Rapidly decreasing space left on hard drive during Time Machine back up! Help!

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Level 1

5 points

Rapidly decreasing space left on hard drive during Time Machine back up! Help!

I have progressively been freeing up space on my Macbook Pro 15" 2.53 GHz (2010 model) and been succeeding. I removed iLife yesterday as I NEVER use it. This morning, I proceeded to do a back of my hard drive with using Time Machine on an USB drive and the hard drive free space went from 137GB to 87GB before my eyes when it was only backing up 512mb worth of different data!

Has anyone had this happen before, any information would be greatly appreciated!🙂

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 10, 2013 4:50 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

ds store

Level 7

30,705 points

Jul 10, 2013 4:57 PM in response to stephmcg

Open Terminal in a Admin account:

Turn TM local backups off: sudo tmutil disablelocal

Turn local backups back on: sudo tmutil enablelocal

Turn TimeMachine off then on again, reboot if needed.

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Answer 2

stephmcg Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 10, 2013 5:14 PM in response to ds store

hi ds store,

i typed in the first half and it then asked me to type a password, but it i can't type anything in there.

is this normal?

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Answer 3

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Jul 10, 2013 5:18 PM in response to stephmcg

Yes type in your Admin password. It will not show on the screen as you type it.

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Answer 4

Jul 10, 2013 5:19 PM in response to stephmcg

You type your login password, for the account under which you are logged in. It will not be echoed.

It will then give you a random warning that you should be careful when using sudo, it is a sharp tool that can cut you.

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Answer 5

stephmcg Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 10, 2013 5:42 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks one and all, the problem is fixed!

I really appreciate all the advice and help

Cheers

Steph

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Answer 6

LowLuster

Level 6

12,105 points

Jul 10, 2013 5:59 PM in response to stephmcg

You may be advised by other members to turn that back on. I personally find it a totally useless feature that only cause space problems. Supposedly the local snapshots are deleted automatically if the drive become to full or when you do a real time machine backup. That has not been my experience so I also have it turn off and it will stay that way on my mac notebook.

Best to you and you're welcome.

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