Q: .MobileBackups.trash DELETION

I also found that the locked CrashPlan.app blocks Time Machine from pruning expired backups on external or network drives. I had to manually unlock the app folder in all snapshots for Time Machine 'post-backup thinning' to function as designed. Building on korsbakken's solution, here are all the steps that I have taken to resolve the issue with CrashPlan.

# Unlock all local expired backup copies of CrashPlan

sudo find /.MobileBackups.trash -flags +schg -exec chflags noschg {} \;

# Unlock all backup copies of CrashPlan

# Need to run from Time Machine machine directory (e.g. /Volumes/MyExternalHD/Backups.backupdb/MyMac/)

find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec sudo /System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/Helpers/bypass chflags noschg "{}"/Macintosh\ HD/Applications/CrashPlan.app \;

# Unlock CrashPlan application

sudo chflags noschg /Applications/CrashPlan.app

# Or exclude CrashPlan from backups

sudo tmutil addexclusion /Applications/CrashPlan.app

Code42 (the developers of CrashPlan) told me that "CrashPlan is required to be run from the Application folder, so we lock it to prevent it from being moved".

I've taken DMK73's script a little further.  You will need to edit at the top tmdir to be the directory to your Time Machine backup.  When run, this will make sure that directory exists first then will do the same modifications.  I've added the -v flag to the chflags command so it shows what files are being modified.  All output is written to a file in /tmp and then at the end it displays the output without any of the "no such file or directory" messages.

#!/bin/bash

# This script fixes an issue with the /.MobileBackups.trash folder that is created by CrashPlan

# Most of the script comes from this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5750388?start=15&tstart=0

tm_dir="/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/mikes-macbookpro"

tmpout="/tmp/fix_MobileBackupsTrash.tmp"

if [ ! -d "$tm_dir" ]

then

   echo "Time Machine directory is not found!  Fix the script"

   exit 1

fi

cd "$tm_dir"

echo > $tmpout 2>&1

echo "----------------------------------------" >> $tmpout 2>&1

echo "Starting on $(date)" >> $tmpout 2>&1

echo "----------------------------------------" >> $tmpout 2>&1

echo >> $tmpout 2>&1

# Unlock all local expired backup copies of CrashPlan

[ -f /.MobileBackups.trash ] && sudo find /.MobileBackups.trash -flags +schg -exec chflags -fv noschg {} \; >> $tmpout 2>&1

# Unlock all backup copies of CrashPlan

# Need to run from Time Machine machine directory (e.g. /Volumes/MyExternalHD/Backups.backupdb/MyMac/)

find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec sudo /System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/Helpers/bypass chflags -fv noschg "{}"/Macintosh\ HD/Applications/CrashPlan.app \; >> $tmpout 2>&1

# Unlock CrashPlan application

sudo chflags -fv noschg /Applications/CrashPlan.app >> $tmpout 2>&1

# Or exclude CrashPlan from backups

#sudo tmutil addexclusion /Applications/CrashPlan.app >> $tmpout 2>&1

echo >> $tmpout 2>&1

echo "-----------------------------------------" >> $tmpout 2>&1

echo "Completed on $(date)" >> $tmpout 2>&1

echo "-----------------------------------------" >> $tmpout 2>&1

echo >> $tmpout 2>&1

grep -v "CrashPlan.app: No such file or directory" $tmpout

Thanks for the info.

I needed to run this for a somewhat related problem--running a Time Machine backup that then would be used to restore to a new SSD with 1/2 the capacity of the original. When running the command though, I was hit with similar errors, due to permissions issues (I assume the system still had locked some of the files). So, I stopped the process, and went through a few restarts.

After this, checking both in Finder and Disk Utility indicated that the trashed Mobile Backups had indeed been deleted.

Not sure on this (maybe someone can enlighten), but I have a feeling, the trashed Mobile Backups are locked this way as a protective measure, in anticipation of drastic user errors, to give a last-ditch option of recovery.

I know it can be frustrating (I had to do quite a bit of searching to find this info), but often it looks like multiple restarts are the most trouble-free way to deal with this.

For CrashPlan For Home Version 4.7 -

OS X devices now prevent Time Machine from backing up the CrashPlan app bundle, which was causing high CPU usage for some users (source).

This can be verified by typing the following command in Terminal -

     mdls /Applications/CrashPlan.app | grep backupd