Huge "Backups.backupdb" folder on my internal HD?

[BasilFawlty]

I just ran Disk Expert to see what files I could eliminate as I was running our of room on my iMac HD. I discovered a folder "Backups.backupdb" on my internal Hard drive in the root directory. This folder has four sub-folders of various dates (earliest one is 12-5-2019 and the newest is 02-12-2020. Each seems to have a complete copy of my HD files. I am using Time Machine to backup but I am backing up to an external "Time Capsule," not to my internal HD. That Time capsule just has a data folder with the usual "my iMac.sparsebundle" file.

This Backups.backupdb folder and subfolders is 1.33 TB (according to Disk Expert, as you see in attached image). What is really weird about this is the fact that my internal HD is only 1TB but is partitioned (I use Bootcamp and have a small partition with Windows installed on it). The "Macintosh HD" partition is only 836GB, yet this Backup folder has 1.33TB. How is this possible? I tried to move this folder but get a denial due to not have the right permission?

Does anyone have any idea why there would be this Backups.backupdb" folder on my internal HD? What is it for, where is it from? Is it somehow linked to my external Time Capsule backups? How can I delete this? (or should I?)

 

[SRLMJ23]

That folder is where Time Machine backups go. I see you say you backup to a Time Capsule, but are you 100% sure about that? Did you ever accidentally backup to your internal iMac HDD, because it seems as if you did in those subfolders with four different dates. My guess is that you set the Time Machine backup destination wrong, or possibly something is wrong with your Time Capsule and Time Machine defaulted to your internal iMac HDD.

I have no clue how that folder is bigger than your partition, makes no sense.

Do you have an Administrator account (are you the Administrator?) because if not, that is why it would not let you move the folder.

Whatever the case, as long as you are 100% sure you do not need those backups, can safely delete them and regain that 1.33TB in storage. I would say you are 100% safe doing it because you can then just make a new Time Machine backup to your Time Capsule (and make sure Time Machine is actually backing up correctly to it) or to something else external, if you have it.

Hope that helped!

 

[BasilFawlty]

Well, your reply gave me an idea of something to search for and I found this article that I think may explain what's going on. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015

Apparently, if the normal Time Machine backup disk isn’t available, TM will back up "snapshots" on the local disk.

 

[SRLMJ23]

Well, your reply gave me an idea of something to search for and I found this article that I think may explain what's going on. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015

Apparently, if the normal Time Machine backup disk isn’t available, TM will back up "snapshots" on the local disk.

Exactly, so personally I would just delete that folder and make sure your connection to Time Capsule is working correctly. Maybe on those four days your internet went down or something interrupted the connection to your Time Capsule, and it was during the time that Time Machine was going to backup, so it saved local snapshots to your internal iMac HDD.