How To Quickly Delete Incomplete Time Machine Backup's From the Trash?

[Spagheti]

I have a few incomplete time machine backups that I need to delete.

The backup's only appear when I have my external HD plugged in.

I tried deleting them manually but it took forever to prepare and ended up being a little over 2.7 Million Files, how it's so many I have no idea but needless to say this will take forever to do, I left it for a while and it only deleted around 100k of it.

Is there a way I can more quickly delete the backups from the Trash?

And no, I can't format the external HD since I don't just use it for backups, it also has a lot of important files on it or else I'd just format it.

 

[John T]

What makes you think you have incomplete Time Machine backups? Why not just leave alone it to do its own thing? The whole idea of Time Machine is that it works alone and, until needed, unattended.

 

[Mal]

What makes you think you have incomplete Time Machine backups? Why not just leave alone it to do its own thing? The whole idea of Time Machine is that it works alone and, until needed, unattended.

Probably because there were .incomplete files that they placed in the Trash, and now they need to empty the trash to get rid of them, but it's taking a long time. Why jump on the OP over something that they have stated pretty clearly?

OP, there's not much that can be offered in the way of quick solutions. You can see if an rm command in the Terminal works quicker:

Open Terminal, enter "rm " (note the space after rm), then drag the files from the Trash to the Terminal window to fill in the file paths. Hit enter and let it work. It'll probably still take some time.

jW

 

[Spagheti]

Open Terminal, enter "rm " (note the space after rm), then drag the files from the Trash to the Terminal window to fill in the file paths. Hit enter and let it work. It'll probably still take some time.

jW

I tried that but it failed because it says the file is a directory. I also had to quit the emptying process to try to do that so it had to start over.

Pic related, this is taking forever.

 

[Mal]

Oops, sorry. Add -R after the rm. So "rm -R " then drag the directory. Otherwise you'll have to wait out the Finder, but never know how long that could take.

jW

 

[Spagheti]

Oops, sorry. Add -R after the rm. So "rm -R " then drag the directory. Otherwise you'll have to wait out the Finder, but never know how long that could take.

jW

I tried that too and it didn't work either, so now it has to prepare 2.6 million files again and then start the slow process of deleting them lol.

 

[Spagheti]

Trash Can Won't Delete Incomplete Time Machine Backups, Gives An Error Code

See the link below for the previous thread, this problem arose from this one as now when I try to empty the trash it won't even do it.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1370233/

Before it was just a lot of files to delete but now when I try to delete it it gives me an error message, see attached file for a screenshot.

I can't format the drive as I use it for more than just backups or else I'd just do that.

 

[balamw]

Did you stop Time Machine before you tried deleting its files? That should help.

B

 

[Spagheti]

Did you stop Time Machine before you tried deleting its files? That should help.

B

I did, that did nothing.

The files are located in the .Trashes of the External HD so they only appear when I have it plugged in.

I moved the incomplete backups to the trash a while ago so Time Machine just says the drive doesn't have enough space, Time Machine doesn't seem to be deleting the backups.

 

[chown33]

Have you used Disk Utility.app to perform a Verify Disk on the external disk? Turn Time Machine off first, then do Verify Disk.

I'm not sure what error -8003 is, but if it's related to file-system damage, you could be in deep trouble already.

 

[sendtodh]

Short and Simple

I learned that all you need to do to get rid of the time machine files in your trash can, is simply hold down the option button and then click delete while holding it down and the trash can will empty all files. Thanks!

 

[leon-geyer]

Help to delete

Maybe Super Empty Trash (http://faqintosh.com/risorse/en/sys/setrash/), a little free app, helps with deleting issues. I tested it related to this, on Mavericks: worked fine and fast.
Thnx to its developer, M. Balestra...