Time Machine took 5Hours just to tell me there was not enough room!

I had to use T.M to restore my computer just recently and it did but when I logged into my computer and T.M did it's daily or hourly backup it had to reindex everything cause of a restore I did so that took 5 hours but it failed after the preparing stage cause not enough room due to older backup (I only had one backup at the time) My HD for T.M is 40GB so is my internal drive where the OS is on. So what I did was just use disk utility to wipe out the T.M drive and when I did that cause it was now a empty drive I guess the reindex only took less then 10 seconds why is that? Apple should fix this that when your computer freezes, power offs or restore that it should not reindex and cause me to reformat/erase the Time Machine Drive just to make it work cause know I lost my old backup bummer. Does this happen when you use the T.M drive onto other computers running OS X 10.5?

I should add this is not the first time I had this issue so it's not 10.5.2 problem.

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I am trying to sync an ipod touch 4TH gen. The capacity bar at the bottom shows I am adding 22.29g with 6.5 g free. Yet every time I try to sync it warns that there is not enough room say an additional 868.9m still needed. Does the capacity bar tend to

I am trying to sync an ipod touch 4TH gen. The capacity bar at the bottom shows I am adding 22.29g with 6.5 g free. Yet every time I try to sync it warns that there is not enough room an additional 868.9m is still needed. Does the capacity bar tend to be wrong or am I missing something?

Well when all else fails do a restore! This fixed my problem. Still don't know why the content bar differed, but what the hey!

When i try to finalize or export to anything from iMovie it tells me there is not enough room in the heap zone. What should i do?

also sometimes it has said there is not enough RAM memory and when i quite and rsesatrt it, it will work.

"Usually, memory is allocated from a large pool of unused memory area called the heap"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management

HT3275 What do i do when, having reconnected my Time-Machine Backup disk, i'm told that there is not sufficient space to do a backup ? it seems somehow that my previous backup was "closed" and i cannot continue using it, so Time machine appears to start a

I use an external 500 GB WD hard drive for my Time-Machine backup.
Sometimes - several times - after i've disconnected the drive to go travelling, when i reconnect the external drive, Time Machine tries to resume but tells me there is not enough space on the drive, and to chose a bigger disk.
It is as if the previous backup file is "closed' and cannot be written to again.
The only fix i can find is to erase, start again from scratch and do a full backup from scratch - which totally defeats the purpose of Time Machine.
I've tried repairing the disk, nothing appears to allow the previous backup to be continued.
Suggestions please ??
Jean-Noel Cozon

