I used to backup my iPhone to an external drive using the instructions here but now that I am backing up to my internal hard drive (the default location) I would like to delete the old backup. I was somehow successful at deleting the data within the directories, so it no longer takes up any space, but I can’t seem to delete the directory itself. If the directory is in the Trash and I go to empty it, it tells me the sub-directories are in use:
If the path is stored in $directory, whether I use rm -rf $directory or sudo rm -rf $directory, I get a Permission denied error for each sub-directory:
rm: /Volumes/VOLUME/iPhoneBackup/Backup/00008110-000G309221F0401E/61: Permission denied
As far as permissions go, I am the owner of the top level directory and each sub-directory…
I should also note that I looked for uchg (immutable) flags, and although there were none I used sudo chflags -R nouchg $directory which had no effect. I also used sudo chmod -RN $directory to remove ACLs in case there were any, also with no effect.
If I use ls -@AOelR $directory to get file flags, ACLs, and extended attributes I get this:
drwxr-xr-x 3 username staff - 96 Apr 22 13:41 Backup
iPhoneBackup/Backup:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 258 username staff - 8256 Apr 22 13:18 00008110-000G309221F0401E
iPhoneBackup/Backup/00008110-000G309221F0401E:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 26 username staff - 832 Jan 13 2024 00
drwxr-xr-x 28 username staff - 896 Jan 13 2024 01
...[same results for each directory]
iPhoneBackup/Backup/00008110-000G309221F0401E/00:
total 0
...[same results for each directory]
How do I get rid of this directory?