How do you delete unwanted Time Machine backups

[kkinto]

Hi - I keep getting Time Machine failures due to space. My TM disk has backups of 4 previous system HD's that no longer exist and are not wanted anymore. The space needed for the backup is 600GB and the disk size is 2TB. Currently it has only 50GB available.

I have deleted any and all snapshots other than on my startup drive via Disk Utility but can find no way to delete the unwanted volumes that are taking up off the Time Machine drive.

How do I delete the HD backups I don't want. The right-click-delete option that used to exist is gone now in Monterey.

I would not like to reformat the whole drive because the backups of my current drive need to be available.

Any solution to clear the space?

I was tempted to use the Finder but every search on the subject seems to warn against that - nevertheless I tried and sure enough there is no option to even do that!

 

[Fishrrman]

I'd suggest you give either (or both) CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper a try.
Both are free to download and use for 30 days.

A significant advantage of using a "cloned backup" strategy instead of tm is that a cloned backup doesn't keep "growing" on you.
The backup will be the same size as the source. And it will STAY that size.

If you prefer keeping older versions of files around (that have since changed on your source), CCC has something called a "safety net" feature, that archives them in a specific folder.

Again, worth trying.

 

[TorbenIbsen]

I'd suggest you give either (or both) CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper a try.
Both are free to download and use for 30 days.

A significant advantage of using a "cloned backup" strategy instead of tm is that a cloned backup doesn't keep "growing" on you.
The backup will be the same size as the source. And it will STAY that size.

If you prefer keeping older versions of files around (that have since changed on your source), CCC has something called a "safety net" feature, that archives them in a specific folder.

Again, worth trying.

But how to delete the backups, as OP asks about?

 

[nmt1900]

If Time Machine backups are on separate disk and all backups (on this disk) can be sacrificed, then simplest way is to just erase the whole disk and do new backup after that.

If not then it should be possible to remove all backups per system. They are foldered by names of system in root folder named Backups.backupdb. It might get problematic to do this in Finder, but terminal and elevated permissions (using sudo) can help. If I run into problems doing this I just erase that Time Machine drive with Disk Utility.

 

[MBAir2010]

what is did (since 2009) was click a time machine date on the external drive
and simply deleted that via Trash.
rinse repeat.

 

[kkinto]

I'd suggest you give either (or both) CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper a try.
Both are free to download and use for 30 days.
Again, worth trying.

I didnt find CCC very good as a replacement for day to day Time Machine, more for whole disk backups.

what is did (since 2009) was click a time machine date on the external drive
and simply deleted that via Trash.
rinse repeat.

I don't think it has those options any more, I certainly do not see them? How *exactly* do you trash them? There is no ... menu delete, nor is there a right-click delete.

"Erase the whole disk" ? Yeah? And ditch everything I DO want? I dont want to start over with TM - I just want to remove old backups for disks that no longer exist - I just want to clean it out and recover space. Not very helpful.

Some of those old backups are pre-2020 and never been updated (since those drives were erased long ago). But still they taking up hundreds of gigabytes of space. I tried booting an older OS (Mojave - whi is taking up a 300+GB backup space) but it does not even recognise the formatting of the TM drive!

Very annoying.

 

[bogdanw]

Apple: "If you do run out of space, it’s best to connect a new backup disk."
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac...ine-backup-disk-is-full-mh15137/12.0/mac/12.0

From Terminal, you can use tmutil listbackups & delete
"listbackups [ −d backup_mount_point [ −m [ −t]]]
List all of this computer’s completed backups. The −d option specifies a destination volume to list backups from. When −m is provided, listbackups will attempt to mount backups and list their mounted paths. The −t option will show only the backup timestamp rather than the full name or path.
Requires root and Full Disk Access privileges."

"delete [ −d backup_mount_point −t timestamp] [ −p path]
Deletes the backups with the specified timestamp from the backup volume mounted at the specified mountpoint. The -t option followed by a timestamp can be used multiple times to specify multiple backups to delete. For HFS backup disks, a specific path to delete can also be specified using the -p option. This verb can delete items from backups that were not made by, or are not claimed by, the current machine. Requires root and Full Disk Access privileges."

tmutil manual: man -t tmutil | open -fa "Preview"
or https://ss64.com/osx/tmutil.html

 

[kkinto]

Apple: "If you do run out of space, it’s best to connect a new backup disk."
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac...ine-backup-disk-is-full-mh15137/12.0/mac/12.0

....

