Time Machine Backup Full?

[elgrayso]

Time machine (1TB external drive) keeps saying its almost full and only has 40GB left.
My Mac HD is also 1TB. To help time machine have room i deleted a bunch of stuff off my Mac HD after transfering it to a third (unrelated) backup drive.
Now my Mac HD has 140GB of free space. I figured this surely would be enough to calm down time machine. However Time Machine is still upset and thinks it doesnt have enough room.

I assume time machine is keeping a backup of the stuff I moved to the external drive, plus copies of copies of copies of god knows what.

How do I make time machine happy again??

 

[kaielement]

Time machine be default will back up until the target drive is full. It will delete the oldest back ups if the dive becomes full. So it won't make it happy just to delete stuff of of your Mac. Keep in mind when it is backing up it is basically making a copy of the drive onto your target drive. I wouldn't worry unless you don't wish for the oldest back ups to be deleted. Once it deletes enough of the old back ups it will then back up the computer. Again I wouldn't worry about it to much unless you need to keep the oldest back up in that case you will need to buy a new drive. On the other hand if you don't care about that's on the target drive you could reformat it and start over agin and back up the computer once the drive is whipped and reformatted, just a thought. Any further questions feel free to ask. I hope that helps.

 

[elgrayso]

the problem is that it keeps giving me this warning every day and it says that it "cant be backed up"....

is it not backing up new stuff?
its frustrating, i just want it to duplicate what is on my computer and there is more than enough room for that.

 

[glenthompson]

the problem is that it keeps giving me this warning every day and it says that it "cant be backed up"....

is it not backing up new stuff?
its frustrating, i just want it to duplicate what is on my computer and there is more than enough room for that.

This is why it's recommended to have a TM drive twice as large as your main drive. Drives are cheap, your data isn't. Archive your old backup so we here safe, get a new 2tb drive and start using it.