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how to delete time machine backups from trash bin

Hello,

I've got a little issue with time machine and doing something stupid on my part. I have seen different posts on this question, but it appears that most people haven't found a working solution, so I want to see if anybody has more insight.

A few weeks back I found that there were some files and folders that were getting backed up to time machine that I didn't want getting backed up for various reasons. Rather than wisely removing the individual folder and files like I've since learned, I removed the whole backup for that date to the trash bin. I know, bad choice.

I've tried to empty trash bin and delete the backups altogether, but error codes and permissions keep me from doing that. Space isn't an issue on the external drive I use for Time Machine, so I'd be fine with just getting the files OUT of trash and back into the folder with other backup dates-now that I know how to delete individual files. When I try and drag them back to TM folder from trash, get another error message saying something along the lines of the "drive not being able to be modified".

I've heard of some people using Terminal to remove files, while other folks say that that's dangerous and asking for bigger problems in the OS. So, what are my BEST options? Just want to get locked files out of the trash bin, don't care where they go at this point. I've tried the secure trash delete option and some other simple suggestions with no luck. Backups still sitting in trash.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on May 7, 2014 5:56 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jan 22, 2017 9:03 AM

Please note, I am running "EL CAPITAN" and it is January 2017. I saw a lot of information on "how to's" from 2009, 2011, etc., but to be clear, this is the solution I found for this point in time.


Here's what happened to me. Time M was doing a backup and we had a power outage. Caused an issue with "didn't disconnect external properly." Also, got the message "there was no room on the External (1TB and need 540gb). I dragged THREE folders from the T.M. (not knowing any better) to empty trash. Sent a note to Western Digital. Rep said I needed a new External. Two hours later, it "fixed" itself. But now I had three folders and an in.progress stuck in the Trash. When I attempted to empty trash it would count up to 50,000, 100,000 it got up to 240,000 and crashed.


Everything I read online on Apple, other support sites mentioned Terminal, Option Keys, Alt-Keys, reformatting the disk, I called Apple Support and was told I would probably have to totally reformat my computer using one of my backups, but that was tricky because the reformat using a backup would probably put the trash back on.


So, taking all the information into account, and checking what a lot of people were saying...


I learned a couple things to help: Each time you click on Empty trash and things don't seem to be going right, hold down command>option>control>escape and it will refresh and you can start over. That's the first thing I had to find because this was all trial and error.


First things first:

After speaking with the Apple Rep, the first thing I did was launch in SAFE MODE. Reboot with SHIFT held down until you see the Apple. According to him, this frees up Ram which you will need to get some space for the erasing procedure. I didn't like the rest of the answer re: formatting, reinstalling from the backup, etc. so I thanked him and went back to my notes. Next, make sure TIME MACHINE is off. Don't want it attempting to backup during this procedure. And third, set your Energy Savings Mode to "NEVER" so the computer doesn't go to sleep. Continuing:


1) In El Capitan, when you double click on your Trash bin, and it opens, if you place your cursor over an item and right click you will "Empty Trash" or "Delete Immediately." Ah.... maybe I can individually remove some of these thousands of files. So, first I got rid of anything that had NOTHING to do with these backup folders.


2) Then I opened Terminal. (Utilities>Terminal). I read where one person's answer was if you were using El Capitan to open terminal, Hightlight everything, drag to trash and empty. But that didn't work. It started counting all the files. command>option>control>escape


3) So, opened Terminal again, did the Command-A, then double clicked on the Trash bin and dragged the folders to the Terminal. Now, all the folders are sitting in the Terminal, but you also see them still sitting in the Trash bin ... Only this time:


3) What if I opened the folder of one of the backups (remember the Trash bin is still open) and started deleting individual files? You can do this in El Capitan, remember? So, I started with things I knew were not huge and manageable, a little at a time. Occasionally I'd choose something that was big (not being able to see size, but as soon as the count would start, I'd get out - remember how? (see above). Now, this was a little annoying because of the popup admin, each time I wanted to delete something ... but it was fairly quick. Remember, I have backups for 540gb ...but, I was able to choose them and delete...


4) After awhile, (takes awhile because of the admin popup but don't bother to try and change that, or keep it from popping up because that will take you down another time rabbit hole ... the learning curve is too great. Just hunker down and go for it.) I had removed from all three folders, all the smaller folders leaving System, Users, applications, for example.


5) Now, I went for it. I'd gotten rid of about everything I could think of that wasn't going to start the big countdown ... So, clicked "Empty Trash." After about 90 minutes there were now 741,482 items to be trashed. Only this time I didn't get the error message, or a crash, or a hang... I got the "are you sure?" Sure thing.


6) And ever so slowly the number was going down this time .... and they vanished. Then, I tackled the in.progress and because everything else was now gone, I simply chose the OPTION EMPTY TRASH and it was gone.


Rebooted a couple times, turned Time Machine back on and waited. It took quite a while to get down with "preparing backup" (as it had to redo the progress and such), but about an hour or so later, the backup was complete. This was 9pm last night and the trash is empty and the backups are backing up. No reformatting... or reinstalling OS... but it took putting together a bunch of information from a lot of sites.


