Can not delete sparsebundle backup

I found this thread after 2 days of trying to delete sparsebundle on my MBP! Thanks to all who contributed. I think Graveyard may be the solution. Now for the stupid part: where, exactly, am I suppsed to drag sparsebundle file onto the Graveyard icon? I downloaded the program, opened it, and see the window that tells me to drag the file. Nothing happens. I am dragging the sparsebundle file onto every Graveyard icon I can find. Nothing happens.

Thanks for any help.

Try with CleanMyMac... very easy to use and also allow fast delete

A couple of things to note for folks that are timid about using Terminal:

- After you enter the "sudo -s" command (which puts you into "single user" or root mode, i.e., sort of a 'super administrator'), your prompt will probably change to "bash-3.2#" (depending on how your computer is cofigured).

- You can drag the Time Capsule icon from a Finder window into Terminal and the path to it will automatically be inserted (if you're worried about typing it exactly right, e.g., if you have spaces or high-ASCII characters in the name). So, you would type (w/o quotes) "cd " (note the space after the command) and then drag the icon into the Terminal window.

- Same is true for the exact file name of the sparsebundle: type "rm -rf " (note the space after the command) and then drag the sparsebundle icon from the Finder window into the Terminal window.

Good luck!

For anyone scared of the terminal, Graveyard is just running rm -rf. All you have to do is move Graveyard to the folder with the sparsebundle, drag the sparsebundle onto Graveyard's icon, and it will launch and do all the work. You can delete graveyard once it reports it's done. Works VERY fast, and Pathfinder uses rm -rf too. I guess that would work too but it costs money and Graveyard is free.

Thanks for the procedure. This approach worked best for me because of the presence of the progress bar, but wasn't very fast. Deleted 97,000 files (868 GB) in 11 hours.

FWIW, I needed to delete the sparsebundle because I had copied it from an old 1 TB Time Capsule to a new 2 TB Time Capsule and wanted to free up the old Time Capsule. It took 5 full days (about 120 hrs) to successfully copy it over Ethernet!

Had a lot of trouble deleting a sparcebundle from a MacBook I don't have more. Until somone gave me the absolute best clue. Mount the TC from a Windows PC, find the sparsebundle in Windows Explorer a simply delete it. I took me about 2 minutes.

And everybody knows someone who owns a WindowsPC!

But i wonder whats the point is making deletion of a sparsebundle so difficult from a Mac.

How to quickly remove the sparsebundle using Mountain Lion and Time Capsule

1 Go to Finder and under Shared locate your time Capsule

2 Click on Time Capsule and Finder will reveal all your sparesebundles

3 Select the one you do not want and right click on this - select Show Package Contents

4 Select the folder called bands - right click and select Move to Trash

5 Watch all the bands disappear....

6 Go back to step 2 - select your sparebundle, right click and select Move to Trash

All gone. Now go back to Tiem Machine and start again... 🙂

Enjoy.

How to quickly remove the sparsebundle using Mountain Lion and Time Capsule

1 Go to Finder and under Shared locate your time Capsule

2 Click on Time Capsule and Finder will reveal all your sparesebundles

3 Select the one you do not want and right click on this - select Show Package Contents

4 Select the folder called bands - right click and select Move to Trash

5 Watch all the bands disappear....

6 Go back to step 2 - select your sparebundle, right click and select Move to Trash

All gone. Now go back to Time Machine and start again... 🙂

Enjoy.

Disregard this, it took five minutes to show the subfolders

It works! Thanks.

"Based on dk12's idea, I succeeded with the same way, but I made it from Finder.

Here's how: Don't connect to your TC, but check it's ip address. Then in Finder go to "Go" - "Connect to server..." - "smb://TCipaddress" - it will open up the TC's root folder with almost the same look when you connect it using the normal procedure. The difference is that in this scenario you are connected through smb ("windows sharing") just like you guys did it from windows. And there you go, you can delete your stubborn sparsebundle file (which is a folder actually if you see it through smb).

I think this is communication or protolc related, not Finder related. Finder's integrity has been saved once again...not like afp's :))))

I hope this helps, and thank you for dk12 for the great idea! I was fighting with this issue for days :))"