Comments on: Leopard Time Machine: Delete Files or Folders from Backup

By: nnua

nnua — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:50:00 +0000

OMG. I make monthly backups of my TM, and I want to get rid of certain months and preserve others. I selected the specific date file which I want to delete using the gears method. TM deleted ALL my backups from my external HD, every single month!!

What went wrong, anybody has any ideas?

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 23:39:00 +0000

I tried this in Leopard 10.5.8, but it doesn’t seem to work. I select the folders and click the option in the gear menu, it asks me to confirm. But there is no change in the Time Machine history. When I exit Time Machine (press Cancel or Esc key), there is no prompt for my username/password or anything. The backups are still there.

By: Thierrydemontblanc

Thierrydemontblanc — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:17:00 +0000

Right click on mac: select the item then depress “control” and, maintaining the pressure on ” control” just click normally : there you are!

By: Jan Steinman

Jan Steinman — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:30:00 +0000

You can drag folders from within /Volumes/Backup/Backups.bacukpdb to the trash and then empty the trash. But this will only delete an instance of a backup of a folder — not all the backups for eternity.

There doesn’t seem to be any way to do it from Terminal, because of extended attributes and hard-linked directories, I’d guess.

By: Abc_c_b

Abc_c_b — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:24:00 +0000

woooowwww…. you are mi herooo
thank you soo muuch…

don’t have any more problems =)

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:52:00 +0000

In Snow Leopard (10.6) you can right/control click. No need for the gears.

By: Godzilla68

Godzilla68 — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 04:28:00 +0000

Worked for me, went into TM, selected the file or files I didn’t want and an option was to delete ALL back ups of those particular files. Worked great thanks!

By: Bruce Greene

Bruce Greene — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:57:00 +0000

I tried to delete Time Machine files and nothing happened after following instructions

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:10:00 +0000

I am trying to delete unnecessary reoccurring back ups. I have viewed the forums but I do not have the “gear” icon in the time machine window. I have tried to add that via the “finder” but it does not accept this. What next?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:16:00 +0000

mmm….useful info