up over the network?
Thanks in advance for help and advice.
Cheers,
mdavis75
Message was edited by: mdavis75

I have the exact same problem, but I am not using TM over a network... Only my local Mac Pro w/ a 600gb external drive. I recall back when I first got Leopard that time machine did in fact ask me if I wanted it to delete old backups after the drive filled up. Then one day it randomly decided to not delete old backups anymore... Instead displaying the same error message you get.
Can anyone help? (Besides telling me not to back up certain files, and to do it less often. Those are BS solutions! I want my entire HD backed up every time automatically erasing old backups when necessary. Is that too much to ask for?)

Time Machine not deleting oldest backups?! Disc full.

What is wrong with Time Machine in Yosemite?
For years I have been using it and when the backup drive gets close to full I will be warned that the oldest backups will be removed to make space for the new ones.
It even says in System Preferences. "The oldest backups are deleted when your disk becomes full"
Why then does this not appear to work anymore? My Time Machine drive has become full and it REFUSES to back up now!
What must I do? Erase the whole drive and start again? Any answers appreciated.

Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Time machine not recognizing free space even though it "knows" about it

Trying to back up to an external hard drive I'm getting this error from Time Machine when it tries to back up:
"This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 52.5 GB but only 495.8 GB are available..."
Clearly it KNOWS the space is there, but its math is wrong since it seem to think that 52.5 GB is greater than 495.8 GB.
Suggestions?

Sometimes, this error is legitimate. The user may not realize that they need to exclude additional hard disks that TM may be seeing. This is done in the “Options…” window of the Time Machine Preferences.
Nevertheless, many times this error just doesn’t make sense, stating that not enough free space exists for a backup that is clearly smaller. (“The backup requires 45.9 GB but only 182.6 GB are available”)
The answer and fix may have been discovered by a poster in the macosxhints forums: (http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-84284.html)
Essentially, while Time Machine DOES delete old backups from the sparsebundle, it DOES NOT free up the space occupied by those old backups. Eventually, "all previous backups were deleted and no space was gained. . . . What appears to be going on here is that the sparsebundle isn't self-shrinking - unused bands aren't being automagically discarded."
The solution is to compact the TM backup sparsebundle in Terminal using:
hdiutil compact yoursparsebundlefilename.
He concludes, "I gained 30+gb of space on the backup volume by compacting that sparsebundle. And now TM runs just fine, since it has plenty of space."
Obviously, this is a bug in TM. It does not appear to effect everyone, and only seems to appear under certain curcumstances.
Let us know if this works for you.

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

Time Machine: "Partially Deleted Backup"

Last night, after Time Machine performed a backup and began its post-backup thinning, it got stalled on "Finishing backup... ." The system log showed that it was attempting to delete a previously partially deleted backup:
Starting standard backup
Starting post-backup thinning
Found partially deleted backup - trying again to delete: 2009-09-30-110803
The backup it was trying to delete was the last one on its list (i.e., the oldest one on that TM volume). And when I opened it up, it indeed appeared to be a partially deleted folder. So I let TM run. However, it never finished "Finishing backup... ," so after letting it run all night and all day, I simply told TM to stop. It did, and the system then added two more messages to the log, acknowledging my cancelation as well as TM's current success:
Starting standard backup
Starting post-backup thinning
Found partially deleted backup - trying again to delete: 2009-09-30-110803
Backup deletion was canceled by user
Backup completed successfully.
However, the next time TM ran, it began all over again:
Starting standard backup
Starting post-backup thinning
Found partially deleted backup - trying again to delete: 2009-09-30-110803
It's still sitting there in its "Finishing backup..." mode.
I was thinking about entering Time Machine, selecting that backup, and telling Time Machine to delete that backup—and only that backup. But I'm (a) not sure that will address the actual problem, and (b) wondering if deleting that particular backup (i.e., the oldest one on the list) is advisable.
Suggestions?

