Tried to make more space on external backup drive by dragging 5 time machine backups into my trash but now trash can't seem to empty them and I can't drag them out either. When I unplug drive it goes away but as soon as I plug backup drive in again they are sitting in trash waiting to be emptied. Can anyone help me empty my trash??
Cant empty trash full of time machine backups
- Thread starter Billyboy
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Make sure you exit Time Machine first before attempting to empty the Trash. Also, the Time Machine external drive must be attached.
vansmith
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You shouldn't have to manually remove TM backups - TM will clean out old ones when it needs room. Is there any particular reason that you're deleting them manually?
Same Problem
I have the same problem. Obviously, it was a mistake to manually delete TM backups, but there is good reason: TM automatically deletes the oldest backups, and backs up every hour, so if TM drive is left plugged in for a few hours, you end up with lots of backups from today, maybe yesterday, but nothing historic...
I want a backup from 6 months ago, one from 3 months, one from last month and one from last week, as well as yesterday and this morning. Is that unreasonable? TM could do with some options!
Anyway... how can I empty the trash on my TM drive. (have tried sudo rm -rf trashes from the TM directory, but nothing happened.)
I have the same problem. Obviously, it was a mistake to manually delete TM backups, but there is good reason: TM automatically deletes the oldest backups, and backs up every hour, so if TM drive is left plugged in for a few hours, you end up with lots of backups from today, maybe yesterday, but nothing historic...
I want a backup from 6 months ago, one from 3 months, one from last month and one from last week, as well as yesterday and this morning. Is that unreasonable? TM could do with some options!
Anyway... how can I empty the trash on my TM drive. (have tried sudo rm -rf trashes from the TM directory, but nothing happened.)
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chas_m
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Wrong answer.
The "solution" to having backups go back quite a ways is much simpler, and doesn't involve monkeying around with manual deletions or hacks.
Simply buy an external drive that is SIGNIFICANTLY LARGER than the one you're backing up.
That's it! Time Machine only makes ONE master backup and then just "adds what's changed" in supplement. If you have, for example, a 500GB boot drive, a 1TB external should easily be able to go back six months or quite a bit longer -- maybe years, depending on how much material you change each day (hint: most people -- nothing much).
The "solution" to having backups go back quite a ways is much simpler, and doesn't involve monkeying around with manual deletions or hacks.
Simply buy an external drive that is SIGNIFICANTLY LARGER than the one you're backing up.
That's it! Time Machine only makes ONE master backup and then just "adds what's changed" in supplement. If you have, for example, a 500GB boot drive, a 1TB external should easily be able to go back six months or quite a bit longer -- maybe years, depending on how much material you change each day (hint: most people -- nothing much).
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