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How to delete (with CLI tmutil delete) all old backups from TimeMachine. I wish to keep only current backup.
I wish to put that into crontab.
Found How to Delete Old Backups from Time Machine on Mac
sudo tmutil delete /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/MacBook\ Pro/2015-07-13-150021/
I don't like to specify Timestamps. I wish to have only one current full backup. This means remove deleted files and versions from backup disk.
As of macOS Big Sur 11.2.3+ - and according to the updated man tmutil - you need to provide the mount point disk and the timestamp of each backup using -d and -t flags, respectively. So the following tweak is needed for the accepted answer:
# assuming you have the backup disk connected & root privileges:
# get the latest backup to exclude from deletion
latest=$(sudo tmutil latestbackup)
# the 4th line after the last space from `tmutil destinationinfo` output
# contains the mount disk name
mountpoint=$(tmutil destinationinfo | sed '4q;d' | sed 's/.* //')
echo "latest is $latest"
# delete all the backups excluding the latest
backups=$(sudo tmutil listbackups)
echo $backups | while read timestamp; do
if [[ "$timestamp" != "$(basename $latest)" ]]; then
echo sudo tmutil delete -d $mountpoint -t $timestamp
fi
done
# if you want to keep the last, say, 3 backups, pipe "sed '$d'" 3-1=2 times:
backups=$(sudo tmutil listbackups | sed '$d' | sed '$d')
It should look like sudo tmutil delete -d /Volumes/TimeMachineBackups -t 2021-04-10-004103.
sudo tmutil delete -d 2020-12-16 -t 151046.backup I am getting this error: 151046.backup: Invalid argument (error 22)
Apr 26, 2021 at 14:42
tmutil listbackups?. For me it's YYYY-MM-DD-hhmmss. In which case you might wanna remove the .backup suffix. I added an edit.
man tmutil says: delete [-d backup_mount_point -t timestamp] [-p path]. The path is only for hfs, but you do need the mount point as well as timestamp. There is no -d argument.
sudo tmutil delete -d /Volumes/.timemachine/<UUID>/<date-time>.backup -t <date-time>. See my answer to apple.stackexchange.com/questions/407967/…
#!/bin/bash
latest=$(sudo tmutil latestbackup)
sudo tmutil listbackups | while read backup; do
if [[ "$backup" != "$latest" ]]; then
echo sudo tmutil delete "$backup"
fi
done
Remove the echo once you are sure that the output is correct.
sudo may time out while tmutil delete runs. You probably want to just remove sudo from the script and instead run this script with sudo. Also, tmutil listbackups doesn't actually list the "latest" backups, at least not on my system, so your script effectively deletes ALL backups.
Nov 3, 2021 at 7:19
sudo tmutil latestbackup).
sudo tmutil delete {backup} returns error, Specify either a path or a mountpoint and timestamp and Usage: tmutil delete [-d backup_mount_point -t timestamp] [-p path] but adding the option -p before the path works (for some reason I couldn't use the -d mount with -t timestamp options without getting an error, No such file or directory, regardless of combinations attempted)
tmutil listbackups -d /Volumes/BACKUPDRIVE, and then 2) Delete a specific backup with sudo tmutil delete -d /Volumes/BACKUPDRIVE -t 2022-04-05-151520.
Jun 29 at 10:56
macOS Sonoma Version 14.0
I have some problems with above bash code. This is my modified code that applies to me.
#!/bin/bash
# Assuming you have the backup disk connected & root privileges:
# Get the latest backup to exclude from deletion
latest=$(sudo tmutil latestbackup)
echo "Latest backup is $latest"
# The 4th line after the last space from `tmutil destinationinfo` output
# contains the mount disk name
mountpoint=$(tmutil destinationinfo | awk '{print $NF}' | sed -n '4p')
echo "The mountponint is $mountpoint"
# Delete all backups excluding the latest
backups=$(sudo tmutil listbackups)
# if you want to keep the last, say, 3 backups, pipe "sed '$d'" 3-1=2 times:
# backups=$(sudo tmutil listbackups | sed '$d' | sed '$d')
echo "$backups" | while read -r backup_path; do
timestamp=$(basename "$(dirname "$backup_path")" | sed 's/\.backup$//')
if [ "$timestamp" != "$(basename "$(dirname "$latest")" | sed 's/\.backup$//')" ]; then
echo "Deleting backup timestamp: $timestamp"
# if the output is correct, remove the echo
echo sudo tmutil delete -d "$mountpoint" -t "$timestamp"
fi
done
If the output is correct, remove the echo in echo sudo tmutil delete -d "$mountpoint" -t "$timestamp"
