Resolved Cannot empty Time Machine backups from trash

[rkjlt]

This seems to be working for me, but how long should this take? Hours?

------update--------
This took about an hour and a half to clean ~500GB of .Trashes backups from a 1TB drive.

I also got messages like this:

rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/share/ri/1.8/system/Comparable: Invalid argument
<<<<<<Note: This is Invalid argument error message>>>>>>>>
<<<<<<Note: following are errors trying to delete the directories above where I had the invalid argument>>>>>>>

rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/share/ri/1.8/system: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/share/ri/1.8: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/share/ri: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/share: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library/Frameworks: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System/Library: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD/System: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442/Macintosh HD: Directory not empty
rm: .Trashes/502/HPP/2011-12-23-110442: Directory not empty


So how do I delete the ones that gave me "Invalid argument"

Thank you very much

 

[timbreese]

Trash It! worked for me.

I was having the same problem. The free app Trash It! worked for me. You can find it here: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/8214/trash-it!

 

[mcgrawg]

It works - Removing Time Machine Backups from Trash

Simple solution which I tried and it worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hold down the Alt/Option button and click Empty Trash - it deletes the Time Machine Backups from the Trash Basket.

 

[priitv8]

At the heart of it: all TM files have the user immutable flag (uchg) set. Once you clear it, the files start to behave like any other file in the system.

#chflags -R nouchg /Volumes/TimeMachine/<my-backup>.sparsebundle

man chflags
Hint taken from: http://tonylawrence.com/blog/2012/08/11/fixing-corrupted-time-machine-backups/

 

[bilbo--baggins]

Simple solution which I tried and it worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hold down the Alt/Option button and click Empty Trash - it deletes the Time Machine Backups from the Trash Basket.

Worked for me too! Thanks.

 

[willowdemayo]

Backups deleted, but no disk space gained!

I was having the same problem. The free app Trash It! worked for me. You can find it here: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/8214/trash-it!

So I tried this and it worked EXCEPT - I still don't seem to have more space on the Time Capsule disk.

I deleted a year's worth of backups, nearly 800K files and gained no space. That can't be right.

Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks.

 

[priitv8]

So I tried this and it worked EXCEPT - I still don't seem to have more space on the Time Capsule disk.

I deleted a year's worth of backups, nearly 800K files and gained no space. That can't be right.

They are no normal files, they are file links!
If you are on TC, you have deleted them from the sparsebundle, but that disk image is still not compacted.
Here are instructions on how to poperly delete backups from TM
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

 

[willowdemayo]

They are no normal files, they are file links!
If you are on TC, you have deleted them from the sparsebundle, but that disk image is still not compacted.
Here are instructions on how to poperly delete backups from TM
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

Thanks. I did this and it worked within the operation, but I still am not showing the space.

And when I try to add a new computer backup it says I have no room.

The Terminal operation said it reclaimed 165 GB out of 205 GB possible, but I'm still showing only 9.3 GB available on the TC drive (which is a 1 TB drive).

I tried unplugging and restarting the TC, but no luck.

Any help is appreciated.

UPDATE - The reclaimed space showed up two days later. Problem solved, thank you!

 

[Siderz]

Simple solution which I tried and it worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hold down the Alt/Option button and click Empty Trash - it deletes the Time Machine Backups from the Trash Basket.

God that was simple...I was trying to type in that Terminal stuff but it wasn't clear to me...glad I didn't spend too long trying that out and found your reply.

Thanks a lot

 

[BigJon027]

Thanks grahamnp, followed your instructions after enabling root in Mavericks and it took about 5-7 min then viola! It appears to have fixed the problem! Thanks!!

