Deleting Backup Files from Time Machine External Hardrive

NEVER EVER delete backups from Time Machine, this is a major No No!! Time Machine should do this for you automatically. If you remove backups you will ruin your Time Machine backup, not the HD just the backups you already have.

Your only options are to delete files & folders by Entering TM, but i you have then Erase & start over is your ither option.

Never ever manually delete or move backups to the trash. Doing so will bork your Time Machine backups and force you into erasing the drive and starting over.

I think you may find out that the backups are useless now.

Basically, Time Machine will fill up an entire Volume for its own use, and you really can't use free space on it for other purposes without running out of space and messing up how it has indexed your backup data. One idea, is to just use one hard drive for Time Machine and get another hard drive for personal storage, keep them totally separate. Another option, is to partition a new drive into two smaller Volumes. Then Time Machine can use one partition and fill it with its backup data and index, and you can use the other Volume as its own independent storage for additional personal files. I don't like to mix these up, since if the drive fails you lose everything on it, so I like to keep the backup drive dedicated for that one purpose, and just get another drive. Drives are a lot cheaper than lost data in some situations.

Hi all,

I'm seeing "never delete back ups from time machine," and I'm not sure if this applies to the issue I'm having.

I have an external Hard drive with Time Machine back ups from 2016. I no longer need some files and want to delete to create space on the drive. When I try to delete a file it says "The operation can’t be completed because backup items can’t be modified." Is there a way to solve this? I have opened and closed finder several times, as well as restarted.

Thank you for your help!

Have you tried deleting them from within Time Machine, not the Finder?

Hi there -

These files are not on my Time Machine. I had an old computer (Computer A) - and put a Time Machine back up on a harddrive several years ago. Now, I'm using Computer B, plugging in the harddrive, and trying to delete files.

Thank you for your help!

If they are done in TM...

https://web.archive.org/web/20151020192435/http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20151018143224/http://pondini.org/TM/B5.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20151018143224/http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html

If they were just copied in the Finder & not backed up by TM...

Have you tried deleting them in Safe Mode?

Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at startup), does the problem occur in Safe Mode? Could take 10 minutes or more.

Safe mode attempts to repair Disks & clears lots of caches & loads safe Drivers, & prevents loading of 3rd party extensions, so if Safe Mode works try again in regular boot.

Your only other choices are to Erase the drive & start over, or buy a new drive.

I've had this same issue. I recently deleted some old backups to make space, then found out I wasn't supposed to do that. But the TM back up is still functioning fine - how do I know if they backups are still good? Do I really have to reformat the disk? Thanks for any help.

No way to tell until you need it & find out it doesn't work, newer backups uses pointers to previous files in older backups.

To be sure, you ned to erase & start over.:(

Thank you!