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Time Machine is Deleting Old backups

Disconnected my MacBook Pro from its hard drives for two days. Re-connected, and ran Time Machine. It backuped up as normal. I walked away, seeing "49.8GB free of 499GB" on that external hard drive. I come back and Time Machine is "Deleting Old Backups ... " - and now 135GB free, and still deleting.


I realize that TM auto-deletes ... but does this sound "normal" to start its own deletions when there was 49GB remaining on a 500GB drive?


It's still deleting ...


Clint Bradford

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7), OWC, WD, and SmartDisk backup drives.

Posted on Jul 11, 2011 1:33 PM

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Posted on Jul 11, 2011 1:51 PM

is Time Machine still deleting?

Perhaps you should have a look at the Time Machine Preference panel.

There you see the estimated size of the current backup and can compare it to the free space.


You said that you connected two disks. Is the second disk to be backed up as well? Maybe this second disk has not been excluded from the current backup (in the options settings) and now Time machine wants to back up more than you wanted and thus, needs more space.

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Question marked as Best reply

Jul 11, 2011 1:51 PM in response to clintbradford

is Time Machine still deleting?

Perhaps you should have a look at the Time Machine Preference panel.

There you see the estimated size of the current backup and can compare it to the free space.


You said that you connected two disks. Is the second disk to be backed up as well? Maybe this second disk has not been excluded from the current backup (in the options settings) and now Time machine wants to back up more than you wanted and thus, needs more space.

Jul 11, 2011 1:54 PM in response to léonie

If I said I connnected two disks, I apologize. One 500GB external hard drive is dedicated to just being a Time Machine backup for my 17" MacBook Pro.


Not sure what has happened ... but Time Machine cleared up space, and is now performing a 110GB backup ... kinda like it doesn't know it's the same computer attached to it.


This is NOT a critical problem ... I have full backup elsewhere. Just a little weirdness today ...


Clint Bradford

Time Machine is Deleting Old backups

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