How to delete time machine local backup?

I delete backups monthly. Go: TM, go to earliest back up using the time graph at the right of the screen, clk. on gear icon (next to the eye icon) and select "delete backup". Keep doing this for each backup yuo want to delete.

bizlaw wrote:

. . .

These are local backups created on laptops because the TM backup drive is not connected. They are supposed to be deleted when the TM backup drive is reconnected and TM runs, but that's not happening for some of us.

They're made whenever Time Machine is turned ON, whether the exernal backups are available or not.

And they're not deleted once the backup drive becomes available; they're "thinned" after 24 hours to one per day, then deleted after a week.

From Time Machine Help:

I'm on a Macbook Air and found that my backup file was almost 25GB (which is a lot when you only have 120GB), so I used the sudo command to turn off local backups. When I did that the 25GB purple Backup section was added to 'Other'. I did some research and found out that supposedly Lion would delete it after a little bit of time, but a week and a half on, it's still there.

Any suggestions?

philipjamesbowen wrote:

I'm on a Macbook Air and found that my backup file was almost 25GB (which is a lot when you only have 120GB), so I used the sudo command to turn off local backups. When I did that the 25GB purple Backup section was added to 'Other'.

Yes, while the snapshots are being deleted, they'll be counted as "other."

a week and a half on, it's still there.

How do you know that? Do you have a /.MobileBackups folder? If so, how large is it?

Cheers for the reply. I understand that they'd be switched to 'Other' whilst they are being deleted.

Reason I know that they're still there is that when I turned off the local backup feature the 'Other' file went from 50GB to 75GB....and it's still on 75GB.

Could you tell me how to try and get to that /.MobileBackups folder, because I can't seem to navigate to it.

Thanks,

philipjamesbowen wrote:

. . .

Could you tell me how to try and get to that /.MobileBackups folder, because I can't seem to navigate to it.

That's because it's hidden (the leading dot in the name). If you don't know how to display hidden items, see #A3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for a free app that will do that.

That will show the folder, if it exists, but not the size, since you also don't have permission to read the folder. For that, you'll need something like the paid version of WhatSize (not the one in the Apple Store), per the green box in Where did my Disk Space go?

If it doesn't exist, the 25 GB is elsewhere. Try the other things in the Where did my Disk Space go? article.

Hey,

I went on to Tinker Tool but I couldn't find /.MobileBackups. When I went to 'Volumes' it wasn't there, and when I used 'Go To' and put in /.MobileBackups, it said that it couldn't be found.

Regarding the 'Where Did My Disk Space Go?' article, is there anything else I can do to save having to pay!?

If I turn local backups back on, perhaps it might start to clean out the old ones!?

Cheers,

philipjamesbowen wrote:

Hey,

I went on to Tinker Tool but I couldn't find /.MobileBackups. When I went to 'Volumes' it wasn't there, and when I used 'Go To' and put in /.MobileBackups, it said that it couldn't be found.

The slash means "the startup drive." So .MobileBackups is at the top level of your internal HD.

If I turn local backups back on, perhaps it might start to clean out the old ones!?

That will start making new ones.

Yeah, I turned 'Show Hidden and System Files' on inside Tinkertool, and couldn't find any sign of a backup file. I understand where it's meant to be, but it just isn't there. Nor could I find '.MobileBacks.Trash'.

I understand that it will start creating new ones, but I didn't know whether this would kickstart the deletion of old ones......(I'm a mathematician, so that logic seems to carry for me)!!

philipjamesbowen wrote:

Yeah, I turned 'Show Hidden and System Files' on inside Tinkertool, and couldn't find any sign of a backup file. I understand where it's meant to be, but it just isn't there. Nor could I find '.MobileBacks.Trash'.

Then they have been deleted. Your problem, if any, is elsewhere.

"Other" won't ever be zero. See Lion's Storage Display for a list of some of the things there; one possibility may simply be that Spotlight isn't caught up, or is having a problem, so that display may not match what's actually on your disk. 75 GB sounds large for "Other" on a 120 GB disk, but could be reasonable depending on what data you have.

Work through the Where did my Disk Space go? article, starting at the top. If you get all the way to the green box without finding what's taking up most of the 75 GB, pay the $13 for WhatSize. Just be very careful with it in "As Admin" mode -- don't even think about deleting anything you don't understand, or you may find yourself in a much larger pickle.

Yeah, I just remember that before I turned off the backups, they were around 40/50GB (they kind of fluctuated).

I'll work through that article and give it a go.

Thanks for all of your help!!

Have you tried turning on the TM backup system? Supposedly once you turn that on it deletes all the Local backups, and or once you start to create a real TM backup to some type of external disk the Local BUs get deleted.

Yeah, I have. I thought that might 'kickstart' the deletion. It didn't though.

It's as if the 25GB of backups is just floating somewhere.....