Editing Time Machine contents
- Thread starter icemanjc
- Start date
minckster
Registered
Go into Time Machine, select the item that you want to delete from backup, select the Tools icon, which is the one that looks like a cog, and then select either "Delete Backup" or "Delete All Backups."
Time Machine preferences in System Preferences is the place to prevent an item from ever being backed up.
Time Machine preferences in System Preferences is the place to prevent an item from ever being backed up.
ElDiabloConCaca
U.S.D.A. Prime
Just as a side-note -- it's not recommended to browse the Time Machine backups with the Finder and make changes. Time Machine "editing" should be done via the Time Machine interface only, unless you're extremely sure of what you're doing.
Time Machine uses UNIX-style hard links to perform incremental backups and make your Time Machine backup appear as if it holds many, many copies of the entire contents of your hard drive. In fact, this is not true. If you had a file on your desktop from January to May, and you were browsing your Time Machine backup, only the file in January is the "real" file -- February, March, April and May (and all daily/weekly backups in between) are "hard links" back to the January file. If you delete the January file manually, then all the hard links from then on are kaput and worthless, and may interfere with proper Time Machine operation.
Time Machine uses UNIX-style hard links to perform incremental backups and make your Time Machine backup appear as if it holds many, many copies of the entire contents of your hard drive. In fact, this is not true. If you had a file on your desktop from January to May, and you were browsing your Time Machine backup, only the file in January is the "real" file -- February, March, April and May (and all daily/weekly backups in between) are "hard links" back to the January file. If you delete the January file manually, then all the hard links from then on are kaput and worthless, and may interfere with proper Time Machine operation.
Mikuro
Crotchety UI Nitpicker
Actually, a file's data won't be deleted until ALL hard links are deleted. That's the key difference between a hard link and a symbolic link — a symbolic link points to a file, but a hard link is another instance of the actual file.
The most accurate way to think of it is that ALL files are "links" to the data they represent. That data is not deleted until the number of links to it drops to zero. There is no difference between an "original" file and a hard link.
You can test it yourself by playing around in Terminal with the "link" command. "link file1 newfile" will create a hard link to file1 named newfile. Then you can delete file1 and newfile will still work.
That aside, you're probably still right that it's not good idea to perform manual surgery on your Time Machine backups folder. I've never tried it myself, though.
Make sure that your Finder window is in the metal mode, with the toolbar and sidebar visible. If there's no gear button in the toolbar, select "Customize Toolbar" from the View menu and drag the button into the toolbar. Then go into Time Machine and use that button.
The weird thing here is that the gear button is usually an alternate way to access the contextual menu (which you'd get by control-clicking on an object), but the contextual menu doesn't work in Time Machine. I wonder if that's a bug. That's why you need to be in the metal mode in the Finder.
ElDiabloConCaca
U.S.D.A. Prime
Ah, yes, Mikuro, I stand corrected -- chalk it up to momentary brain fart. I was thinking of soft links.
So, yeah, icemanjc: that's the reason. You must delete all occurrences of a backup file for the space to be freed. However, I still recommend using only the Time Machine functions to delete and manage files on your Time Machine backup.
Also, if space is a concern, you shouldn't worry -- Time Machine will automatically delete older backups to make room for newer ones. There is no need to manually manage the Time Machines backups -- unless you're using the Time Machine partition to store other data.
So, yeah, icemanjc: that's the reason. You must delete all occurrences of a backup file for the space to be freed. However, I still recommend using only the Time Machine functions to delete and manage files on your Time Machine backup.
Also, if space is a concern, you shouldn't worry -- Time Machine will automatically delete older backups to make room for newer ones. There is no need to manually manage the Time Machines backups -- unless you're using the Time Machine partition to store other data.
I still find that automatic behaviour a bit troubling, though. It's just not very clear to me as a user what will actually happen. Say I have a file on my harddrive in January and February, but accidentally delete it in March. When I remember I once _had_ that file and want to recover it in December or, say, March year _after_ I've deleted it, will it still be around? It says it'll delete older files first, but this does in no way mean that such a file would actually be less important to me.
Also, I find Time Machine's interface very troubling. It's not intuitive at all (see this entire thread for proof), goes against most things of the rest of OS X' interface and simply doesn't provide enough information for my test. I'd love to see a _timeline_ for a file. Like: It was created on 2008-01-20 at 14:22h, changed on 2008-01-21, 2008-01-28 and deleted on 2008-02-15, so I could very simply choose the right version. I want to see this on a timeline from left to right, not back (invisible) to front. It's counterintuitive imho.
Also, I find Time Machine's interface very troubling. It's not intuitive at all (see this entire thread for proof), goes against most things of the rest of OS X' interface and simply doesn't provide enough information for my test. I'd love to see a _timeline_ for a file. Like: It was created on 2008-01-20 at 14:22h, changed on 2008-01-21, 2008-01-28 and deleted on 2008-02-15, so I could very simply choose the right version. I want to see this on a timeline from left to right, not back (invisible) to front. It's counterintuitive imho.
icemanjc
I'm cool, I have a mac.
I thought of that to, so I deleted up to a months worth of files, so they are gone. Time Machine is just kind of frustrating.
Yes I use my Time Machine hard drive as other things to. I just backup my laptop because thats what I edit my most recent files on, I started backing up all the time because someone crushed my laptop hard drive and I lost some data. The hard drive that I backup my laptop to is the secondary drive in my tower in which I hold all my documents for that. Which is the problem.