Huge "Backups" section in my Mac HD?

[soxguy17]

Hey there, I'm a big fan of the search function, but "backup" is sort of a hot search term, so I'm having a hard time finding an answer to my question. I have a section of my hard drive labeled as "Backups," but it's on my local SSD, not my Time Machine drive. I run Time Machine backups weekly (I know, not enough. It's hard to get in a routine as a student), so I'm not really sure what this represents.

Anybody? Screenshot attached. I appreciate the help!

Also, thanks to whomever talked me in to a refurb'd 15 inch Retina. This thing is a freakin monster. I'm in love.

 

[Paullagane]

If you go into time machine preferences and turn Time Machine off and then back on again it clears it.

I had the same problem before.

 

[soxguy17]

If you go into time machine preferences and turn Time Machine off and then back off it clears it.

I had the same problem before.

Yup, that did it! Thanks my man. Looks like it didn't clear up any space, just was a bug.

 

[Paullagane]

Yup, that did it! Thanks my man. Looks like it didn't clear up any space, just was a bug.

No worries I think Time machine keeps copies of backups on the drive,I just clear it once a week.

 

[chabig]

Yup, that did it! Thanks my man. Looks like it didn't clear up any space, just was a bug.

It's not a bug. You actually deleted Time Machine backups. When you are not attached to your external drive, Time Machine continues to backup your machine, but it uses space on your internal drive to make a snapshot. Those are temporary and automatically get deleted after a period of time. They also get deleted if you need the space back. So the space taken up by those backups is not reported as used. That's why your free space didn't change when you deleted the backups (which is not necessary, by the way).

See http://pondini.org/TM/30.html

 

[soxguy17]

No worries I think Time machine keeps copies of backups on the drive,I just clear it once a week.

Little counterintuitive, but I'll let Apple slide on this one.

 

[mac8867]

Actually, the Apple laptops ALWAYS create local backups, whether you are connected to time machine or not. It's called MobileBackups, you can disable this with:

sudo tmutil disablelocal