 

[gojipoj]

Same problem empting trash

i have the same problem, I stupidly deleted old backups from time machine, time machine did not ad does not delete old back ups, therefore my external HD which is partitioned was full and I've selected what i want backed up, yet it was full after a short period of time. Very confused. I have tried holding "OPTION' right click and empty trash, no luck and getting can't empty trash error -22?. Is there a simpler way of backing up the time machine is giving me the ***** and all i want to do is have back ups of what i think that are important to me. Onyx didn't work it kept crashing, is there another way. I have repaired permission and tried the terminal command to delete trash. Also why is it so slow when it's emptying it says about 920.000 and taking forever, much appreciated help.

 

[pegburke4]

I've had this problem many, many times. I've had luck manually deleting the .Trashes folder on the Time Machine drive's root directory. It will automatically be recreated.

Open terminal, type "cd /Volumes" and then "ls" to display all volumes and "cd <<TM volume name>>" to go into the TM volume.

Type "ls -a" to display all files, the -a is because Trashes is hidden.

"sudo rm -rf .Trashes" should delete the trashes folder.

Careful, messing that up could delete the wrong thing. Also, this hasn't always solved the problem for me.

Time Machine seems to (rather annoyingly) just do it's own thing. I've had it delete the files on its own time before and the free space was back after a certain period of time. I have no explanation for it but it seems to have fixed itself.

-----

Not entirely related but a word of advice: it seems that you've got data on the same drive as your TM backup, and this is what is stopping you from reformatting. Generally not a good idea to mix backups and your data on the same volume.

[doublepost=1481068474][/doublepost]Just had cause to look this bad boy up. The advice still holds - thank you so much!

 

[Wackery]

Apple makes deleting time machine back ups in this way stupidly difficult, this is like some remnant of 80s style computing

 

[Kenny V]

I've had this problem many, many times. I've had luck manually deleting the .Trashes folder on the Time Machine drive's root directory. It will automatically be recreated.

Open terminal, type "cd /Volumes" and then "ls" to display all volumes and "cd <<TM volume name>>" to go into the TM volume.

Type "ls -a" to display all files, the -a is because Trashes is hidden.

"sudo rm -rf .Trashes" should delete the trashes folder.

Careful, messing that up could delete the wrong thing. Also, this hasn't always solved the problem for me.

Time Machine seems to (rather annoyingly) just do it's own thing. I've had it delete the files on its own time before and the free space was back after a certain period of time. I have no explanation for it but it seems to have fixed itself.

-----

Not entirely related but a word of advice: it seems that you've got data on the same drive as your TM backup, and this is what is stopping you from reformatting. Generally not a good idea to mix backups and your data on the same volume.

Thank you SO much! This worked perfectly.

 

[propita]

When I open the trash, I see a list of backups in folders. When I try to delete them (option + empty trash), I get a message:

“Some items in the Trash cannot be deleted because of System Integrity Protection.” And the option “Stop” or “Continue.”

Not knowing what “continue” would do, I choose “stop.”

CAN I choose “continue” without screwing up my iMac?

This is all because I offloaded the movies in my iTunes (lots of movies) to a MyBook (and is backed up). iTunes now knows to look for the movies/tv shows in the MyBook and I have 1Tb of space back.

 

[Kashyap Pavra]

I've had this problem many, many times. I've had luck manually deleting the .Trashes folder on the Time Machine drive's root directory. It will automatically be recreated.

Open terminal, type "cd /Volumes" and then "ls" to display all volumes and "cd <<TM volume name>>" to go into the TM volume.

Type "ls -a" to display all files, the -a is because Trashes is hidden.

"sudo rm -rf .Trashes" should delete the trashes folder.

Careful, messing that up could delete the wrong thing. Also, this hasn't always solved the problem for me.

Time Machine seems to (rather annoyingly) just do it's own thing. I've had it delete the files on its own time before and the free space was back after a certain period of time. I have no explanation for it but it seems to have fixed itself.

-----

Not entirely related but a word of advice: it seems that you've got data on the same drive as your TM backup, and this is what is stopping you from reformatting. Generally not a good idea to mix backups and your data on the same volume.

Thankyou so much!!!!!!!!