I recently had to create a new user for myself on my main HD, so now I want to delete all the backups of my old non-funtional user account. But Time Machine won't let me. When I click on the gear, I can select Delete All Backups of the user folder, but when I do, it doesn't ask for my admin password, and nothing is deleted. How can I accomplish this?
Thanks!
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
If you do not want anything from that drive saved, you may consider using the
disk utility in OS X to erase or reformat the drive; if you are to keep using it, a
matter of setting up the drive again as a Time Machine target is easy enough.
Probably not necessary to go that far, to erase them. See ideas among results:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=OS+X+erase+Time+Machine+backups&t=ffsb
If you chose to give away the storage to someone else, that had been used
as Time Machine backup, you may consider a 'secure erase' of that drive.
Good luck in this matter! 🙂
So is there no way to simply delete all backups of a user account from the time machine interface, without formatting the drive? I've used that method to delete all backups of a particular folder many times, but this time, it's not working. According to all instructions I've seen, it should work. I've seen no instruction that says you can't delete a whole user folder that way. I do want to keep the backups from my main HD, which runs Lion, and the user I just created.
Not certain if ideas such as proposed here will be helpful in the situation you cite:
• Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #12 - Should I delete old backups? If so How?
The above is from this site, which still has much helpful information:
• Apple OS X and Time Machine Tips:
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Usually Finder-based solutions in this matter are not recommended or just don't work.
So at least by attempting to go through Time Machine itself is a correct path to try.
Sorry I don't have enough experience to venture further in this matter. Perhaps another
person with experience deleting specific user account backups from Time Machine will
offer their methods or means toward resolving this issue.
And if you don't already, create duplicate backups, to not rely on Time Machine alone.
To different media and not the same storage drive; in case of failure and so on.
In the search results, I've found by looking, some direct to wordpress sites and those
are not necessarily worth the trip; some redirect to other places. I reported them to
the duckduckgo search people. And some of the older Apple Discussions results may
or may not be helpful. Here's one that covers user account backup in Time machine:
Remove specific files from Time Machine backups
Good luck in this matter! 🙂
Thanks for your reply. None of those links address my issue, but thanks for the effort. They simply show how to delete backups using the time machine method, which I already know how to do. I need to know why it isn't working this time.
Thanks anyway! Can anyone else help me?
There are those command-line method(s)...
some users even tried utilities such as SuperDuper clone utility.
Good luck in your quest. 😐
How do I delete an entire user's backups in Time Machine?
