Capsule full from previous Mac no room for new Mac?

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Capsule full from previous Mac no room for new Mac?

My previous MacBook Pro was being backup to my Time Machine, I've upgraded to a new machine and transferred all my data and Time Machine did a backup.

But now it says it can't backup because there's not enough space - Its not removing the older backups like it should do?

I could just clear the Time Machine and start again with the new laptop but I don't want too just incase there was something I needed of the old one!

When I go into the Time Machine window It only shows me the last 2 days - so I cant manually previous ones on the old machine to free up space (that machine has been reformatted for sale)

How do I remove some of the backups from the previous machine to free up space??!!!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), null

Posted on Feb 11, 2016 2:35 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 11, 2016 6:22 AM in response to MarkLUK

Even if you can find the backups of the older Mac.......since it will take many hours to try to manually delete older backups, and after a few more days of new backups, you still won't have the room that you need......you really have only 3 realistic options here, listed from most expensive on down:

Add another Time Capsule and start backups going there

Add a USB drive to the existing Time Capsule and start backups going there

Erase the existing Time Capsule drive and start backups going there

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Answer 2

MarkLUK Author

Level 1

1 points

Feb 11, 2016 6:53 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Thanks but none of those solve the problem, I want to keep the back ups from the last mac for a while at least, Time Machine is supposed to clear old backups as and when it needs space. I have that option ticked in the preferences.

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Answer 3

Feb 11, 2016 7:13 AM in response to MarkLUK

Time Machine normally does not have an issue deleting the oldest "incremental" backups to make room for new "incremental" backups. But incrementals are very small.

Time Machine falls down when you have a new backup that has more data on it than Time Machine can delete from older backups. That's just a fact that Apple does not tell you about. There is no "fix" for this.

I'm not recommending that you try to manually delete older backups, because this can create corruption issues with the entire backup set.

It's your call.

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Answer 4

MarkLUK Author

Level 1

1 points

Feb 11, 2016 7:14 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Looks like I'll have to add a new USB drive for 6 months or so and then wipe the old one and start that fresh again.

Pity, I didn't think this would be a problem, I just wrongly assumed the software would be clever enough to remove backups from the previous man ;-(

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Answer 5

Feb 11, 2016 7:32 AM in response to MarkLUK

There is one other option that you might consider.

Add a USB drive that is at least as large as the Time Capsule drive

Use the Archive function in AirPort Utility to make complete, exact copy of all of the data on the Time Capsule to the USB drive

Then, erase the Time Capsule drive and start new backups going there

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