You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Time machine backups

I have recently bought a brand new 2TB portable hard drive to backup my computer and it wont back up because of insufficient space.


My macbook pro is only 121GB


MacBook, macOS 10.12

Posted on Jun 9, 2021 6:13 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 10, 2021 8:30 AM

It is your internal drive, not the new external, that is the problem. That advisory indicates TM needs to write a file to your internal drive ("source drive") before making the backup, and there is not enough room on the internal drive to allow that.


You'll need to offload several GB of files to a thumb drive or other non-Time Machine device before continuing.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 10, 2021 8:30 AM in response to ilizzzyyy

It is your internal drive, not the new external, that is the problem. That advisory indicates TM needs to write a file to your internal drive ("source drive") before making the backup, and there is not enough room on the internal drive to allow that.


You'll need to offload several GB of files to a thumb drive or other non-Time Machine device before continuing.

Time machine backups

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.