Macbook Disk Space

[Jasmine.C]

Hi,

I currently own a 2017 Macbook Pro (15-inch), macOS Mojave (10.14.2). When checking the storage space under about my mac, it is showing me that I have 208.55GB of Free Space, but when going to disk utility it is showing me that I only have 20.81GB of Free Space. Which one is showing the correct amount of storage space exactly?

Thanks

 

[Mikael H]

The relevant factor is the “Purgable space” in the last screenshot. You technically use almost all space on your drive, but almost half of it is stuff that could be removed with little or no consequence: typically you may have forgotten to empty the trashcan, or you may have iTunes movies you've already watched but that remain on your disk.

From the Apple menu, go to About This Mac and select the Storage tab.
If you press the "Manage..." button, you get some recommendations. Optimize Storage and Empty Trash Automatically are pretty safe to check, especially if you run regular backups as you seem to do.
The Reduce Clutter button allows you to see and select among files you haven't used in some time, that you may consider unimportant enough to delete.

The Store In iCloud option may become expensive for you over time if you have lots of stuff: You need to pay for a large enough iCloud storage plan. That button is Apple's way of saying "screw you" if you tried to save money by purchasing a Mac with the 128 GB storage option. It allows you to continuously pay for your mistake...

 

[Jasmine.C]

Thanks for the reply, I had already emptied the trash can, I also have all my documents files stored in icloud, as to have more storage on my mac. Now I removed some videos which I had, but still didnt help, in fact it somehow decreased the free disk space to 14.83 GB as well as increased the purgable space

 

[ChrisA]

Thanks for the reply, I had already emptied the trash can, I also have all my documents files stored in icloud, as to have more storage on my mac. Now I removed some videos which I had, but still didnt help, in fact it somehow decreased the free disk space to 14.83 GB as well as increased the purgable space

This is an APFS volume. The file system keeps lots of extra stuff around, like old versions of all your files. This is actually a good thing. Also the Mac keeps copies of the files you have in iCloud if there is room on your disk.

It is all "purgeable". And Mac OS will trash it if it needs the space.

 

[Jasmine.C]

Is there a way to remove these files though, as I need to download a game but dont have enough disk space at the moment since I only have 14GB of space available.

 

[ChrisA]

Try
preference->iCloud and then iCloud Drive, options and there is a checkbox. You can choose to keep copies of all the iCLoud files ion your Mac or not. I think the default is to keep local copies so you have access to your data when offline.

 

[Jasmine.C]

Is there a way to remove 'Purgeable Space' though as that is what is taking up most of the space.
[doublepost=1546162251][/doublepost]Update: Storage problem solved, used this method : https://www.jackenhack.com/mac-os-remove-purgeable-high-sierra/

 

[ChrisA]

Is there a way to remove 'Purgeable Space' though as that is what is taking up most of the space.
[doublepost=1546162251][/doublepost]Update: Storage problem solved, used this method : https://www.jackenhack.com/mac-os-remove-purgeable-high-sierra/

Yes, but look what you did: You needed space so that you could add more files so by using the above method you added files until Mac OS was forced to remove purgeable data then you deleted these new files to make space and in the newly freed space, you put your new game.

You could have simply copied the game and Mac OS would have removed the purgeable data to make room for it.

You can also if you like tell Mac OS not to keep this data on your local drive. If you don't it will use all of the available disk space on the Mac to store the information it "thinks" you are most likely to access. There is no harm in this because Mac OS will purge this whenever it runs out of space.

The link above shows you how this works

 

[MyopicPaideia]

FYI - I had this problem as well - SUPER FRUSTRATING! I had just deleted over 280GB of old iOS backups to clean out the SSD on my iMac, but it just created this huge cache of purgeable space that I couldn't remove. Downloaded Daisy Disk and it has the ability to remove the purgeable space directly. But it wasn't working! Even more frustrating!!

Then I noticed tat I was in the middle of a time machine backup. I stopped it and tried again with Daisy Disk. This time it worked! Woohoo!! Reclaimed almost 300GB of a 512GB SSD...why Apple....why!?!?