SO REMEMBER.... What didn't you know to ask? Don't ever delete time machine folders by dragging them to your trash bin.


Hope this helps someone.

30 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jan 22, 2017 9:03 AM in response to jaywalkin

Please note, I am running "EL CAPITAN" and it is January 2017. I saw a lot of information on "how to's" from 2009, 2011, etc., but to be clear, this is the solution I found for this point in time.


Here's what happened to me. Time M was doing a backup and we had a power outage. Caused an issue with "didn't disconnect external properly." Also, got the message "there was no room on the External (1TB and need 540gb). I dragged THREE folders from the T.M. (not knowing any better) to empty trash. Sent a note to Western Digital. Rep said I needed a new External. Two hours later, it "fixed" itself. But now I had three folders and an in.progress stuck in the Trash. When I attempted to empty trash it would count up to 50,000, 100,000 it got up to 240,000 and crashed.


Everything I read online on Apple, other support sites mentioned Terminal, Option Keys, Alt-Keys, reformatting the disk, I called Apple Support and was told I would probably have to totally reformat my computer using one of my backups, but that was tricky because the reformat using a backup would probably put the trash back on.


So, taking all the information into account, and checking what a lot of people were saying...


I learned a couple things to help: Each time you click on Empty trash and things don't seem to be going right, hold down command>option>control>escape and it will refresh and you can start over. That's the first thing I had to find because this was all trial and error.


First things first:

After speaking with the Apple Rep, the first thing I did was launch in SAFE MODE. Reboot with SHIFT held down until you see the Apple. According to him, this frees up Ram which you will need to get some space for the erasing procedure. I didn't like the rest of the answer re: formatting, reinstalling from the backup, etc. so I thanked him and went back to my notes. Next, make sure TIME MACHINE is off. Don't want it attempting to backup during this procedure. And third, set your Energy Savings Mode to "NEVER" so the computer doesn't go to sleep. Continuing:


1) In El Capitan, when you double click on your Trash bin, and it opens, if you place your cursor over an item and right click you will "Empty Trash" or "Delete Immediately." Ah.... maybe I can individually remove some of these thousands of files. So, first I got rid of anything that had NOTHING to do with these backup folders.


2) Then I opened Terminal. (Utilities>Terminal). I read where one person's answer was if you were using El Capitan to open terminal, Hightlight everything, drag to trash and empty. But that didn't work. It started counting all the files. command>option>control>escape


3) So, opened Terminal again, did the Command-A, then double clicked on the Trash bin and dragged the folders to the Terminal. Now, all the folders are sitting in the Terminal, but you also see them still sitting in the Trash bin ... Only this time:


3) What if I opened the folder of one of the backups (remember the Trash bin is still open) and started deleting individual files? You can do this in El Capitan, remember? So, I started with things I knew were not huge and manageable, a little at a time. Occasionally I'd choose something that was big (not being able to see size, but as soon as the count would start, I'd get out - remember how? (see above). Now, this was a little annoying because of the popup admin, each time I wanted to delete something ... but it was fairly quick. Remember, I have backups for 540gb ...but, I was able to choose them and delete...


4) After awhile, (takes awhile because of the admin popup but don't bother to try and change that, or keep it from popping up because that will take you down another time rabbit hole ... the learning curve is too great. Just hunker down and go for it.) I had removed from all three folders, all the smaller folders leaving System, Users, applications, for example.


5) Now, I went for it. I'd gotten rid of about everything I could think of that wasn't going to start the big countdown ... So, clicked "Empty Trash." After about 90 minutes there were now 741,482 items to be trashed. Only this time I didn't get the error message, or a crash, or a hang... I got the "are you sure?" Sure thing.


6) And ever so slowly the number was going down this time .... and they vanished. Then, I tackled the in.progress and because everything else was now gone, I simply chose the OPTION EMPTY TRASH and it was gone.


Rebooted a couple times, turned Time Machine back on and waited. It took quite a while to get down with "preparing backup" (as it had to redo the progress and such), but about an hour or so later, the backup was complete. This was 9pm last night and the trash is empty and the backups are backing up. No reformatting... or reinstalling OS... but it took putting together a bunch of information from a lot of sites.


SO REMEMBER.... What didn't you know to ask? Don't ever delete time machine folders by dragging them to your trash bin.


Hope this helps someone.

Feb 21, 2017 3:44 PM in response to TuckerdogAVL

I'm also running Sierra 10.12.3 and have done the same stupid thing trying to free up space on my Time Machine disk. I've tried your technique and it worked until actually started deleting and then got "The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)." I haven't been able to get around this error code. anyone have any suggestions?

Feb 22, 2017 7:41 AM in response to trnels

Hi. Tried numerous times to reply and by clicking on your trnels, I'm able to finally. 1st, I'm no technician so I don't know how helpful I'll be, but I have encountered that as well in the past. I think you can get rid of it with the Option key and the trash. If you've been able to delete some but some folders or files are giving you this message, do the refresh and skip it until you've gotten rid of the files you can trash. The trick is to get the entire folder small enough to where the EMPTY trash will finally run on it's own. And, also, I'm not running Sierra. (I'm afraid to load it yet because I don't know what they've done to iMovie and whether some of my older hardware and firewire won't work anymore). So, I'm still on El Capitan.


