Put back/delete locked items in Time-Machine Backups

[PajamaPants]

Hi everyone,

some time ago I read something about manually erasing time-machine backups simple by going to the place where the backups exist and drag and drop them to the trash and erasing them. I was low on storage so I did it.

The thing is there were some locked system items in there. Locked items that I cannot erase, when I try to I get that warning message saying if I want to delete them, I press yes, then it starts erasing and eventually gets to negative erasing items, I already left it overnight to continue erasing but it was of no help.

I can't get the option to put back, and dragging and dropping them outside the trash only makes a copy of them.

I just want to get rid of waiting a lot before trying to erase other items and that full trash can.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Bruno09]

Hi,

use Onyx or Maintenance (Titanium Software) to empty the Trash.

It should work.

(I have already used them successfully for the very same issue).

 

[Weaselboy]

First do a full reboot, then try this to force empty the trash.

Force the Trash to empty using the Option key

This technique uses a hidden feature of Mac OS X to force the Trash to empty. Perform the following steps in the order specified:

Press and hold the mouse button on the Trash icon in the Dock. The context menu for Trash will display.

Press and hold the Option key or the Shift-Option keyboard combination, select Empty Trash from the context menu for Trash.

Release the keys pressed and held in step 2.

 

[Bear]

Hi everyone,

some time ago I read something about manually erasing time-machine backups
...

In the future, you should manually deleted the backups through the Time Machine interface. You select the particular backup you want to delete and then option-click (or right-click) and there will be a Delete Backup option. This is the easiest and safest way to manually delete individual backups.

 

[PajamaPants]

It worked, and at the time I found it odd that there wasn't a way to simply delete the backups and I searched and just found this one.

Thanks everyone!