I screwed up manually deleting TimeMachine backup My TimeMachine backups need to be deleted. I should have been wise and followed this advice, deleting the backups from within TimeMachine.
Can&#39;t delete old TimeMachine backup

I didn't do that. I manually deleted all backups by dragging the contents of my backup external hardrive into the trash. Now nothing has changed except for the fact that I can't delete anything from TimeMachine. How do I get the program to recognize that I deleted the file? Or did I not delete enough of the right files?
Never manually delete Time Machine files or directories from the Finder. Time Machine makes heavy use of directory hard-linking, which the Finder doesn't really handle correctly. Chances are your backup is damaged now, making the safest option being a wipe of your backup disk, and making a new backup.