Thanks, that doesnt really help at all I'm afraid and Apple's method will delete everything except my current HD state which is pointless. It would seem what I want is impossible without throwing away over 18 months worth of valid and wanted backups . Its just insanely bad software that doesnt allow management of the data. It used to do it fine but seems Mac OS is becoming dumber and dumber.

 

[bogdanw]

"Removing unwanted Time Machine backups from APFS-formatted Time Machine backup drives on macOS Monterey" https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2...time-machine-backup-drives-on-macos-monterey/

 

[kkinto]

"Removing unwanted Time Machine backups from APFS-formatted Time Machine backup drives on macOS Monterey" https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2...time-machine-backup-drives-on-macos-monterey/

Thank @bogdanw. Unfortuantely that is pretty much the same thing as wiping the drive, just in 'smaller' chunks.

If I delete as per that page it removes the *entire* backup and its contents. I have 9 HD backups in each folder (collectively wasting 1.6TB). I only need 2 of them and would like to get rid of the rest. But they all appear in every backup folder, including the newest.

I think the only way is to lose it all and start over, losing 18 months of important work documents in the process. This totally negates the whole point of Time Machine for me. I have Carbon Copy Cloner but trying to find older versions of documents and files is its 'safety' folders is just ridiculously time consuming (every version of a file has the same name and needs to be opened one by one to check if its the copy you want) - very inefficient compared to what Time Machine offered.

But if I have to delete everything because I can't manage the backups and the disk they're on then CCC is going to be my only alternative. I am not going to trust files to Time Machine anymore, its just stupid that it can't be managed because my use case is different to Apple's lowest common denominator approach. I really hate this direction they're taking Mac OS in, slowly making it less and less manageable by me.

Lesson learnt.

 

[weezin]

I wanted to bump this thread as I am having the same problem.

My Time Machine has several backups on there for machines we don't need backups for anymore, and several backups for machines that are still in use that we do need backups for.

There is no space for a backup of my new machine. If I were to be able to delete the backups of the old machines no longer needed, this would work.

 

[bogdanw]

Besides the two methods mentioned in the link above ("You can remove unwanted backups using either the Finder, or by using the tmutil command line tool."), you can also "delete Time Machine APFS snapshots using Disk Utility on macOS Monterey" https://eclecticlight.co/2021/11/09/disk-utility-now-has-full-features-for-managing-snapshots/

 

[kkinto]

I wanted to bump this thread as I am having the same problem.

Good luck weezin, I have found no solution other than toss all backups and erase the drive - what a fantastic option! I can hear in my mind all that ridiculous applause that greets the announcement of every single new never-to-be-used OS feature at wwdc keynotes. Something that should be so darn simple - select HD backup no longer needed, right click, 'delete backup'...but, nope, not from today's Apple. Simple and obvious just aint on the Mac menu anymore. Sigh.

 

[Alvin777]

Good luck weezin, I have found no solution other than toss all backups and erase the drive - what a fantastic option! I can hear in my mind all that ridiculous applause that greets the announcement of every single new never-to-be-used OS feature at wwdc keynotes. Something that should be so darn simple - select HD backup no longer needed, right click, 'delete backup'...but, nope, not from today's Apple. Simple and obvious just aint on the Mac menu anymore. Sigh.

Hi, thanks. I remember older macOSes having an option that says to automatically delete old snapshots if the space is not enough, not sure why Time Machine and macOS Sonoma and Ventura aren't automating that. Any Terminal command (or utility that enables this, like a scrip but with easy to use GUI) to automate that (a command wherein, when it sees the space will not be enough, it'll delete one or a few of the oldest snapshots to make way for the new one)?

 

[Alvin777]

I guess I'll need to erase Time Machine and submit to Apple's new solution (buy another disk or subscribe to iCloud), Apple's gotten rid of that option to automatically delete old ones when it's running out of space, sadly.

Which AFPS do I format it with (case-sensitive)?

Thanks.

 

[bogdanw]

Early development, worth watching or contacting the developer for additional features.
TimeMachineStatus “a simple status bar app that shows the status of Time Machine backups”
https://github.com/lukepistrol/TimeMachineStatus
“Features
Show the current status in the menu bar
List all backup destinations and detailed information about them
Start a backup on a specific volume
Customize the appearance of the menu bar item”