Hi Linc,
Thanks for getting back - if i understood correctly, the info you suggested i collect is hereunder ...
Jan 22 06:08:09 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4353]: Starting standard backup
Jan 22 06:08:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4353]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time-Machine MBP15 Backup/Backups.backupdb
Jan 22 06:10:54 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4353]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.12 GB requested (including padding), 234.07 GB available
Jan 22 06:18:20 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4353]: Copied 28083 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 06:21:57 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4353]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.13 GB requested (including padding), 231.88 GB available
Jan 22 06:29:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4353]: Copied 23509 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 06:32:01 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4353]: Starting post-backup thinning
Jan 22 06:32:01 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4353]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Jan 22 06:32:02 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4353]: Backup completed successfully.
Jan 22 07:08:09 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4474]: Starting standard backup
Jan 22 07:08:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4474]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time-Machine MBP15 Backup/Backups.backupdb
Jan 22 07:10:52 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4474]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.13 GB requested (including padding), 231.88 GB available
Jan 22 07:18:26 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4474]: Copied 28091 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 07:22:02 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4474]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.13 GB requested (including padding), 229.69 GB available
Jan 22 07:29:22 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4474]: Copied 23517 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 07:32:14 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4474]: Starting post-backup thinning
Jan 22 07:32:14 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4474]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Jan 22 07:32:15 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4474]: Backup completed successfully.
Jan 22 08:08:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4595]: Starting standard backup
Jan 22 08:08:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4595]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time-Machine MBP15 Backup/Backups.backupdb
Jan 22 08:10:56 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4595]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.13 GB requested (including padding), 229.68 GB available
Jan 22 08:18:19 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4595]: Copied 28099 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 08:21:50 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4595]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.14 GB requested (including padding), 227.49 GB available
Jan 22 08:29:18 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4595]: Copied 23525 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 08:32:09 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4595]: Starting post-backup thinning
Jan 22 08:32:09 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4595]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Jan 22 08:32:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4595]: Backup completed successfully.
Jan 22 09:08:09 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4716]: Starting standard backup
Jan 22 09:08:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4716]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time-Machine MBP15 Backup/Backups.backupdb
Jan 22 09:10:55 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4716]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.13 GB requested (including padding), 227.49 GB available
Jan 22 09:18:48 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4716]: Copied 28107 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 09:22:40 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4716]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.27 GB requested (including padding), 225.30 GB available
Jan 22 09:32:35 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4716]: Copied 23533 files (2.3 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 09:35:25 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4716]: Starting post-backup thinning
Jan 22 09:35:25 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4716]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Jan 22 09:35:26 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4716]: Backup completed successfully.
Jan 22 10:08:09 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4840]: Starting standard backup
Jan 22 10:08:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4840]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time-Machine MBP15 Backup/Backups.backupdb
Jan 22 10:10:51 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4840]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.14 GB requested (including padding), 225.18 GB available
Jan 22 10:18:12 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4840]: Copied 28115 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 10:21:49 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4840]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.14 GB requested (including padding), 222.99 GB available
Jan 22 10:29:05 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4840]: Copied 23541 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 10:32:00 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4840]: Starting post-backup thinning
Jan 22 10:32:00 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4840]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Jan 22 10:32:01 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4840]: Backup completed successfully.
Jan 22 11:08:09 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4963]: Starting standard backup
Jan 22 11:08:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4963]: Backing up to: /Volumes/Time-Machine MBP15 Backup/Backups.backupdb
Jan 22 11:10:53 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4963]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.14 GB requested (including padding), 222.82 GB available
Jan 22 11:18:10 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4963]: Copied 28123 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 11:21:46 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4963]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 3.14 GB requested (including padding), 220.63 GB available
Jan 22 11:30:13 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4963]: Copied 23553 files (2.2 GB) from volume MBP-15.
Jan 22 11:33:03 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4963]: Starting post-backup thinning
Jan 22 11:33:03 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4963]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Jan 22 11:33:04 MBP-15 com.apple.backupd[4963]: Backup completed successfully.
Currently, having once again yesterday flattened and restarted my T-M from scratch i probably overwrote all the backups since the last time i had to do that - and as long as i don't disconnect my external backup drive it seems OK now.
I'm a bit paranoid as i use my MBP both as my Mac, but also as my Virtual PC so i have a lot of technical and commercial data which i need to keep properly backed up.
Is it possible when i've ejected my TM backup disck, gone travelling, and then reconnected it some days later - that i am causing a new backup to start by hitting the 'Backup Now' command on the menu bar.... should i let TM pickup by itself automaticvally without porvoking a Backup Now command ?
Thanks in advance for any futher advice

Lost all photos on my iPhoto and get the ERROR WRITING TO DISK when trying to reload from Time Machine. iPhoto cannot import your photos because there was a problem writing to the volume containing your iPHOTO LIBRARY . Looking for solution.

Lost all photos on my iPhoto and get the ERROR WRITING TO DISK when trying to reload from Time Machine. iPhoto cannot import your photos because there was a problem writing to the volume containing your iPHOTO LIBRARY . Looking for solution.

Problems such as yours are sometimes caused by files that should belong to you but are locked or have wrong permissions. This procedure will check for such files. It makes no changes and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.
First, empty the Trash, if possible.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
find ~ $TMPDIR.. $ -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 $ 2>&- | wc -l | pbcopy
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear.
The output of the command will be a number. It's automatically copied to the Clipboard. Please paste it into a reply.
The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

I try to download an app and it tells me that there is not enough room when there is plenty

An app that is 1.9 GB is saying that there is not enough room to download, even though i have around 3 GB free.

The GB size of the download file is the compressed size (like .zip or .dmg). When the file is installed/uncompressed it can be 2-3 times larger.
You need to delete some files and not run with an almost full storage.
How much space is used by your Other? You may be able to reduce.
How Do I Get Rid Of The “Other” Data Stored On My iPad Or iPhone?
http://tinyurl.com/85w6xwn
With an iOS device, the “Other” space in iTunes is used to store things like documents, settings, caches, and a few other important items. If you sync lots of documents to apps like GoodReader, DropCopy, or anything else that reads external files, your storage use can skyrocket. With iOS 5/6, you can see exactly which applications are taking up the most space. Just head to Settings > General > Usage, and tap the button labeled Show All Apps. The storage section will show you the app and how much storage space it is taking up. Tap on the app name to get a description of the additional storage space being used by the app’s documents and data. You can remove the storage-hogging application and all of its data directly from this screen, or manually remove the data by opening the app. Some applications, especially those designed by Apple, will allow you to remove stored data by swiping from left to right on the item to reveal a Delete button.
 Cheers, Tom

I'm try to buy a movie from iTunes with my I pad 3 and it tells me there is not enough local storage and when I go to my local storage there is a lot on free storage I also restarted my ipad but still the same prob what do I do?

