Back up with T Machine not possible with my external hard drive

[John McClean]

I do not keep my ext hard drive hooked up permanently to Time Machine but do the occasional back up. I can't back up now as there is only 188Gb free space (on a 500Gb drive) and there seems no way to erase what is on the drive. Two icons appear in Utilities and when I reveal those in Finder the back up folders appear empty despite the fact that Get Info reveals they are fairly full. Any suggestions as to how I can clean up the drive prior to a back up?

 

[John McClean]

Have solved the problem and erased files on ext hard drive and performed new back up in case anyone was going to offer suggestions.

 

[tompatrick]

Have solved the problem and erased files on ext hard drive and performed new back up in case anyone was going to offer suggestions.

Did you lost previous TM backup after erasing?

 

[oldscribe]

Hi John,
Once you plug external drive and select for backup TM should erase oldest backup in order to make space for new one automatically, and give a notification box telling you.