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09-25-2012, 06:03 AM #1
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- Sep 19, 2011
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- iMac 2.4ghz i5, iPad 2 32gb
MacBook Hard drive filled with Backups??I back up my macbook to an external wireless hard drive through time machine. However when looking at my hard drive today on the Macbook it is virtually full. The reason for this is 350gb of 'backups'.
What are these, where did they come from and how do I get rid of them? I thought I was backing up to my external hard drive? (i checked my time machine, its definitely going to the external drive).
Can anyone help with this as my hard drive is virtually full because of this.
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09-25-2012, 06:21 AM #2
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- Oct 22, 2007
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- London
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- Mac Mini Core i7 2012 | White 2009 MacBook 2 Ghz | 733 Mhz G4 Quicksilver
What version of OSX are you running
And in what folder (path) are these backups stored?Member of the Month September 2008 & August 2012| Found advice useful? – use the rep system
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09-25-2012, 06:29 AM #3
- Member Since
- Sep 19, 2011
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- 93
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- iMac 2.4ghz i5, iPad 2 32gb
Hi mate I am running Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and to be honest I dont know where the folder paths are. I just know that when i go into 'about this mac' then into storage, it gives me my full hard drive status in a coloured bar, and this is almost full now because of these 'backups' (and thats all i can tell you about it really i am afraid)
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09-25-2012, 07:03 AM #4
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- Dec 09, 2009
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- Spain
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- 59
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- MacBook Pro 17'' late 2010, core i7 2.66, 4 Gb ram
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.
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.
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09-25-2012, 08:59 AM #5
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- Sep 19, 2011
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- 93
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- iMac 2.4ghz i5, iPad 2 32gb
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09-25-2012, 09:07 AM #6
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- Dec 09, 2009
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- Spain
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- MacBook Pro 17'' late 2010, core i7 2.66, 4 Gb ram
Type in terminal:
sudo tmutil disablelocal
and hit enter. Type in your admin password when prompted and you should be ok.
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09-26-2012, 04:36 AM #7
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- Sep 19, 2011
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- 93
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- iMac 2.4ghz i5, iPad 2 32gb
that did the trick, you guys are geniuses!
So does this mean this wont happen again? What exactly was this process? Was it acting alongside time machine or something?
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09-26-2012, 06:56 AM #8
- Member Since
- Dec 09, 2009
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- Spain
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- 59
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- MacBook Pro 17'' late 2010, core i7 2.66, 4 Gb ram
Maybe would be a good idea to check the setting after an update to the system because by default it's on. Y can verify by looking at time machine settings :
If this setting is on you will see the text in red, if it's off (doesn't keep local backups) you won't.
Take a look at this for a little bit more info my friend: OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs
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08-10-2013, 03:17 PM #9
- Member Since
- Aug 10, 2013
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- 1
I followed these instructions and it also worked perfect, except now instead of it showing backups. I have over 400GB of Other.
Any ideas how to clean this up?
Screen Shot 2013-08-10 at 12.14.53 PM.png
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12-01-2013, 11:26 AM #10
- Member Since
- Sep 19, 2011
- Posts
- 93
- Specs:
- iMac 2.4ghz i5, iPad 2 32gb
this exact same thing has happened to me now, all the backups have been deleted, and now I just have a big yellow 'other' section. I have no idea how to remove this? I need to as I am swapping out hard drives and I need to make the space
Currently listed in my hard drive I have 3/4 of it full of 'other'...what is this and how can I remove it? Basically I turned off keeping a local snapshot of TM backups and this basically then transferred to this. I need this space back really as I have my entire hard drive filled with it. (i see this when i go into 'about this mac' then 'storage')
What is 'other' and how can I remove it?
thanks!!!!
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12-01-2013, 12:20 PM #11
- Member Since
- Dec 22, 2006
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- Texas, where else?
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- 26,572
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- 15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
To find out what is taking up space (and where) on your drive, grab one of the following:
Disk Inventory X - free
Daisy Disk - $10
WhatSize - $13 - still my favorite
Also, a single post is adequate - merged duplicate threads/posts
See the sticky about 'Other' here.I cannot be held responsible for the things that come out of my mouth.
In the Windows world, most everything folks don't understand is called a virus.
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12-27-2013, 04:32 PM #12
- Member Since
- Dec 27, 2013
- Posts
- 1
Reboot computer and yellow "other" should be gone. Worked for me!
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05-02-2014, 11:49 AM #13
- Member Since
- May 02, 2014
- Posts
- 1
Fix!
If you will turn your time machine off the back up storage will go away. Turn your time machine back on and you will see storage come back but it will only be a few KB, it will build up over time. The command line you entered was not necessary. The storage will slowly decrease as you fill your hard drive with other data. You can try to do the terminal command line "on" action that may fix the yellow bar but I would recommend turning off Time machine backup to remove the storage and then just turn it back on. Simple fix for a simple issue
Last edited by Rickthebrick; 05-02-2014 at 11:55 AM. Reason: added more info
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05-04-2014, 05:21 AM #14chas_mGuest
Just for the record: "other" refers to ANY file -- important or not important -- that is not a standard audio file, standard video file, app, local backup or image. On ANYONE's computer system, there are literally thousands of files that don't fall into that category, including (just as an example) the system itself. So when you see "other," that doesn't mean it's time to press the panic button or do a cleanup necessarily.
I have about 145GB of "other" on my machine, and I've used Disk Inventory to look over how my space was being used. Nothing is on my drive that I don't know what it is and want it (or need it) to be there.
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05-04-2014, 12:13 PM #15
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- Nov 15, 2009
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- North Louisiana, USA
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- 2.8 GHz 2008 MacBook Pro 10.11, 8 GB mem, iPhone 8+, 2015 iMac 16 GB 10.13 beta
Ditto. Member chas_m beat me to the punch. I just checked my drives out of curiosity and because I had not checked in a whole. My SSD has almost 150 GB of "Other" files and the other drives are between 25 and 75 GB.
My general rule for dealing with "Other" files is to find out what they are first. See post 11 above. Then apply the following rule to any file you are going to delete/move. Did I create this file? If not it stays till I know what it is/does.
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