I'm try to buy a movie from iTunes with my I pad 3 and it tells me there is not enough local storage and when I go to my local storage there is a lot on free storage I also restarted my ipad but still the same prob what do I do?

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When i try to sync my ipod touch it will tell me there is not enough megabites, i need more, but i still have 3.1gb open

when i try to sync my ipod touch it will tell me there is not enough megabites but i still have 3.1gb open

Either sync less or delete some media from your iPod. You are trying to sync mor that 3.1 GB to the iPod.

When Time Machine tries to back up to my Seagate HD before the HD is fully on, it fails. Then Time machine thinks it needs to back up the entire drive and there's not enough room. It won't just do the backup of new info now. Any thoughts?

When I try to do a Time Machine backup with my Seagate HD, and if I accidentally have Time Machine automatically on, it will fail if the HD is not fully on and recognized by the computer yet. But the problem is that when this has happened (twice now), it seems it loses all knowledge that it has backed up using Time Machine before and it will only try to back up the entire Mac HD to the Seagate. The Seagate already has 147 GB of data from prior Time Machine backups and I only need to backup the latest stuff since my last backup, but it won't let me do that. It tries to do the whole drive and it says it can't because there is only 135 GB of space left and it needs to backup 147 GB. Anyone know how to fix this and get it to start backing up again without erasing the drive and starting over? That's what I did last time. I erased the Seagate and then reset it as my Time Machine drive and it started working fine again until it failed and reverted to the problem. Thanks

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message that corresponds to an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included—anonymize before posting.

HT201250 Why won't Time Machine won't restore my iphoto library [says there is not enough room on my hard drive.] Any ideas?

I've got 20,000 plus photos on my HD [yes, I know, way tooo many]. I'm trying to clean up by storing them on an external HD, but for several months I've not been able to export iphoto [even geniuses can't figure out why]. So as a work around, I'm trying to export events and albums to external. However, I realized that I didn't export in the original format making the files too small. Now, I just want to restore my iphoto library to the date before I started this process and when I try to restore from Time Machine, it comes up with an error message that I don't have enough room on my HD. Any ideas out there? [The reason I want to restore is because I started to delete some of the iphoto files from my HD to clean it up and I want to get back to the original format for export].

In the simplest sense, archiving a file means making a copy that you never change and never discard. You already know how to do that.
iPhoto has built-in archival features, in the sense that it saves all versions of an image that you've modified. As long as you have adequate backups, you don't necessarily have any reason to archive an iPhoto library. If you want to delete images from the working library but still have access to them in case you change your mind, then you do need to archive those images. I don't have a specific suggestion as to how you should do that. You might post a question in the iPhoto forum.

Time Machine failed because there is not enough room on the ext HD

Time Machine has been working great for a year or so, but just today I got an error message stating that it cannot backup because the ext HD hasn't enough available space.
I was under the impression that Time Machine deleted older backup content, to make room for the new? I deleted about 30GB of stuff on my internal HD, which provided enough room for this backup, but I'm anticipating the problem to reoccur.
What's up with this? Does Time Machine automatically delete old backup content to make room for the new, or what?

