Removing Unwanted Time Machine Backups

OK, I feel like a total idiot. I have been using Macs for about 6 years now but have only recently realised that the reason my MacBook Pro has no disk space left is that it is almost full of TM backups! I have an external HD to which Macbook is supposed to backup but somewhere along the line it has decided not to go with this and has been doing the backups to my HD. How on earth can I access them to remove them, please? I am quite happy not to have backups unless I choose to make them, esp now that I've moved all my photos to a solid state external hard drive to keep them safe, as well as having them backed up to another external HD. I just want my disk storage space back ....

Try turning off Time Machine. That should remove the backups on your disk. If your external hard disk is not connected full time Time Machine will create "mobile" backups on the system drive. If the external hard drive is connected full time it should not be doing that if the disk is selected as the backup drive.

One other idea you can try is to download and run Onyx. Run the Automation tab and this will clean out all your caches - which can take up a lot of space too.

Lisa

Oh so simple!!! Who knew ... well, obviously you did, Lisa. Thank you so much. The disk TM was supposed to be backing up to is a WD wireless HD attached to the router. It seems to have huge problems doing this unless I select the disk and then half the time falls over part way through the backup. I've decided to forget that drive unless I can find some way to connect it directly to the Macbook but that's USB to USB isn't it as there's no Thunderbolt connection on the WD drive .... any suggestions please? They would be greatly appreciated.

I understand your issue. I have a WD MyCloud 4TB drive attached to my network. It works okay with Windows computers but I never did get it to work with Time Machine. I finally bought a Time Capsule, attached it to my network and set up three different Macs to wirelessly backup to it. It has been working flawlessly for months now.

I like WD hard drives for computer drive. I am not impressed with their MyCloud external storage drive. The interface software is very buggy and currently it is not letting me access it's dashboard which is the interface I use to make adjustments. I can access the drive over the network to retrieve files ... well suffice to say it is a mess right now.

I am not sure what model of WD drive you have but if it has a NIC (ethernet) port and if it is like the MyCloud drive I have, the usb port on it is for attaching a second storage drive in a daisy chain configuration. I am not sure if it can be used to directly attach it to you mac. You can certainly try it. It won't hurt anything.

Lisa

Lisa, I have a 4TB MyCloud and I'm using it for TM backups of three machines. It wasn't that hard to set up. Maybe we can compare settings to see if there is some reason you weren't able to get it working. I know you have a TC, but if you are interested in getting the WD working better, I'm happy to work with you on it.

One thing to try right away is to make sure you are connecting to the interface using Bonjour, which is how I am getting to it. The drive is attached by USB to an Apple AirPort Extreme by Ethernet, I access it wirelessly over WiFi from all three machines using it as backup.

Jake - at this point I am content with using the Time Capsule for the Macs. My challenge is to dive into the WD MyCloud and try to figure out why it stopped backing up the Windows computers. It was going along just fine and then I noticed it stopped sometime in the beginning of September. I can't get it to recognize my admin password (and yes, it is the correct one) but through the network, I can access it using my admin network password. My problem is I can not use the dashboard to see what the issue is. I have tried the reset procedure WD suggested - no luck. I plan to tackle it as soon as I get caught up at work - which might happen later this week - I hope.

Lisa

It's like a WD conspiracy, if you ask me ;P

On the other hand, I have finally had success moving my Photos off my Macbook hard drive - have transferred them to a Samsung solid state 1 Tb drive which attaches with USB and it works seamlessly! Best thing ever as this has freed up half my drive in one fell swoop. Photos now download straight from the Cloud direct to the Samsung and it was so easy to set up that someone like me, who is no tech head, was able to do it simply by thinking about it step by step.