bizlaw

Q: How to delete time machine local backup?

My MacBook Pro is running out of hard drive space, and the culprit is Time Machine. Apparently Time Machine stores local backups on the hard drive when it is not connected to the backup drive, and then is supposed to delete them when it does backup. However, this causes huge problems because I'm running out of hard drive space. I ran the following in Terminal to turn off the local backups:

 

sudo tmutil disablelocal

 

However, that has not freed up the hard drive space taken by the local backups. Any ideas on how to reclaim that space?

Posted on Mar 23, 2012 4:48 PM

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Q: How to delete time machine local backup?

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  • by Shootist007,

    Shootist007 Shootist007 Dec 19, 2012 2:58 PM in response to drzoom
    Level 6 (16,660 points)
    Dec 19, 2012 2:58 PM in response to drzoom

    Is Time Machine turned on? If it is it is making backups every hour, week, month and storing them on the local drive. These backups will not be listed in some folder/file size utilities/programs but they are still taking up space.

    drzoom wrote:

     

    I don't know if is it the same problem, but in the 256 GB's HD of my MBP 15" retina display I have 4 folder: Applications 22GB, Library 7.27GB, System 6.30GB and Users 82GB for a total of 118GB, but if I get info of my HD said that I used 222GB.
    Where did they go the 104GB I missed?

    It is more than a week that my Timemachine HD is connected to the computer, but i still not get back my missing GB.

     

    thanks

  • by Pondini,

    Pondini Pondini Dec 19, 2012 2:58 PM in response to drzoom
    Level 8 (38,747 points)
    Dec 19, 2012 2:58 PM in response to drzoom

    There are other system folders that are normaly hidden. 

     

    In this case, where your disk is over 80% full, the extra space is probably not Time Machine's Local Snapshots, since they're deleted as/if necessary to keep 20% free.

     

    So it's probably one of the other things detailed in Where did my Disk Space go?

  • by drzoom,

    drzoom drzoom Dec 19, 2012 4:53 PM in response to bizlaw
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 19, 2012 4:53 PM in response to bizlaw

    @ Shootist007 My TM is ON, and I even tried to do a TM in another HD and I can see is backing up 233GB

     

    @ Pondini I know there are some hidden folder, but missing 100GB in a 256GB HD it is a lot

  • by Pondini,

    Pondini Pondini Dec 19, 2012 4:59 PM in response to drzoom
    Level 8 (38,747 points)
    Dec 19, 2012 4:59 PM in response to drzoom

    drzoom wrote:

     

    @ Shootist007 My TM is ON, and I even tried to do a TM in another HD and I can see is backing up 233GB

    Doesn't matter.  Local snapshots are on your internal HD.  They don't take up new space, as backups to an external HD do; rather, when you delete something, it's moved to a hidden folder.  But as posted, that only happens if your HD is less than 80% full.

     

     

    @ Pondini I know there are some hidden folder, but missing 100GB in a 256GB HD it is a lot

    Not necessarily, especially if OSX lost track of your exteral HD and backed-up to a "false volume" instead.  Or, it could be one or more of the other things detailed in Where did my Disk Space go?  Work your way through the items there.

  • by XUTProf,

    XUTProf XUTProf Dec 31, 2012 1:42 AM in response to Pondini
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 31, 2012 1:42 AM in response to Pondini

    I also had similiar problem (missing 110GB on my 512GB SSD). But this is how I fixed mine: Go to System Preferences | Time Machine and turn off time machine.  After a minute or so (to let the system delete all the local snapshots and to sync), turn Time Machine back on.  Then, all my available capacity numbers are in sync again while I got my 110GB back!

  • by Pondini,

    Pondini Pondini Dec 31, 2012 8:11 AM in response to XUTProf
    Level 8 (38,747 points)
    Dec 31, 2012 8:11 AM in response to XUTProf

    The Local snapshots don't really hurt your available space, as they'll be deleted automatically if your disk gets to 80% full. 

     

    See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #30 for all the gory details.

  • by Hotrodguru,

    Hotrodguru Hotrodguru Mar 9, 2013 1:26 PM in response to Pondini
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2013 1:26 PM in response to Pondini

    Sure it hurts. I'm a photographer and when I get home to dump 32 or 64GB of RAW files and find that 180GB of free space is now gone and I can't clear it out easily, it puts me in a bad spot.

     

    Why can't Apple just have an option to check or uncheck an option to allow or disallow local backups. Another workflow option would be to delete the local files immediately after connecting your external and doing a manual backup.

     

    But no, have to manually turn-off time machine, wait for the deletes and then copy my stuff over. Not efficient...

