Can I manually delete old time machine BackUps?

OzyOly · 14 Jul 2009 at 10:57

Hey there, my time machine disk, an external 1TB HD has only 20GB remaining now and it said it will start deleting old backups to make room for new ones.
I do want to use the disk for other things too though, so can I delete old backups manually, without messing up time machine?

Cheers guys.

OzyOly · 17 Jul 2009 at 13:25

Seeing as no one replied I thought I'd put in here that you CAN delete backups manually without interfering with time machine, just incase anyone searches the subject.

JAMAL · 17 Jul 2009 at 13:47

Could you expand on this matey? would be interesting to know as i only have a 80gb partition for my time machine backup!

JK1 · 17 Jul 2009 at 14:24

What I do is turn off Time Machine.
Delete the backup folder off the Time Machine hard disk
Delete it from trash
Turn Time Machine back on and do a new full backup.

OzyOly · 17 Jul 2009 at 14:30

JAMAL said:
Could you expand on this matey? would be interesting to know as i only have a 80gb partition for my time machine backup!

Just in the time machine folder, delete the older dated folders or do what JK1 said.

JK1 · 17 Jul 2009 at 14:38

If you do it my way, you have to press the option key when removing the files from the Trash Can otherwise you get an error about locked files which it can't delete IIRC.

Bod · 19 Jul 2009 at 02:47

I had a mare of a problem with these files a few months ago.
Basically you remove the files which arent files but pointers, so you end up with pointers in the trash can, pointing to files in the trash can or something, so they can never be emptied out of there.

Something silly like that.

The proper option is to delete the old backups from within time machine itself

Feek · 19 Jul 2009 at 08:29

If you're running out of space on your Time Machine drive and you also want to use the drive for something else, I'd suggest repartitioning the drive as two partitions, one for Time Machine and the other for whatever else you want. That way you're guaranteeing you won't eat into that other space. Of course, it does mean completely blatting your current backup.

Bod · 19 Jul 2009 at 17:26

Thats my one bugbear of Time Machine. Sure it's really good at what it does and very handy for when it's needed.

But there's such a lack of control over the resources it uses etc, it's a PITA