How to delete Time Machine Backups from Trash?

JRMac78 wrote:

I tried deleting my old backups from Time Machine by dragging them to the trash. However now I cannot delete them or empty the trash because i now get a multitude of errors. I cannot return them to the Backups folder nor move them to the desktop.

Im at the point of just restoring my machine by reinstalling Sierra. Before I do that I would just like to get rid of the old backups.

How can I fix this?

This is a archived reference, no longer being updated, however you may find it useful.

http://pondini.org/TM/E6.html

Time Machine is self pruning and there should be no reason for you to manually manipulate the backup files.

I did. But I responded on a different thread and have no idea had to share that answer from that thread in all the places that this question was asked. If you search my name and activity you'll see it.

This will probably be deleted since it's a duplicate. But here goes:

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.

Yes, but if you have an issue with your external drive, and you are trying to fix an issue in one way and you think maybe dragging folders over will help and you don't know that you aren't supposed to do this and you do it, then you need to be able to fix it. Some of us don't know everything intuitively. Never deleting Time Machine backups by dragging the folders to trash is something I learned only AFTER I did it and it became a problem. It's in the "What didn't I know that I didn't ask" department.

TuckerdogAVL wrote:

I did. But I responded on a different thread and have no idea had to share that answer from that thread in all the places that this question was asked. If you search my name and activity you'll see it.

FWIW, seeing you already posted the solution you can just post the link to it rather than having to copy and paste or retype it etc. 😎

Did you figure this out? I did last night.

FWIW, it is common courtesy to post a solution to a question so others can benefit rather than just announcing you found a solution.