What are all these back up files on my machine? I am trying to clear up some space on my Macbook Air, and I have 40 GB of backups even though I have a time machine. This is taking up a third of my hard drive space and I don't even know what it entails or how I can get rid of the useless material. Assistance appreciated.
MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2014), OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)
About Time Machine local snapshots
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.
Since the backups will be deleted automatically should space be required, there is no mandatory need to turn off SnapShots.
They are local snapshots…
About Time Machine local snapshots - Apple Support
You can disable them via tmutil
sudo tmutil disablelocal
or to re-enable them
sudo tmutil enablelocal
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man8/tmutil.8.html
They seem to be purged after a short period, so check the disk size in a few hours or so.
What does "Backups" entail on my About this Mac?
