I have deleted massive files on Mac OS so why does available storage not increase?

[Minxy]

I'm beginning to think there is a fundamental flaw with Mac OS because I've had this with non-beta versions.

I'm using a Mac Mini with Catalina. I've deleted a good 40 GB+ of space which I need to edit a video. However the space doesn't show up as available. Previously when I've had this happen using Mac the only way it's remedied is by updating the Mac OS software where it seems to see it and give the space back. I don't know when the next Catalina update will be, how do I get the space back?

 

[Ritsuka]

macOS uses apfs snapshots for Time Machine, and it makes one before a system update. Snapshots are usually removed when you connect the Time Machine disk or after one day of a successful update.

You can use tmutil in Terminal to check and delete them manually.

tmutil listlocalsnapshotdates /

to display all the snapshots, and

tmutil deletelocalsnapshots

plus the date of the snapshot to delete one.

 

[benthewraith]

I'm beginning to think there is a fundamental flaw with Mac OS because I've had this with non-beta versions.

I'm using a Mac Mini with Catalina. I've deleted a good 40 GB+ of space which I need to edit a video. However the space doesn't show up as available. Previously when I've had this happen using Mac the only way it's remedied is by updating the Mac OS software where it seems to see it and give the space back. I don't know when the next Catalina update will be, how do I get the space back?

It's local snapshots backing up so that when you connect Time Machine you'll still have time machine backups of the file. MacOS will also purge the local snapshots when space is needed.

EDITED for clarity

 

[Howard2k]

I think you can "rush" the process a little by ensuring your backup drives are updated and then go to About This Mac and then Storage. It does the analysis on the drive and seems to take that opportunity to do clean-up too.

I'm running Mojave, but if I understand your concern it's not specific to Catalina.

 

[Minxy]

I think you can "rush" the process a little by ensuring your backup drives are updated and then go to About This Mac and then Storage. It does the analysis on the drive and seems to take that opportunity to do clean-up too.

I'm running Mojave, but if I understand your concern it's not specific to Catalina.

Thanks for your answers. Yeah, definitely not Catalina specific because I've had this before. But I'm wondering now if it could be a beta specific issue - but I don't think it is as I've seen on the internet that others have the same problem.

The About this Mac didn't work for me. I've gone in to Storage multiple times and checked it.