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User profile for user: Lucas1948
Lucas1948 Author
User level: Level 1
105 points

How should I manage backup folders I find on my desktop?

I'm trying to free up space on my Mac's hard drive. My storage report says iCloud Drive is hogging about half my space. On my desktop—which, as we know, resides in iCloud— I see three different backup folders. The folder names vary in details—


    1. [MyName]-MacBook-Pro-2 Backup (Last modified November 11, 2017)
    2. MacBook Pro Backup (Last modified October 11, 2024)
    3. [MyName]-MBP Backup (Last modified today)


Can I safely delete the one from 2017? What about the other two? Where are these coming from? (I don't recall creating them myself.) Can or should I move these files to an external drive?


By the way, I run Time Machine on two external drives, and I use an online backup service.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.0

Posted on Oct 29, 2024 8:21 PM

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5 replies
User profile for user: Lucas1948
Lucas1948 Author
User level: Level 1
105 points

Oct 31, 2024 8:34 PM in response to muguy

Thank you, muguy. I've spent hours now moving many, many files from iCloud Drive (a.k.a., Documents) to an EHD. Even so, Storage still reports that iCloud Drive is using 473.73 GB of 494.38 GB available. I suspect that these backup files are hogging the space. So I tried dragging one of them (the one from 2017) to Trash, but Finder tells me that first I have to download the file.


I'm sorry, but I'm a bit uncertain what to do now. Can you—or anyone else—suggest what to do next. Thank you!

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User profile for user: Barney-15E
Barney-15E
User level: Level 10
116,782 points

Nov 1, 2024 2:36 AM in response to Lucas1948

Where did those folders come from?

Time Machine doesn’t do that.

Perhaps it is something generated by the online backup service.

My storage report says iCloud Drive is hogging about half my space

That is your data. It is not iCloud Drive hogging the space, it is you hogging the space. Turning on Desktop & Documents in iCloud Drive just syncs the data to the cloud. By default, everything is stored in both places. If you turn on Optimize Storage, older, little used files are only stored in the cloud.


When you moved them, did you move them or just copy them?

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User profile for user: Lucas1948
Lucas1948 Author
User level: Level 1
105 points

Nov 1, 2024 7:24 AM in response to Lucas1948

Okay—now I'm really confused. I opened one of those backup files and started moving backed-up photos from the backup folder to my EHD. I moved a few photos with no problem. Then I selected a larger group, but Finder told me the operation could not be completed because the disk is full! "Get Info" reports that my 5TB EHD has 4.8TB available!

So I go back to System Settings >> General >> Storage, where I see that Documents now occupy 50.52 MB and iCloud uses just 210MB. That's good, but now System Data is using 355GB, and my drive now virtually full: 493 of 494 GB used! I wanted to send a screenshot of the report, but now my machine says it can't even do that because the drive is full!


Should I reinstall the OS? Erase and rebuild from scratch?

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How should I manage backup folders I find on my desktop?

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