External Hard Drive
Hello,
I have an external hard drive for my mac computer. It is a G Drive Slim with 500 GB of space on it. I'm trying to back up my computer and it's telling me there is not enough room on the hard drive to back up (via time machine) so noting is backing up. I've deleted pretty much everything on the external hard drive and put it in my trash, but the space available does not change. Why is the available space not changing even after I trash the files? Help....
I have an external hard drive for my mac computer. It is a G Drive Slim with 500 GB of space on it. I'm trying to back up my computer and it's telling me there is not enough room on the hard drive to back up (via time machine) so noting is backing up. I've deleted pretty much everything on the external hard drive and put it in my trash, but the space available does not change. Why is the available space not changing even after I trash the files? Help....
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You can only delete the entire trash. So if there is stuff in the trash you don't want to delete, move it out of the trash into a folder, then delete the rest.
This is why it is a very bad idea to use your trash as an archive. Don't put anything in the trash that you don't actually want to delete. Save it elsewhere.
This is why it is a very bad idea to use your trash as an archive. Don't put anything in the trash that you don't actually want to delete. Save it elsewhere.
ASKER
I just deleted my trash and it's backing up now. I will confirm with you that I'm all set as soon as it's done. Thank you...
so in windows you can selectivly delete parts and pieces
and as mentioned trash is trash....
on Mac can do selective with 3rd party tools
imho - best to delete all
and as mentioned trash is trash....
on Mac can do selective with 3rd party tools
imho - best to delete all
On a Mac, you can selectively delete files via the command line.
open a Terminal Window and type the following commands, replacing VOLUME_NAME with the name of your external drive.
cd /Volumes/VOLUME_NAME/
rm -r .Trash/*
You could also do a quick format of the external disk, or just remove everything from the external drive.
rm -r /Volumes/VOLUME_NAME/*
rm -r /Volumes/VOLUME_NAME/.??*
I don't like using the Trash Folder so I mostly delete items via the command line. On Windows you can do a control+Delete to force a delete without putting it in the recycle bin. There is a 3rd party tool for the mac to force a delete without going to the Trash if you aren't comfortable with the command line.
https://github.com/jtbandes/delete-immediately/downloads
open a Terminal Window and type the following commands, replacing VOLUME_NAME with the name of your external drive.
cd /Volumes/VOLUME_NAME/
rm -r .Trash/*
You could also do a quick format of the external disk, or just remove everything from the external drive.
rm -r /Volumes/VOLUME_NAME/*
rm -r /Volumes/VOLUME_NAME/.??*
I don't like using the Trash Folder so I mostly delete items via the command line. On Windows you can do a control+Delete to force a delete without putting it in the recycle bin. There is a 3rd party tool for the mac to force a delete without going to the Trash if you aren't comfortable with the command line.
https://github.com/jtbandes/delete-immediately/downloads
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