Pondini wrote:
Maxwell’s Demon wrote:
I'm aware of the multilink nature of TM's backups. What I don't understand is how you immediately concluded that the backups were corrupted.
TM finding partially deleted backups, trying repeatedly to deleted them, and failing to.
(And yes, I though you meant that you'd tried to delete the backup yourself.)
It took forever. I ran TechTool Pro, and it "choked" (i.e., ran out of memory) trying to rebuild the directory. When I asked Disk Warrior to graph the directory, it revealed that it was more than 40% fragmented!
I'm not sure fragmentation is a problem, or even applies, given the structure of TM backups.
So I ran Disk Warrior. It ran without incident. When I then looked inside the TM drive, I discovered that along with rebuilding the directory—which is what I understood its job to be—DW apparently removed/deleted the offending (partially deleted) backup. The next time Time Machine ran, everything went smoothly. It's been running fine ever since.
Great! And yes, there are times it can repair/rebuild TM backups that nothing else can (I guess that's why it costs $100!).
I'm obviously quite pleased with the results: Not only did DW perform an incredible directory rebuild (fragmentation went from more than 40% to less than 1% !!) but it cleared out the partially deleted backup that was causing TM to stumble. But I remain awfully curious: Had I simply gone into Time Machine and deleted the partially deleted backup myself, wouldn't that have fixed the problem? (Granted, DW not only got TM back on track, but it also rebuilt its directory, which is a definite plus in my mind...I'm just trying to understand.)
It's possible you couldn't have deleted it completely, any more than TM was able to. Remember, a single backup folder has hard links to hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of other items. Just one of those being screwy can have a ripple effect through the whole structure.
And if you could have, it might well have left some of the actual backup files "abandoned" -- some or all of the hard links to them deleted, but still somewhere in the disk directory, so still taking up space.
I got the idea from
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090515063602219
which provided a link to the "solution" when partial backups remain that result in TM "error: 11" failures:
http://www.bytebot.net/blog/archives/2008/08/13/fixing-time-machine-backup-faile d-with-error-11
Admittedly, mine wasn't an "error: 11" problem, but it sure seemed similar. My hesitation/concern was due to the fact that the partially deleted backup was the last one (i.e., the "oldest") in my TM volume: I wasn't sure if deleting it would screw up all of the links used by the remaining backups. However, since DW removed it without causing any problems, it seems like I may have been able to accomplish the same result by removing it "manually" from within TM. If that is the case, then it suggests that there may not have been any actual "corruption."
Again, I am very happy with the result, and likely will resort to DW again the next time I have similar problems. The only reason I'm harping on it is simply to try to gain a deeper understanding of how to determine when such problems are indeed due to corruption as opposed to simply an errant file that causes TM to stumble. (Had TM indicated that it stumbled and was unable to successfully perform the backup, then I would have little doubt that there was actual corruption.)

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.

"Time machine not configured" & Can't reset to factory setting.

Once I removed the Time capsule from my List to back up again. But after removing when i connect the time capsule, the amber light keep on flashing and i can't set up the Time capsule. Although i get it in the wifi network. ( I attached the Pic marked Majmadar's Wifi Network ). Now when i click on the icon of time capsule it shows " Time machine not configured ". Even when i open the time machine preferences i don't see My time Capsule in my list. Please help me to
solve my problem. Thanks in advance.

Start over and redo the setup from a manual factory reset.. do NOT use names like you have now.. this is problematic on Yosemite..
Also do a full reset on Time Machine.. See A4 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Factory reset universal
Power off the TC.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the TC to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.
N.B. None of your files on the hard disk of the TC are deleted.. this simply clears out the router settings of the TC.
Setup the TC again.
ie Start from a factory reset. No files are lost on the hard disk doing this.
Then redo the setup from the computer with Yosemite.
1. Use very short names.. NOT APPLE RECOMMENDED names. No spaces and pure alphanumerics.
eg TCgen5 and TCwifi for basestation and wireless respectively.
Even better if the issue is more wireless use TC24ghz and TC5ghz with fixed channels as this also seems to help stop the nonsense. But this can be tried in the second round.
2. Use all passwords that also comply but can be a bit longer. ie 8-20 characters mixed case and numbers.. no non-alphanumerics.
3. Ensure the TC always takes the same IP address.. you will need to do this on the main router using dhcp reservation.. or a bit more complex setup using static IP in the TC. But this is important.. having IP drift all over the place when Yosemite cannot remember its own name for 5 min after a reboot makes for poor networking. If the TC is main router it will not be an issue.
4. Check your share name on the computer is not changing.. make sure it also complies with the above.. short no spaces and pure alphanumeric.. but this change will mess up your TM backup.. so be prepared to do a new full backup. Sorry.. keep this one for second round if you want to avoid a new backup.
5. Mount the TC disk in the computer manually.
In Finder, Go, Connect to server from the top menu,
Type in SMB://192.168.0.254 (or whatever the TC ip is which you have now made static. As a router by default it is 10.0.1.1 and I encourage people to stick with that unless you know what you are doing).
You can use name.. SMB://TCgen5.local where you replace TCgen5 with your TC name.. local is the default domain of the TC and doesn't change.
However names are not so easy as IP address.. nor as reliable. At least not in Yosemite they aren't. The domain can also be an issue if you are not plugged or wireless directly to the TC.
6. Make sure IPv6 is set to link-local only in the computer. For example wireless open the network preferences, wireless and advanced / TCP/IP.. and fix the IPv6. to link-local only.
There is a lot more jiggery pokery you can try but the above is a good start.. if you find it still unreliable.. don't be surprised.
You might need to do some more work on the laptop itself. eg Reset the PRAM.. has helped some people. Clean install of the OS is also helpful if you upgrade installed.
Tell us how you go.
Someone posted a solution.. See this thread.
Macbook can't find Time Capsule anymore
Start from the bottom and work up.. I have a list of good network practice changes but I have avoided Yosemites bug heaven.
This user has had success and a few others as well.
RáNdÓm GéÉzÁ
Here is where they discuss a true solution.. replace the rotten DNS app in Yosemite with the one from Mavericks.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/01/why-dns-in-os-x-10-10-is-broken-and-what-yo u-can-do-to-fix-it/

Time Machine not deleting to provide adequate free space

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