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Time Machine disk full

Time Machine is supposed to delete the oldest backup if there's not enough space for the current backup, but it never does. It just tells me the Time Machine disk is full. What's going on, and why doesn't it delete older backups?


Mac mini, macOS 13.0

Posted on Nov 17, 2022 10:38 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 17, 2022 5:53 PM

Consider the possibility that the backup disk contains a backup set for what it may consider a different Mac.


"Different" in that sense could be the same Mac but with a startup disk that was renamed at some point. In that hypothetical situation that set of backups becomes segregated and its older backups never deleted.


In that event the fix is as Barney-15E wrote: erase the disk and start over. For that reason and others, one and only one backup disk does not comprise an effective backup strategy. Time Machine will back up to as many backup disks as you wish to provide.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 17, 2022 5:53 PM in response to John Haley1

Consider the possibility that the backup disk contains a backup set for what it may consider a different Mac.


"Different" in that sense could be the same Mac but with a startup disk that was renamed at some point. In that hypothetical situation that set of backups becomes segregated and its older backups never deleted.


In that event the fix is as Barney-15E wrote: erase the disk and start over. For that reason and others, one and only one backup disk does not comprise an effective backup strategy. Time Machine will back up to as many backup disks as you wish to provide.

Time Machine disk full

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