iMazing backup - how to delete

[MacInWin]

I discovered that iMazing is taking up 90 GB on my internal SSD for backups of my iPhone and iPad, plus my wife's iPhone and iPad. I had used iMazing to update to iOS 12 and in that process it took backups of each device.

Wanting the 90 GB back, I looked into the options and moved the location of the backups to an external drive, then made a new backup of my iPhone and iPad there.

Now I want to delete the old backups for all four devices from my internal drive, but in iMazing they no longer appear because I've moved the backup location. Logical, but useless for me.

There are dire warnings at the iMazing site about manually deleting backups and the resulting loss of all integrity of the backups, so I am reluctant to use Finder to get my space back.

The curious thing is that if I do a Get Info on the folder with the old backups at /Users/<me>/Library/Application Support/iMazing, the folder shows 111 GB used, but on the external drive a Get Info on the iMazing.backups folder shows 248GB now used for the backups. I don't mind the amount of space taken on the external, it is a huge drive, but I do want my 90 GB of backup back on the internal. I think the other 21GB must be the applications and maybe operating system information, but it's not clear from the documentation.

So, all you experts at iMazing, how do I get rid of the backups I don't want? And just for curiosity's sake, is there any explanation for the huge difference in space taken by the backups internally and externally stored?

 

[ferrarr]

I don't use iMazing, but it sounds like it copied all the needed info from the old location to the new location. Maybe they have a discussion forum on their website?

 

[MacInWin]

Bob, I did send them an email, but thought maybe one of the gurus here would know what to do. As it was backing up, it didn't appear to be copying the data from the old location to the new, and when I look at the backups in iMazing, only one is showing instead of the there or four that were there before the move. From that, I take it the backups in the new location are full backups. But that's a calculated guess based on what it reported as it did the backups.

 

[ferrarr]

Oh, ok. Good luck.

I assumed, like iTunes, when you "consolidate" the library it moves everything to the new location.

 

[pm-r]

So, all you experts at iMazing, how do I get rid of the backups I don't want?

I'd probably just select the backup you want to delete in iMazing.app's window and do a right-click and select "Delete Backup" or "Delete This Backup".

I would think this should work, but do double check you will NOT need the backup at a later date.

And just for curiosity's sake, is there any explanation for the huge difference in space taken by the backups internally and externally stored?

As for that part of your question, I just don't understand what you mean. Maybe provide some descriptive details as to what you mean.






- Patrick
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[MacInWin]

The challenge was i couldn't see the backups in iMazing. The help line responded to my email, showed me how to get to them and I've now deleted them. Unfortunately, the space on the drive wasn't recovered. Now will need to see how to fix that. Nothing in the trash, and Get Info shows the folder as having shrunk by 90 GB, so the backups were deleted, I think. A reboot didn't recover the space. May need to boot into Recovery and run First Aid on the drive.