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How to delete old time machine backups?

Help! I use a 3TB My Book Studio for my time machine backups on my IMAC. It is down to only 253GB space available. How do I remove backups from as far back as 2017, keeping only the 2023 backups?

iMac 27″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Mar 29, 2023 11:40 AM

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Posted on Mar 29, 2023 11:47 AM

You don't. The format of a TM drive is read only for the user. TM will automatically delete the oldest backups when it needs room for the newest backup.


4 replies

Mar 29, 2023 11:56 AM in response to joebalo

You can not manually delete old backups. If you try manually delete any backups, it will mess up the Time Machine structure and force you to erase the drive and start over.


Time Machine should actually prune old backups as needed. If it does not, then I suggest erasing the drive and starting over or getting a new backup drive and starting new backups.

How to delete old time machine backups?

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