how to restart a mac from a previous date

How to restart a mac from a previous date how to#
How to restart a mac from a previous date software#
How to restart a mac from a previous date password#

The easiest way to delete local Time Machine snapshots is to connect your backup drive and complete a new backup.

These are essentially mini backups that your Mac holds onto until it can transfer them to your external Time Machine drive. You might discover that a lot of “Other” storage on your Mac is being used by local Time Machine snapshots. To do this, open the Trash from the edge of the Dock and click Empty FAQs How do I delete local Time Machine snapshots on my Mac? Important: Make sure you empty the Trash before ejecting your backup drive, otherwise your deleted backup will still take up space on the external drive. To delete a backup, drag that folder to the TrashĦ. Find the folder for the backup you want to deleteĥ. All of your backups are listed in separate folders named after the dates they were created, in the format YYYY-MM-DD.

Go into the Backups.Backupdb folder and open the folder matching your Mac’s nameĤ. Open Finder and select your backup drive from the sidebarģ.

How to restart a mac from a previous date how to#

If you’re still interested, here’s how to delete Time Machine backups in Finder:Ģ. The best reason to use Finder to delete Time Machine backups is if you want to remove all the backups for a particular Mac. But it also means that if you delete the original backup for a file in Finder, you might also delete any future backups as well that were only saving the changes to that file. This allows Time Machine to store far more backups in less space. The reason for this is because of Time Machine’s incremental backups.Īfter the first time you use it, whenever you use Time Machine to back up your Mac it only copies the changes to your Mac rather than copying all of your data again and again. This is because the Time Machine app knows exactly where each file from a backup is stored, which is practically impossible to find out for yourself in Finder. In most cases, you’re better off using the Time Machine app to delete backups rather than using Finder.

How to restart a mac from a previous date password#

Confirm you want to delete the backup, then enter your Mac administrator’s password How to delete Time Machine backups using Finder After selecting the date or file you want to delete, click the ellipsis (…) button in Finder and choose to either Delete Backup or Delete All Backups of ĥ. Alternatively, use the Finder window to navigate to the file or folder you want to deleteĤ. Use the timeline on the right of the screen or the arrows to navigate to the backup date you want to delete. You can do this using by searching for “Time Machine” in Launchpad, Spotlight, or the Applications folder in Finderģ. Connect your external backup drive to your MacĢ. Following this method, you can choose to either delete backups from a certain date or delete backups of a certain file across all dates.įollow these steps to use Time Machine to delete backups:ġ. The safest (and easiest) way to delete backups is using the Time Machine app. How to remove old backups in the Time Machine app If you do need to manually delete old backups from Time Machine, you can do so using Finder or the Time Machine app.įurther reading: How to check Mac storage space. Other times, Time Machine might tell you there isn’t enough space to create a particularly large backup, refusing to delete the old backups to make space. However, there are rare occasions where you still need to take matters into your own hands.įor instance, you might need to manually delete Time Machine backups if you want to create space on your external drive for non-backup files. You don’t need to do anything to make this happen, Time Machine just deletes old backups in the background whenever it needs to. This is because Apple designed Time Machine to automatically delete old backups whenever it runs out of storage. Most of the time you don’t need to do anything to manage your Time Machine backups. Time Machine usually deletes old backups automatically Luckily, there are a few different ways to delete old Time Machine backups from your Mac or external drive. The downside to these incremental backups is that they can end up using a lot of storage. An incremental backup means that Time Machine stores multiple versions of your files, making it easy to undo changes or even restore deleted files and folders.

How to restart a mac from a previous date software#

Time Machine is the best backup software to use with your Mac because it automatically creates incremental backups.