Time Machine clean up taking forever

[CTHarrryH]

Ever since 13.4 - the clean up step in time machine is taking at least twice as long as the actual backup. Plenty of space left on backup disk.
Is this due to age of oldest backup it is cleaning or something to do with 13.4 or ???

Thanks

 

[kitKAC]

Install The Time Machine Mechanic and check the logs files:

https://eclecticlight.co/consolation-t2m2-and-log-utilities/

 

[Brian33]

If you are ready for a real adventure you can try the 'log' command in Terminal.app to examine Time Machine log messages. Here are some I use...

To show the log messages from an already-run backup:
log show --info --style compact --last 2h --predicate 'subsystem=="com.apple.TimeMachine"'

Make sure to get the single- and double-quotes correctly. You can use "--last 10m" or "--last 12h" to specify the last 10 minutes or last 12 hours, respectively.

To show TM log messages in real-time as the backup happens:
log stream --info --style compact --predicate 'subsystem=="com.apple.TimeMachine"'

That last command continues until you hit Ctrl-C to terminate it.

Don't be alarmed if you see a few "Error" entries.

You can keep the Time Machine Preferences window open while the 'log show' command runs, and when you see the cleanup step in the pref window, look at the log messages after that time. Each log message has a timestamp on it so maybe you can figure out what is taking so long...