How to Delete Time Machine Backups
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Open Terminal. Type tmutil listbackups You may need to grant Full Disk Access in Security & Privacy preferences first. You can now see a list of backups. Type sudo tmutil delete followed by the path to the backup. This will change depending on where the file is stored. It's likely to be similar to /Volumes/Time Machine backup volume name/Backups.backupdb/MacintoshHD/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS where the latter is the date and time of the backup.
How to Delete Time Machine Backups
How to get rid of old Time Machine backups
By Jennifer Allen Jennifer Allen Writer Swansea University, Staffordshire University Jennifer Allen has been writing about technology since 2010. Her work has appeared in Mashable, TechRadar, and many more publications. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on April 17, 2022 Reviewed by Ryan Perian Reviewed by Ryan Perian Western Governors University Ryan Perian is a certified IT specialist who holds numerous IT certifications and has 12+ years' experience working in the IT industry support and management positions. lifewire's editorial guidelines Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Apple Macs iPadWhat to Know
Enter Time Machine then find the backup you wish to delete before clicking Delete Backup.It's also possible to use Finder by finding the backup and double clicking it to enter the backup.Use Terminal to delete via command line with tmutil listbackups followed by sudo tmutil delete and the location of the file. This article teaches you how to delete your old Time Machine backups and what else you need to know about the process.How Do I Delete Time Machine Backups on My Mac
Generally, Time Machine automatically deletes old backups. Once your storage device is running low on space, macOS deletes anything unnecessary, such as your oldest Time Machine backups. However, if you need to delete your backup manually, here's what to do. Open Time Machine by searching through it on Spotlight or by clicking the time Machine icon on the Menu Bar. Click Enter Time Machine. Scroll through the backups and find the one you wish to delete. Click the ellipsis above the folder contents. Click Delete Backup. Enter your password to confirm the deletion.How Do I Delete All My Time Machine Backups
If you want to delete all your backups, you don't need to do it date by date. Here's how to delete all your Time Machine backups at once. Open Finder. Find the location where your Time Machine backup is stored. This may be on on an external hard drive or on a different internal hard drive. Navigate to the Backups.backupdb folder to find the files. Select them all by tapping Command and A on your keyboard, then tap Command and delete on the keyboard.How Do I Delete My Time Machine Backups Via a Network Drive
If your backups are stored on an external drive which you connect to via Wi-Fi, the process is slightly different as the files are stored as a sparsebundle file. Here's how to access it. Find the file on the external hard drive. Double click the sparsebundle file and wait for it to mount onto your Mac. Double click the new location under Locations. Browse the location to find the files you wish to delete. Right-click the file or subfolder of the date you wish to delete, and click Delete.How Do I Delete My Time Machine Backups Via Terminal
If you are comfortable using macOS's Terminal app to change things via command line, it's fairly straightforward to see which backups are available. Here's how to delete individual backups using Terminal.Open Terminal. Type tmutil listbackups You may need to grant Full Disk Access in Security & Privacy preferences first. You can now see a list of backups. Type sudo tmutil delete followed by the path to the backup. This will change depending on where the file is stored. It's likely to be similar to /Volumes/Time Machine backup volume name/Backups.backupdb/MacintoshHD/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS where the latter is the date and time of the backup.