Disable Local Snapshots of Time-Machine

Question

Disable Local Snapshots of Time-Machine

Hi

I got me a 4TB internal SSD for my mac, so I do not have space issues.

Now all the time, they get filled up with local snapshots, and I can not get rid of it.

I had a 2TB SSD before, and had the same issue. Now 4 TB, and it files sometimes over 2Tb with local Snapshots. When I then want to copy 1.5T to the internal SSD, and I only use 1TB, I can not copy it over. NOT ENOUGH DISK SPACE.

It does not clean up the local Snapshots as advertised, and I run into this weekly.

Then I have to copy small parts in several sessions... this really sucks.

Anyone have an idea how to solve this?

OS X everything updated to newest version.

Dispale wioth #sudo tmutil disablelocal does not work anymore since Mojave

THX

Posted on Mar 9, 2019 9:03 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

⁤aaplCore

Level 3

589 points

Mar 9, 2019 9:45 AM in response to Paz.americano

If you want to delete local snapshots manually, just turn off Time Machine and give it a few minutes to automatically delete them. When you turn Time Machine back on, it remembers your previous backup disks.

About Time Machine local snapshots

Use TimeMachineEditor to change default one-hour backup interval of Time Machine or create a more sophisticated scheduling.

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Answer 2

Mar 10, 2019 1:39 AM in response to ⁤aaplCore

I will give it a try. I started it, and Time Machine was off when I did so.

I did not check Create local backup

It then starts to create a new Time Machine backup, even with the button "Backup Automatically" turned off in settings for time machine.

there is now one new local snapshot if I look with terminal

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Answer 3

Mar 10, 2019 1:44 AM in response to leroydouglas

thank you, and I used those commands before to clear up space. But it is quite cumbersome and it does not delete all local snapshots, even if it tells you so.

As of now, I deleted 7, three are still there, 4 are actually deleted.

The space re3served for local snapshots is 1.2 TB, deleting the 4 freed out 100GB.

Still 1.16 TB used for local snapshots.
Time machine turned off

Apple is unfortunate not able to help me at all. I run in this continuously... and I can not spend hours each week to free up space, just because I want to copy data to my working drive. =(

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Answer 4

Mar 9, 2019 7:41 PM in response to Paz.americano

Any way to disable local snapshots?

the disablelocal command has been deprecated and no longer listed in the man page.

man tmutil | more

You can look for a dataless snapshot which may be causing the issue(?)

** if you have any dataless snapshots in the list: It will literally say (dataless.)—IF so delete them—

Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app

From the Terminal look at Time machine local snapshots, copy & paste:

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

# tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-04-014927 (dataless)

com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-04-024750

com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-04-024752

com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-04-024835

com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-04-024852

here is an ex. to delete from the above output list.

sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2017-10-04-014927

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Answer 5

Mar 9, 2019 7:07 PM in response to ⁤aaplCore

TimeMachine drive is connected all the time since one week. A week ago I had deleted manually all local snapshots. Since then Local snapshots filled up close to 2TB, and during that time the TB Disk was connected all the time. So that will not solve it.

Any way to disable local snapshots?

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Answer 6

Mar 10, 2019 9:40 AM in response to Paz.americano

When I then want to copy 1.5T to the internal SSD, and I only use 1TB, I can not copy it over. NOT ENOUGH DISK SPACE.

What doe s this mean?

Are you trying to use the external Time Machine Backup disk and also trying to store other data on the same disk?

If so, this is the issue, not local snapshots. TM is working as it was designed to work.

You can partition the Disk into more than one volume using Disk Utility. The only caveat is the 1st Partition is the dedicated TM volume so as not to confuse the software.

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Answer 7

Mar 10, 2019 9:51 AM in response to Paz.americano

You could try to thin local snapshots with this Terminal app command:

tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / $(echo "5 * 1000000000" | bc) 2

To claim just one 1 Gigabyte:

 tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 1000000000

10 Gigabytes:

tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 10000000000

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Answer 8

Mar 10, 2019 5:19 PM in response to leroydouglas

No, me TM drive is only for TM

I copy date from other drives to my fast internal SSD, Process them, move them away again, ad ne Data.

Always when I want to ad new Data, local snapshots cover the space on my main HD and as of now, even with terminal I can not delete them.

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Answer 9

Mar 9, 2019 9:42 PM in response to Paz.americano

Use TimeMachineEditor.

It can disable local snapshots, just uncheck "Create local snapshots every hour".

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Answer 10

Mar 10, 2019 5:20 PM in response to ⁤aaplCore

thank you, will give this a try right away.

tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 100000

^_^

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Disable Local Snapshots of Time-Machine

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