How do I disable snapshots (Timemachine) entirely?

[AshFriedrich]

I have disabled Timemachine in preferences and also in Terminal with "sudo tmutil disable" but I am still getting these messages in Console that it's trying to make snapshots:

error    16:29:13.383189 +0200    deleted    unable to create CacheDeleteDaemonVolume for <private>
error    16:29:13.390466 +0200    deleted    Failed to enumerate snapshots for volume <private>: Operation not permitted
error    16:29:13.411616 +0200    deleted    Failed to enumerate snapshots for volume <private>: Operation not permitted
error    16:29:13.468017 +0200    sandboxd    Sandbox: deleted(470) deny(1) file-read-data /Volumes/HD1
error    16:29:41.661544 +0200    deleted    unable to create CacheDeleteDaemonVolume for <private>
error    16:29:41.669165 +0200    kernel    Sandbox: deleted(470) deny(1) file-read-data /Volumes/HD1
error    16:29:41.669420 +0200    deleted    Failed to enumerate snapshots for volume <private>: Operation not permitted
error    16:29:41.671333 +0200    kernel    Sandbox: deleted(470) deny(1) file-read-data /Volumes/HD2
error    16:29:41.671418 +0200    deleted    Failed to enumerate snapshots for volume <private>: Operation not permitted

It's causing small freezes every minute or more.

I have never used Timemachine and I have no plans to use it, so does anyone know how I can make it stop trying to "enumerate snapshots"?

 

[DevyV]

You may go to "System Preferences > Time Machine" and uncheck "Back Up Automatically" or change "On/Off" button (whichever you see there):

Also, you may open Terminal and run this commad:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

Running this command will also delete any local snapshots freeing up your disk space.

All the best,
DevyV

 

[AshFriedrich]

Thanks DevyV for looking into this.

I have disabled Timemachine in preferences as you describe and ran the terminal command (and restarted after) but it is still trying to make snapshots :/

Additionally I have added all my harddrives to the exception list in Timemachine.

 

[DevyV]

Could you show me the result of this Terminal Command, please:

tmutil destinationinfo

 

[AshFriedrich]

Hi! It gives this:

tmutil: No destinations configured.

 

[AshFriedrich]

I'm gonna bump this one last time - is there really no way to turn of snapshots/timemachine?

 

[DevyV]

Hi!

As of the
tmutil: No destinations configured.
result I see that Time Machine is not even configured so there is no reason why it would want to try making snapshots at all.

Actually, "deleted" is the process for CacheDelete, which is used to purge caches on disk. Looking in System/Library/CacheDelete/ you can see what services are registered as a client.

So to me it looks like the logs are not related to Time Machine but to a cache maintenance process.

As of the log
sandboxd Sandbox: deleted(470) deny(1) file-read-data /Volumes/HD1
it looks like a read permission missing for the sandbox process.

I found some others had same kind of issue because of using the iStat Menus software, do you have it maybe?

I also found others solved it by deleting/moving the Caches folder of the problematic account:

• create a new temporary user account
• log in to the new temp account
• open Terminal and move the Cashes folder to a temp folder (instead of deleting it immediately):

$ sudo bash $ cd /Users/<problematic_users_name>/Library $ mv Caches Caches-tmp

• Log back in to original account and check logging

Did it help?