What are the "backups" that are being stored on my hard drive?

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What are the "backups" that are being stored on my hard drive?

I have an external hard drive that I use to backup my MacBook Air using Time Machine. However when I go into System Information "About my Mac" it says that I have 15gb of "Backups" on my Flash Storage. As that I have only 64gb of Flash Storage, space is very valuable, and I am curious what these backups are when I am backing up on an external already. Is there a way to free up that space on my computer. I seen references to this calling it "local snapshots?" I am hopign someone could help me understand this. Thanks

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)

Posted on Aug 29, 2013 1:55 PM

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Answer 1

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Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Aug 29, 2013 2:00 PM in response to kkamp

First, be sure it's Backups and not Movies.

If there are backups then these are Time Machine snapshots made when your computer was not connected to your backup drive. The space they occupy will be ceded to other needs should it be required. Your snapshots should be copied to the backup drive when it's connected.

OS X Mountain Lion- About local snapshots

You can stop snapshots by turning off Time Machine when the backup drive is disconnected. You can also terminate snapshots permanently:

Time Machine Snapshots

Open the Terminal in the Utilities folder and enter or paste the appropriate command line. Press RETURN and enter your admin password when prompted. It will not be echoed. Press RETURN again.

To turn them ON: sudo tmutil enablelocal

To turn them OFF: sudo tmutil disablelocal

Note that turning them OFF will also delete all existing snapshots.

For more about snapshots see: OS X Mountain Lion- About local snapshots.

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Answer 2

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Aug 29, 2013 3:42 PM in response to Kappy

Kappy wrote:

. . .

Your snapshots should be copied to the backup drive when it's connected.

No, they aren't.

Local snapshots are made at all times, whether or not the external drive is connected, but are not copied to it when it becomes available. (That was done in the first beta versions of Lion, but was quickly dropped.)

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Answer 3

kkamp Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 3, 2013 12:34 PM in response to Kappy

I did that and it did remove the backups on my Flash memory, however now there are 15 extra gb of "other" on my flash that was not there before. I have tried restarting my computer and that has not done anything.

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Answer 4

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Sep 3, 2013 12:37 PM in response to kkamp

What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It?- Apple Support Communities

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Answer 5

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Sep 3, 2013 1:12 PM in response to kkamp

kkamp wrote:

I did that and it did remove the backups on my Flash memory, however now there are 15 extra gb of "other" on my flash that was not there before. I have tried restarting my computer and that has not done anything.

It did remove the backups, but there are many other things treated as "other".

See http://http://pondini.org/OSX/LionStorage.html and http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html

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