How to Delete a Local Time Machine Snapshot on MacOS

Time Machine is a powerful backup tool on macOS that automatically creates local snapshots of your data in addition to regular backups on an external drive. These local snapshots can be helpful, but they can also take up valuable disk space. If you need to delete a local Time Machine snapshot on your Mac, follow these steps.

Step 1: Open Terminal

To delete a local snapshot, you’ll need to use Terminal, which is a command-line interface on macOS. You can find Terminal in the “Utilities” folder within the “Applications” folder.

Step 2: List Local Snapshots

Before you delete a local snapshot, it’s a good idea to list the available snapshots to ensure you’re targeting the correct one. In Terminal, enter the following command:

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tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

This command will display a list of local snapshots along with their dates and times.

Step 3: Delete the Local Snapshot

Once you’ve identified the local snapshot you want to delete, use the following command to delete it (replace YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS with the actual date and time of the snapshot you want to remove):

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sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS

For example, if you want to delete a snapshot created on March 1, 2018, at 00:20:10, you would enter:

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sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2018-03-01-002010

You’ll be prompted to enter your administrator password because the sudo command requires elevated privileges.

Step 4: Verify Deletion

After entering your password, Terminal will process the deletion of the snapshot. Once it’s complete, you can use the tmutil listlocalsnapshots / command again to confirm that the snapshot has been successfully deleted.

That’s it! You’ve successfully deleted a local Time Machine snapshot on your Mac, freeing up disk space for other purposes. Remember that local snapshots are typically automatically managed by macOS, so you may not need to delete them manually unless you have specific reasons to do so.