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Lots of "Cleanup Failed" for Time Machine files - just delete those backups?

cnixon

My work email account was hijacked by spammers, which was my first clue that something was wrong.  At my website host's recommendation, I installed and ran Sophos anti-virus.  I came up with 24 threats detected and clicked to clean them up.  All came back with "Cleanup Failed" messages, and all were from my Time Machine backup.  I watched the video on how to removed threats from Time Machine, but I can't find these threat files when I do searches in Time Machine.  Can I just delete a bunch of backups going quite a ways back, and will doing so remove the threats? Thanks in advance for any help.  

:1016065


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    Yes, you can delete the backups.  Or exclude the Time Machine from any regular scan you run and clear the items detected from the quarantine list and hence ignore what's in there in future - this speeds up the scan too.  

    If the files are in the backup then they can't hurt the running system.  You'd have to restore them from the back up and even then the on-access scanner would kick in and block access.  Chances are they are Windows-only threats and so can't hurt your Mac.

    :1016077

     - - - - - - - - - - - -

    Communities Moderator, SOPHOS
    Knowledge Base  |  @SophosSupport  |  Video tutorials
    Remember to like a post.  If a post (on a question thread) solves your question use the 'This helped me' link.

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  • 0

    Yes, you can delete the backups.  Or exclude the Time Machine from any regular scan you run and clear the items detected from the quarantine list and hence ignore what's in there in future - this speeds up the scan too.  

    If the files are in the backup then they can't hurt the running system.  You'd have to restore them from the back up and even then the on-access scanner would kick in and block access.  Chances are they are Windows-only threats and so can't hurt your Mac.

    :1016077

     - - - - - - - - - - - -

    Communities Moderator, SOPHOS
    Knowledge Base  |  @SophosSupport  |  Video tutorials
    Remember to like a post.  If a post (on a question thread) solves your question use the 'This helped me' link.

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