OS Lucinity wrote:
I'm starting to think that perhaps the smaller TM partition was overwhelmed by the amount of data it had to backup. I didn't realize how quickly the 2 partitions it was responsible for filled up.
Yes. I'm still unsure how much data, total, you're trying to backup, but your TM space is clearly filled-up now.
The usual "rule of thumb" is, TM needs 2-3 times the space of whatever it's backing up. But it actually depends almost entirely on how you use your Mac. If you change lots of big files very frequently, then even 3 times may not be enough. But if you're a light user, you might get by with 1.5 times.
And no, you shouldn't have to manually delete backups under ordinary circumstances. TM will manage it's backups and space for you, +if it can.+
If you haven't seen it, TM's procedure is to do hourly backups and keep them for 24 hours, except the first of the day, which it keeps for 30 days. After 30 days, it makes one per week into a weekly backup which it keeps for as long as it has room. If it can't keep to this schedule, it will fail and you must decide what to do.
This can happen, of course, if there just isn't enough room. It can also happen if you suddenly put a large amount of other data in it's partition (it does need a fair amount of free space to work with).
It can also happen if TM needs to do a full backup instead of an incremental, which happens if you don't let it do any backups for several days (10, I think); or after a full system restore; or after certain hardware is replaced.
TM also can get confused if you change, move, or delete things from it's backups via the Finder; use the TM interface instead. There, you can delete a whole backup, or all backups of a particular file, etc.
Ok good to know, is there a "best-practices" Apple tutorial for TM?
Not really. Apple help has some, as does this article and the links in it: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1770 but, as with most apps, detailed documentation isn't available, not even a FAQ section.
If I have to manually remove old backups, I'm more likely to find a new backup solution.
You might have to, but then you lose the ability to recover a recent previous version of a file that got deleted or changed in error, or somehow corrupted.
Your best bet is more space for TM and/or less to back up. If you have some old data that rarely if ever gets changed, you might consider copying it to DVDs, then excluding it from TM.
And I hate to add to your woes, but do you have anything off-site? As great as external drives are, they may not protect you from fire, flood, theft, direct lightning strike on your power lines, etc.

I moved files off my computer to an external hard drive now time machine won't back up like it used to. It says there is not enough room.

My hard drive was completely full (mostly with pictures) so I moved several years worth of photos from the hard drive to an external hard drive I regularly use with the laptop. (Basically my master copies of all my photos back to 1997) I have always had Time Machine set up to back up both the laptop AND that external drive. It's always worked seamlessly until I moved those files. Time Machine has been full for a while now and regularly gives me a message that the oldest files will be deleted. That's fine.
I don't understand why moving files from the laptop to the external hd would now cause the following message (not an exact quote): Time Capsule cannot complete backup. You need 233 gb to backup and time capsule only has 107 gb available. If time capsule was already set to backup up both the laptop and the external hd, why would moving those photos from one hd to the other cause a space issue? It should equal out. And now when I look at the files on the time capsule, it only shows me a recent backup and a partial incomplete backup. None of the older backups are visible anymore. I have not deleted anything directly from the time capsule so I'm thinking somehow the index got damaged. How can I fix this? The error message says to change the settings but I really don't know what settings to change. Help!!

It does not immediately delete the files that are missing.. it merely tries to backup the new files it has discovered on the external drive. Since you moved the files there, the backup at least for a while will contain both copies.. and that is why it doesn't have enough space to backup.
Fixing the problem.. hmm pondini is the expert.. you should be able to delete the backup of the photos in existing backup.. there are instructions to do it.. but it is a very poor way to do things.
Much better. .archive off the existing backup.. this is long and slow but worth it. you need a usb drive of the same size as the TC drive. Then erase the TC and start a fresh set of backups.
The alternative is to use the USB drive as a new target.. but it is much slower than the TC internal drive.
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

Time Machine won't overwrite oldest backup ? ..says not enough space

Seemed to start sometime after installing Snow Leopard..
Used Time Machine Buddy, it says:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/LaCie Disk/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
Starting pre-backup thinning: 56.32 GB requested (including padding), 5.69 GB available
No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.
Backup Failed: unable to free 56.32 GB needed space
Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.

HI and Welcome to Apple Discussions...
*"Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume."*
Make sure you have sufficient disk space on your startup disk to back up to...
Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. Make sure you always have a minimum of 10% to 15% free disk space at all times.
*"Backup Failed: unable to free 56.32 GB needed space"*
In this case you need a minimum of 60GB of disk space for that back up.
Carolyn

Just got a new hard drive, trying to down load new software and it tells me there is not enough hard drive space to install

I have a new hard drive on my Macbook. I am trying to install a program from a disk. I keep getting an error message that states I do not have enought free space on my HD. My storage shows that I have plenty of space to install. What do I need to do? I do not have any photos, music or movies on my computer. I haven't had time to reinstall any programs, so this is one program that I need to install and it won't let me install.
Lisa

That refers to the RAM you have installed. Must be 2 GBs or more.

My iPod touch has 622mb of memory and I'm trying to download a game that has 311mb of memory, it tells me there is not enough memory to download. What should or can I do?

It's a 4th gen touch
I've already powered off and on several times

To download and install an app the iPod needs storage available equal to about three times the file download size.
If you sync from your iTunes library less storage available is required.

Time Machine took 5Hours just to tell me there was not enough room!

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