  • by Pondini,

    Pondini Pondini Mar 9, 2013 1:43 PM in response to Hotrodguru
    Level 8 (38,747 points)
    Mar 9, 2013 1:43 PM in response to Hotrodguru

    Hotrodguru wrote:

     

    Sure it hurts. I'm a photographer and when I get home to dump 32 or 64GB of RAW files and find that 180GB of free space is now gone and I can't clear it out easily, it puts me in a bad spot.

    In most cases, if what you're copying isn't huge, the snapshots will be deleted as you copy if the disk gets over 80% full.

     

    But yes, in some cases, if your disk is, say, near 80% full, including snapshots, and you're copying a single file or folder that's in the area of 20% of the size of the disk, OSX may refuse to copy it. 

     

    Why can't Apple just have an option to check or uncheck an option to allow or disallow local backups.

    There is a Terminal command that will do just that.  See the blue box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #30. 

     

    That's not as convenient as an option on the TM Prefs panel, of course.  You can request that here:  http://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html

     

     

    Another workflow option would be to delete the local files immediately after connecting your external and doing a manual backup.

    That would help in some cases, but if you then go travelling again, they won't be available.

  • by cbitsas,

    cbitsas cbitsas Mar 14, 2013 9:19 AM in response to Pondini
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 14, 2013 9:19 AM in response to Pondini

    I work in digital video and move 20-30gb files in and out all the time. my 15" rMBP now only has 3gb available of 256gb and is showing 194gb in the yellow "Other" category. I disabled local backup using the sumo command. Still can't get TM to give up the storage. It is beyond 80% full, but a talley of the actual data in folders is less than 50gb. Killing me.

  • by Pondini,

    Pondini Pondini Mar 14, 2013 9:22 AM in response to cbitsas
    Level 8 (38,747 points)
    Mar 14, 2013 9:22 AM in response to cbitsas

    Then your problem clearly isn't Local Snapshots, but something else.

     

    See Where did my Disk Space go?

  • by drzoom,

    drzoom drzoom Mar 14, 2013 10:34 AM in response to Pondini
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 14, 2013 10:34 AM in response to Pondini

    I tried evcerything by myself to resolve my problem but I couldn't.

    I went to the Apple Store here in Santa Monica, and the best Genius guy there is in that store tried everything even him but without success... he worked even inside of the root of the computer but he couldn't resolve the problem.

     

    I left my computer for 1/2 day and they rinstalled the OS. With the Migration I reimported everything and now is working

  • by Pondini,

    Pondini Pondini Mar 14, 2013 10:39 AM in response to drzoom
    Level 8 (38,747 points)
    Mar 14, 2013 10:39 AM in response to drzoom

    drzoom wrote:

     

    I tried evcerything by myself to resolve my problem but I couldn't.x

    Did that include everything in Where did my Disk Space go?

     

    I went to the Apple Store here in Santa Monica, and the best Genius guy there is in that store tried everything even him but without success... he worked even inside of the root of the computer but he couldn't resolve the problem.

    He clearly missed something. 

     

    I left my computer for 1/2 day and they rinstalled the OS. With the Migration I reimported everything and now is working

    If it happens again, start with the link above. 

  • by rosch,

    rosch rosch Jun 26, 2013 5:17 AM in response to Pondini
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 26, 2013 5:17 AM in response to Pondini

    You can delete local backups using tmutil:

     

    1. list all local backups (this shows you the path of local backups):

    tmutil listbackups

     

    2. delete the backups you like:

    sudo tmutil delete snapshot_path

     

    e.g. to delete all local backups of "My MacBook":

    sudo tmutil delete /Volumes/Time Machine-Backups/Backups.backupdb/My MacBook/*

  • by Pondini,

    Pondini Pondini Jun 26, 2013 6:48 AM in response to rosch
    Level 8 (38,747 points)
    Jun 26, 2013 6:48 AM in response to rosch

    Probably not.  That's not a good idea, as TM isn't expecting it.

     

    And you may well get an error, often an I/O error, which could leave the snapshot partially deleted.

  • by rosch,

    rosch rosch Jun 26, 2013 9:22 AM in response to Pondini
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 26, 2013 9:22 AM in response to Pondini

    TM seems to be pausing during the deletion of the local backups (i.e. during the execution of tmutil), so it should not interfere. And if it would, that would be really bad design by Apple. At least I did not experience any problems doing it this way.

     

    One more thing - after the deletion of the local backups, turn off the creation of local backups using:

     

    sudo tmutil disablelocal

     

    For some reason, the deletion itself does not yet free the space. However after disabling local snapshots, the space will be availabe.

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