Let me know how it goes.

Feb 22, 2017 9:01 AM in response to TuckerdogAVL

I went through your steps but I was unable to delete anything manually. I would try to delete immediately on a single file and it would disappear but then pop right back up again. I also tried an empty trash while in safe mode but once it all compiled (over 350,000 files) and it actually stated emptying I started getting errors because of the way time machine does its backups.


I was finally able to delete everything through with a suggestion from my Mac guru friend. Since my drive was strictly a backup only drive and I didn't care about losing all my past backups I wiped it completely clean and when I did it also removed everything from my trash as well. I turned my time machine back on and did a fresh backup and all is back to normal again.


Hopefully this will also help someone in the future.

Feb 23, 2017 10:21 AM in response to TuckerdogAVL

Finally got the time to try this. Using the option key and the trash, I still get the error code -50 message and the file will not delete. I'm thinking that I will have to erase the external hard drive. I have a 1Tb LaCie external drive with 3 partitions. One partition is for Time Machine (350 Gb). It was full and hence my attempt to dump some of the back ups to the trash to free up space. The Time Machine backups go all the way to January 2012 and I didn't nee them. Debating if I can erase that partition and it will alleviate the problem as happened with BlondShort. Not sure if I can just erase that partition or I have to wipe the whole disk. Really don't like the idea of fooling around with a large disk without fully knowing all the potential problems. That's how I got into this mess to start out. More research to be done befor proceeding.

Feb 26, 2017 11:21 AM in response to Eric Root

Simply answer, not so simple to put everything back. Also, as the Apple Rep told me, it is also tricky to reinstall from the Time Machine after doing this because the T.M. most likely has backed up the trash which is what you are trying to get rid of in the first place. If you reformat, you also have to have all your apps, photos, docs, etc etc etc so simply to put back on. "Just" and "Simply" are two of my favorite words when it comes to tech. I'll add "normally" to that short list :-)

Feb 26, 2017 11:24 AM in response to trnels

Good luck. Yes, it's always simple until it isn't, right? All I can tell you is that by having everything in the terminal trash and also seeing the "trash" bin, I was able to drag, drop and delete until it got to a place where I only got errors. Then I attempted the "Empty Trash" and waiting. The little line started marching across the window ever so slowly so I let it go and ignored everything. When I came back, all was gone.

Feb 26, 2017 11:30 AM in response to BlondeShort

Definitely the way to do it if you don't want to save any backups. All I can tell you is that not being a tech person, I may have screwed up a step or missed something in attempting to share the info. The key was the small incremental deletes I think. Sorry I wasn't able to help. Maybe someone will let us know if my system worked if they get into the problem. Everything's all fun and games, until someone gets hurt, right? Have a good one. G

May 22, 2017 4:30 AM in response to jaywalkin

Hi, I am a relative Mac OS X notice and had the same issue as you with Sierra. I followed the advice from DonnaR using http://pondini.org/TM/E6.html. I was nervous about using terminal but followed the steps in the instruction very carefully and double checked each step before moving to the next one and it worked a treat. The only thing I would say is that after going through the process there appeared to still be backups in the trash but a restart cleared them without any further action. Cheers!

May 7, 2014 7:38 PM in response to jaywalkin

You should make sure your backups are OK after deleting them via the Finder, because that's not supported on Snow Leopard. To make sure your backups aren't corrupted, see: http://pondini.org/TM/E6.html ("Can't empty the trash after deleting backups via the Finder").


I agree about staying away from Terminal unless you really need to use it. To force the trash to empty, I assume you've tried holding down the option key while emptying the trash. If it still won't empty, I'd recommend using OnyX. It's free and well known, and it should work to empty the trash when other methods won't.


OnyX is available at: http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadonyx.php

May 8, 2014 1:57 AM in response to jaywalkin

First. Use ordinary remove trash ... not secure remove trash. The latter takes seven times longer and can stick during the process.


Second. Keep clear of Terminal unless you have an in depth knowledge of Macs. It is all too easy to do serious damage to the system.


Third. Here are some documents dealing with the Time Machine problem.


From the X LAB. Solving Trash Problems


You can't empty the Trash or move a file to the Trash


Then, for clearing stubborn trash. Download Trash It! for Mac


In particular related to Time Machine. Time Machine - Troubleshooting E6. Pondini was the Guru for Time Machine problems. http://pondini.org/TM/E6.html


Can't empty the trash after deleting backups via the Finder


May 8, 2014 5:47 AM in response to jaywalkin

Also, I don't think removing the whole backup for one date is any worse than removing an individual file or folder from a Time Machine backup. What's not good is to remove them via the Finder or any way other than within Time Machine (especially pre-Lion).


Pondini says that "you can only delete entire backups via the Finder" (in Lion or later), but advises that deleting via the Finder "often has problems of its own."


See Pondini's explanation: http://pondini.org/TM/12.html ("Should I delete old backups? If so, How?")

how to delete time machine backups from trash bin

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