Time Machine cleanup

Question

Time Machine cleanup

I have old time machine backups for a computer that no longer exists. How can I cleanly delete them from the external time machine disk?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.3

Posted on Apr 9, 2022 7:30 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

tjk

Level 9

51,142 points

Apr 9, 2022 8:03 PM in response to RB Connecticut

If they're on separate partitions, same method, just select the desired partition and Erase.

If they're on the same partition, you'll have to drag the appropriate Backups.backupdb folder to the trash and empty the trash. This will probably take a very long time.

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Answer 2

tjk

Level 9

51,142 points

Apr 9, 2022 7:43 PM in response to RB Connecticut

Hi,

Connect a disk > open Disk Utility > select the top item for that drive in the list at the left > click on Erase.

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Answer 3

Apr 9, 2022 7:52 PM in response to tjk

I probably wasn't clear enough in my question. I have Time Machine backups from two computers on the drive, I only want to delete one of them. Erasing the disk would remove both.

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Answer 4

Apr 9, 2022 8:55 PM in response to tjk

Same partition. Thanks, I've proceeded with the delete, empty trash approach. I was looking for a feature in Time Machine that would do the deed when I asked the question, doesn't seem to be one.

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Time Machine cleanup

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