Help - unable to delete Time Machine Files from Trash Bin

Time Machine will clear out old backups as space become needed automatically. No user should attempt to clear away backups, you’ll break Time Machine and risk data loss. Recommend putting back from trash and leaving it alone.

You're going to have to erase the Time Machine drive and start over from scratch in order to remove those files from the Trash bin.

Depending on which you were using when you started using Time Machine the TM drive will be read only for the user. Only TM has full access to it. The read only started with Big Sur.

There is no way to manually delete Time Machine backups, "old" or otherwise.

mtuk100 wrote:

I tried to free up some space on my external drive where Time Machine backs-up my disk. I deleted around 50 old back-ups on the external drive that subsequently landed in my iMAC Mini Trash Bin. However, I find myself unable to delete these files from the Trash Bin. Even when just selecting to delete one back-up file, it ran for several hours before I lost patience. Surely, there must be a way to delete these files from The Trash Bin as they will be taking up a huge amount of space on the iMAC hard disk? Any help to a non-techie would be very welcome!

As suggested by my colleague @muguy

Put the deleted Time Machine Backups in Trash >> Back

Once done you have two options as I see it

One is to put aside the Existing TM Backup drive for safe keeping

Then purchase another External Drive with at least 3x the Drive Capacity as the Internal Drive and set it up as New

Or, and not suggested for obvious reason.

Erase the Exiting TM Backup Drive and start again

No truth