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Deleting backups off my external hard drive...

I have a terabyte external hard drive that I have set up to do Time Machine backups every time I plug it in, but I like to delete older backups I don't need as time goes on. I have had difficulty every time I try to empty them from my Macbook Pro's trash. I've been able to force empty my trash by pressing alt when I empty it, but that doesn't always seem to work the first time? I'm wondering if there's something else I should be doing? Is there an easier way to delete the old backups from my external hard drive? Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Jul 29, 2015 9:01 PM

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12 replies

Aug 11, 2015 8:15 AM in response to Moonfoot

No one seems to have mentioned that Time Machine manages data with a strict set of permissions & access controls, deleting backups in Finder is a sure way to eventually corrupt the backup & cause future backups or restores to fail.


If you need to delete backup either use the 'Start field UI' to delete items – Enter Time Machine via the menu, select the items, choose to delete the items via the gear button.

You can also use 'tmutil' in Terminal, if you are competent with the command line tools.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man8/tmutil.8.html


As already stated there really is no reason to delete any backups by hand, once the next backup is larger than the free space on the disk TM will purge the oldest files.

Aug 21, 2015 12:50 PM in response to Drew Reece

Okay, so I added a Mac partition to my external hard drive specifically for my backups and it's about twice the size of what I need backed up (350 GB), my other Mac partition is 450 GB, and my Windows partition is 200. I tried doing a backup (it's all set to still backup to that specific partition), but it told me, "The backup disk needs 177.73 GB for the backup but only 159.49 GB are available. Select a larger backup disk or make a backup smaller by excluding files." I thought it'd delete the oldest backup automatically? Or is that only when the entire TB of the hard drive is filled up? Am I just going to have to deal with the fact that my backups are going to fill up my whole hard drive? Should I have a hard drive specifically for backups and another one specifically for anything else I want that won't fit on the ridiculously small amount of hard drive space that Mac Pros have?


ETA: Woops, don't know why this posted twice, my bad.

Aug 21, 2015 12:56 PM in response to Eric Root

Okay, so I added a Mac partition to my external hard drive specifically for my backups and it's about twice the size of what I need backed up (350 GB), my other Mac partition is 450 GB, and my Windows partition is 200. I tried doing a backup (it's all set to still backup to that specific partition), but it told me, "The backup disk needs 177.73 GB for the backup but only 159.49 GB are available. Select a larger backup disk or make a backup smaller by excluding files." I thought it'd delete the oldest backup automatically? Or is that only when the entire TB of the hard drive is filled up? Am I just going to have to deal with the fact that my backups are going to fill up my whole hard drive? Should I have a hard drive specifically for backups and another one specifically for anything else I want that won't fit on the ridiculously small amount of hard drive space that Mac Pros have?


ETA: I just realized that 350 is not twice the size of 177.73, lol. Maybe that's my problem. *sigh*

Aug 21, 2015 2:04 PM in response to Moonfoot

It's not entirely clear what disks & partition sizes you are backing up in TM.


Double check that you have your external disks & other partitions excluded, otherwise Time Machine will back them up. It may be trying to backup the Windows partition if you mount that in OS X. By default external disks should not be backed up.

The Time Machine Preferences > Options button will show the exclusions.


It looks like your backup is too small, but I can't figure out what sizes relate to what disks & which partitions are internal vs external.


The amount of history Time Machine can hold depends on several factors…

The amount of data you change.

The size of the TM backup disk.


Personally I think 2-3 times is a minimum but more helps if you edit or create large files or add & remove lots of data. I also think that Time Machine needs a dedicated disk, otherwise you get tempted into adding other files to the disk & that reduces the history TM stores.

Time Machine disks can also become corrupted too, so it makes the erase process simpler if the disk only has TM backups. I also think you need to use other disks & other apps to backup to avoid any potential errors in one backup system.

Deleting backups off my external hard drive...

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