macOS 26 bricked my AirPort Time Capsule

For the previous decade, my Apple Time Capsule has faithfully backed up my Mac. I’ve been by way of a number of upgrades over the previous decade—my present machine is an M3 Max MacBook Professional—and I’ve by no means had a problem with my Time Capsule. It’s been one of the dependable units I’ve ever owned, and I’ve barely needed to even give it some thought since I purchased it in 2016.

Till just lately, that’s. I don’t know the precise date, however I put in macOS Tahoe 26.2 someday close to the top of 2025. I hoped it might repair the lingering points I had with Highlight, however in any other case didn’t assume a lot of it till I obtained a message from Time Machine telling me my backup disk was full.

I’ve had occasional minor points with Time Machine backups over time, however they’ve normally been mounted by merely operating the backup once more. This was a brand new persistent error that appeared to point one thing was truly improper with my backup system. So I began to analyze the problem, and the method ended up bricking my Time Capsule.

Time retains on spinning

Apple launched Time Capsule in 2008 as “a backup equipment that routinely and wirelessly backs up all the things on a number of Macs.” On the time, it was a novel idea, combining an AirPort base station with a “server-grade” exhausting drive. It was basically a private NAS drive earlier than private NAS drives have been a factor.

I owned a pair over time, and earlier than Apple ultimately discontinued Time Capsule in 2018, I purchased one of many final fashions ever made, the 802.11ac (WiFi 5) AirPort Time Capsule mini tower. It’s been operating ever since.

I’ve a 2TB Time Capsule backing up a Mac with about 250GB stuffed up, so area has by no means been a problem. Furthermore, I’ve been utilizing the identical MacBook since Sonoma, so there’s no purpose why it ought to all of the sudden run out of area. I routinely clear out all backups when upgrading to a brand new OS and begin recent, and I maintain the majority of my information backed up on a 2TB iCloud Drive, so the bodily area must be greater than sufficient.

So I went to my AirPort settings to examine my Time Capsule. However it wouldn’t settle for my password, the identical password that I’ve used for no less than 5 years and have saved in my password supervisor. 

OK, that was bizarre, however nonetheless, I chalked it as much as person error. I reset my Time Capsule utilizing a paper clip and adjusted the password. I checked the area, and it stated it had lower than a gig obtainable. Additionally unusual. My Mac isn’t anyplace close to 2TB, I don’t maintain outdated backups round, and Time Machine is meant to routinely delete the oldest backups to clear area on a full disk and carry on operating.

Sadly, there’s no method to see what’s filling up a Time Machine “Information” file, so I used to be left with one possibility: Erase the drive.

Tahoe’s revenge

Apple introduced final summer time that it might now not assist AirPort or different Time Capsule disks for Time Machine backups with macOS 27 coming later this yr as a result of deprecated assist for Apple Submitting Protocol.  So I used to be already getting ready for the day once I needed to retire my 10-year-old drive with a view to keep on the most recent model of macOS. 

I’ll admit that 10 years is a very long time to make use of any machine, not to mention a 3.5-inch SATA drive. However I didn’t count on any points with Tahoe. I assumed I might clear the drive and easily begin over whereas amassing eight or so months of backups till macOS 27 got here alongside in September.

Foundry

At this level, I most likely ought to have put two and two collectively and realized one thing was improper. However considerably naively, I pressed on.

Erasing the Time Capsule was easy. The Disks tab in AirPort Utility has a “Fast Erase” possibility that takes only a few seconds. I clicked by way of the usual, “This can’t be undone” dialogue field, however didn’t get any warnings about Tahoe particularly. The sunshine went from amber to inexperienced, confirmed I now had 2TB of area, and all appeared nicely.

After I went to arrange the disk within the Time Machine settings, nonetheless, I obtained a brand new message: “‘Information’ can solely be used if it incorporates current Time Machine backups for this Mac. The subsequent main model of macOS will now not assist Time Capsule disks for Time Machine backups.”

Foundry

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The second half I already knew. The primary half was data that might have been helpful earlier than I erased my disk. I’ve looked for an answer and I’ve reached the conclusion that my Time Capsule backup disk is basically a brick. To make use of it I’d have to downgrade to Sequoia, again up my machine, improve to Tahoe, and proceed the backups till the disk stuffed up once more, at which level I’d be again the place I began.

The seek for an answer

To recap: Both a bug or a characteristic in macOS Tahoe 26.2 precipitated my Time Machine backups to eat up all of the obtainable area on my Time Capsule disk, and erasing it rendered it ineffective. I’m nonetheless undecided if the password situation was associated to Tahoe, however I believe it was. (A reader reached out to inform me that that they had the same situation with outsized backups in macOS 26.2, however the situation was resolved with the 26.3 replace this week. Too unhealthy I didn’t wait.)

However it doesn’t matter—since Apple has already introduced the Time Capsule received’t work with future variations of macOS, I’m left with a retro paperweight.

So after a decade-plus of easy backups with Time Capsule, I’m left to discover a new answer. Macworld has a roundup of one of the best exterior exhausting drives or SSDs for wired Time Machine backups, in addition to one of the best NAS drives. There are some nice choices in there, however I wish to discover one of the best alternative for Time Capsule, so I’ll be testing a couple of wi-fi drives on my Mac with Time Machine to attempt to discover essentially the most inexpensive various. So keep tuned.