I got an alert that Time Machine could no longer back up because the disk was full. So I opened the disk in Finder and tried to delete old backups from last year. I seem to be able delete everything except the "Library" folder. I have tried changing permissions to unlock the folder and all its contents, but still no joy. Is there a way to do this?
Kit
iMac 24″, macOS 14.6
You've just destroyed your TM backup. The TM backup is only meant to be accessed either through the Time Machine app in order to restore files, or from Setup/Migration Assistant to restore the system after a clean install of macOS. You may as well erase your TM backup drive & start over with the backups.
FYI, your TM backup drive should be at least 2 to 3 times larger than all of the media you are backing up to that TM drive. Plus a TM drive will eventually get full....when it does, then TM will automatically prune itself to make room for the next backup.
Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support
Back up your files with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support
You've just destroyed your TM backup. The TM backup is only meant to be accessed either through the Time Machine app in order to restore files, or from Setup/Migration Assistant to restore the system after a clean install of macOS. You may as well erase your TM backup drive & start over with the backups.
FYI, your TM backup drive should be at least 2 to 3 times larger than all of the media you are backing up to that TM drive. Plus a TM drive will eventually get full....when it does, then TM will automatically prune itself to make room for the next backup.
Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support
Back up your files with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support
You're not missing anything. You can no longer manually delete Time Machine backups. The only option would be to erase the drive and start a new set of backups.
kitkahil wrote:
...The folders were within Backups.backupdb, in a folder named after my old computer, with folder names like 2023-06-04-120102
... and this is where you potentially "broke" the TM backup set. Think of the Backups.backupdb as a database file and is only meant to be accessed via the app that created it.
Yes, TM is supposed to remove old backups to make space for additional ones. However, in practice, this is not always the case ... especially if you use apps like VM managers that create (& update) very large files.
When an event like this occurs, your best course of action is to archive the existing backups, and as others have mentioned, start with a new backup set.
Yes, by using the Time Machine interface, NOT by using the Finder.
Just to add, as others tried to explain, you can always remove the old drive from Time Machine, purchase a new drive and start a new set of backups.
Time Machine Backup Utilities, it marks the Drive as Read Only for a good reason.
So that user ( you ) do not attempt to Muck Up the index file it issuing to keep track of all the changes that have occurred between the current backup the the previous backups
As has been mentioned earlier - the self infected actions of cherry picking backups to delete certain Snapshots
Reformat the drive and start again with a new regime
What exact process did you follow, using the Finder, to delete those backups?
... and by backups, are you referring to individual dated backups in a single TM backup set OR deleting another backup set entirely?
For the former, did you use Finder to locate the Backups.backupdb folder?
Finally, is this a locally attached drive or a network drive, like a Time Capsule?
I have a separate hard disk dedicated to Time Machine. I clicked on the hard disk icon to display the folders within. I saw that there are some from a previous computer that I no longer use, so I tried to move the oldest dated folders to the bin. The folders were within Backups.backupdb, in a folder named after my old computer, with folder names like 2023-06-04-120102
There must be a way to delete backups to make more space but the only message I saw was to delete older backups to make more space. So I’m confused about how to do it.
So, is there a way to manually remove backups? Or does one have to reformat the drive and start again whenever it fills up?
Maybe I am missing something. If I view my Time Machine backups and scoot back the very earliest one, where do I find a link or button to delete that backup? I can't see anything.
Freeing space on Time Machine volume
