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How to delete a date from the Time Machine on my storage?

W

wirtandi

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 3, 2021
179
179
Hi all

I am on MacOS Monterey. I am trying to delete one particular date from the Time Machine on my SSD Storage. How exactly do I do this? I have read some people say I cannot do it if I am on APFS, only can do it on HFS. How do I know which one mine is?

And if I am indeed on APFS, surely there is still a solution to this?
 
You can delete a Time Machine backup from an APFS volume. I just tried it on my external APFS-formatted SSD.

To find out how your backup drive is formatted, open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities). Tap on the backup drive in the left side and it will show the formatting and storage detail on the right side.

In the drive itself, to delete a specific backup, select that date, right click and choose Delete Immediately.

I'm curious what steps you tried before posting to delete that file?
 
WildSky said:
You can delete a Time Machine backup from an APFS volume. I just tried it on my external APFS-formatted SSD.

To find out how your backup drive is formatted, open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities). Tap on the backup drive in the left side and it will show the formatting and storage detail on the right side.

In the drive itself, to delete a specific backup, select that date, right click and choose Delete Immediately.

I'm curious what steps you tried before posting to delete that file?
Click to expand...
I deleted the specific backup by going to Finder and then to my drive. However, when i go inside time machine to check, it is still there. and if i eject the disk and put it back in, it comes back, the supposedly deleted backup is still there
 
Last edited:
wirtandi said:
I deleted the specific backup by going to Finder and then to my drive. However, when i go inside time machine to check, it is still there. and if i eject the disk and put it back in, it comes back, the supposedly deleted backup is still there
Click to expand...
You may need to use Terminal to delete the local snapshot. I haven't tried this and can't vouch for these instructions (or the site), but you could try what's described in this article concerning the snapshots: https://iboysoft.com/howto/delete-time-machine-backups.html#how-to-delete-time-machine-snapshots
 
If your TM volume is APFS, delete a single TM snapshot with one of these:

1) In Terminal
sudo tmutil delete -d /Volumes/<TM name> -t <yyyy-mm-dd-hhmmss>
replacing <TM name> with the name of your TM volume, and <yyyy-mm-dd-hhmmss> with a date-time as shown in Finder.

2) In Disk Utility:
a) Select the TM volume,
b) In View menu choose "show APFS Snapshots" and wait for it to complete analysing them,
c) Control-click (right-click) on a snapshot and choose Delete.

1659573396138.png
 
WildSky said:
You may need to use Terminal to delete the local snapshot. I haven't tried this and can't vouch for these instructions (or the site), but you could try what's described in this article concerning the snapshots: https://iboysoft.com/howto/delete-time-machine-backups.html#how-to-delete-time-machine-snapshots
Click to expand...
I don't like instructions (for HFS format backups) which suggest deleting in Finder - should always use tmutil. The article is a strange mix of instructions for HFS and APFS format backups without making that clear. Confusing.
 
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gilby101 said:
If your TM volume is APFS, delete a single TM snapshot with one of these:

1) In Terminal
sudo tmutil delete -d /Volumes/<TM name> -t <yyyy-mm-dd-hhmmss>
replacing <TM name> with the name of your TM volume, and <yyyy-mm-dd-hhmmss> with a date-time as shown in Finder.

2) In Disk Utility:
a) Select the TM volume,
b) In View menu choose "show APFS Snapshots" and wait for it to complete analysing them,
c) Control-click (right-click) on a snapshot and choose Delete.

View attachment 2038768
Click to expand...
Thank you for this, will try this later and report back
 
its a samsung T5 SSD, the size is maybe close to 170GB ? Yeah It just keeps saying loading....sigh

Im not that familiar with the terminal, and kinda afraid I might delete something else instead
 
I tried clicking on the "Show APFS Snapshots" option on my external SSD TM Volume. I'm seeing the same thing: it just spins on "Loading...". But Activity Monitor doesn't show any I/O going on, so I don't think it's working very hard.
EPTM.jpg
 
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mfram said:
I tried clicking on the "Show APFS Snapshots" option on my external SSD TM Volume. I'm seeing the same thing: it just spins on "Loading...". But Activity Monitor doesn't show any I/O going on, so I don't think it's working very hard.View attachment 2038987
Click to expand...
This is it, exactly the same as me. Says loading forever.....
 
wirtandi said:
This is it, exactly the same as me. Says loading forever.....
Click to expand...
Make sure that Time Machine is not doing a backup or active some way. Suggest disabling automatic TM backup and reboot. (I don't know if that will make a differences but seems like the next thing to try.)
 
Yes, I always turn off automatic backups.

Sigh, guess theres no other way but to try terminal which im not familiar with.....or maybe just leave this one be, and i have learned how to exclude backups from TM, so going forward ill just exclude what i dont need
 
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