Time Machine Taking up To much Space!

[MacBoy108]

Time Machine has left my drive with only 13 GB out of 500. I tryed deleting some of the old folders from the backups.backups folder but it was taking way to long just preparing now I'm trying to move them from the trash to the backups.backups folder again and its taking a really long time.

 

[benmrii]

Time Machine doesn't work that way. First of all, I strongly suggest not deleting anything from folders that Time Machine has created. You're messing with it's data and it doesn't know it's happening. It will be upset.

Mostly though, Time Machine will, by design, use your entire external HDD. If you want to use an external drive for anything else you need to either a) partition it into 2 volumes or b) have a second drive to use as you see fit letting Time Machine do its thing with the other.

 

[MacBoy108]

Time Machine doesn't work that way. First of all, I strongly suggest not deleting anything from folders that Time Machine has created. You're messing with it's data and it doesn't know it's happening. It will be upset.

Mostly though, Time Machine will, by design, use your entire external HDD. If you want to use an external drive for anything else you need to either a) partition it into 2 volumes or b) have a second drive to use as you see fit letting Time Machine do its thing with the other.

I thought So, I'm trying to remove the files I placed in the trash back into the backups folder but it is not really making any progress at all.
What should I do? I want to partion it as well.

 

[benmrii]

I thought So, I'm trying to remove the files I placed in the trash back into the backups folder but it is not really making any progress at all.
What should I do? I want to partion it as well.

I'd move everything back and test how it works by opening up Time Machine. If you want to be especially careful - and since you want to partition the drive you already have - format and partition the drive then start Time Machine all over again, fresh. Make sure you aren't missing anything too important first.

 

[fuzorsilverbolt]

faster way to delete stuff

If you want to delete stuff faster do it in terminal. That way the OS won't copy the files to the .trash folder first.

Here's a short linux command list:

delete file:
rm <filename?

delete all files
rm -rf *

change directory
cd

human readable list of mounted volumes and their capacities
df -h

 

[MacBoy108]

I'd move everything back and test how it works by opening up Time Machine. If you want to be especially careful - and since you want to partition the drive you already have - format and partition the drive then start Time Machine all over again, fresh. Make sure you aren't missing anything too important first.

Thanks I'm going to go with that and try to just move one folder at a time back.

 

[benmrii]

No problem, of course. Hope I was able to help.

Take your time and do it slow... you want to take care of your data. Come back here if you have any questions.

And, with all due respect to fuzorsilverbolt's good intentions, I would strongly suggest staying out of Terminal. Those commands will bypass the safety nets OSX has in place to keep you from accidentally deleting the wrong thing (and frankly tons of other potential hazards ). The time saved is small, the risk, if you're unfamiliar with UNIX commands, is pretty large.