Missing Storge space

[ytech]

Hey,
I was looking at the storage tab in "about this mac", and I noticed there is inequality in the used storage space;
storage in use is by category:
1. Apps- 26.74 Gb
2.Photos 1.53Gb
3. audio 129.9 Mb
4. movies 75.4Mb
5. back up 33.2 Mb
---total 29.48969 Gb---
but at the top it says that 228.02Gb of 250.14Gb is free (which spouse to mean that 22.12Gb is in use)
so which one is the correct amount of storage in use ? 22.12/29.48 Gb, is there any reason causes this inequality?

Thanks

2015 Macbook Air 256gb running el capitan 10.11.2

 

[Erdbeertorte]

That thing is crap and does not work properly. Just ignore it and have a look at those threads. Mainly the first one.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/5k-retina-el-capitan-flash-storage-problem.1947251/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-find-other-storage-on-macbook.1947430/

 

[ytech]

That thing is crap and does not work properly. Just ignore it and have a look at those threads. Mainly the first one.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/5k-retina-el-capitan-flash-storage-problem.1947251/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-find-other-storage-on-macbook.1947430/

Hey,
Thanks for the reply.
Is there any way to find out the real storage amount that is used and free?

 

[Erdbeertorte]

Is there any way to find out the real storage amount that is used and free?

You can see it in the Finder's Information window (select the drive and press cmd+i) and in Disk Utility in the white section and/or click the Info button (but select the partition before, not the drive):

There are also some terminal commands like "df -H" or "diskutil info /".

With "diskutil list" you can also see how much space the hidden partitions take:

 

[ytech]

attached screenshot describes my problem, I also noticed i don't have "other" storage category...

 

[Erdbeertorte]

attached screenshot describes my problem, I also noticed i don't have "other" storage category...

Like @Weaselboy always says just ignore it. It's messed up and nearly always wrong displayed. Maybe "First Aid" in Disk Utility can fix it or reindexing spotlight with "sudo mdutil -E /" in the Terminal (could take some hours until it's displayed correctly after doing that and might be wrong anyway).

 

[Weaselboy]

attached screenshot describes my problem, I also noticed i don't have "other" storage category...

This is odd. Like Erdbeertorte mentioned, the categories are almost always all messed up... but I have never seen one with no Other section at all (even if it is wrong). Also, usually even though the categories are wrong, the free space is usually correct.

How about do a command-r boot to recovery and from there run a Disk Utility first aid on the drive. Then reboot and reindex Spotlight like Erdbeertorte suggested and tell us how things are afterward.

 

[ytech]

Test said that the Disk is fine.. this is the storage sections in disk utility..
maybe 'other' is included in 'apps' in the latest osx update ? (10.11.2)

 

[Weaselboy]

Test said that the Disk is fine.. this is the storage sections in disk utility..
maybe 'other' is included in 'apps' in the latest osx update ? (10.11.2)

Other is still there on 10.11.2. I don't think you waited long enough there for the reindex to complete.

Open Activity Monitor and go to the CPU tab and search for mdworker and I suspect you will still see it churning along there reindexing. mdworker will drop back to zero CPU% once the reindex is done.

 

[ytech]

I am doing it now.
Is there any reason to be concerned about this?

 

[Weaselboy]

I am doing it now.
Is there any reason to be concerned about this?

Like I mentioned, it is odd you are not seeing Other at all, but let's wait until after the reindex to panic.

 

[ytech]

Like I mentioned, it is odd you are not seeing Other at all, but let's wait until after the reindex to panic.

I think that the 'apps' has to do something with the 'other'. I can tell for sure that i don't have 27Gb of apps!
reindex is running...

 

[Erdbeertorte]

Like I mentioned, it is odd you are not seeing Other at all, but let's wait until after the reindex to panic.

It's really odd, I never saw it without an "Other" section too. But since most of the OS itself is normally in "Other" and your Mac is running fine, there is really no need to worry.

 

[Weaselboy]

I think that the 'apps' has to do something with the 'other'. I can tell for sure that i don't have 27Gb of apps!
reindex is running...

Those numbers will be all wrong until the reindex is done, so don't worry about what it says now.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

@ytech

Look at my "SSD2" in both views. It doesn't make any sense but I just don't care about it.

 

[ytech]

Hey,
I am afraid the reindex via terminal is not working properly, can someone explain hot to do reindex from system preferences?

 

[Erdbeertorte]

Did you try Disk Aid in the recovery partition's Disk Utility for both (the whole drive and your "Macintosh HD")?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314


Spotlight: I don't think it will do anything other than the Terminal command, but if you like to try it:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716


Or just activate FileVault, then everything get's encrypted. Might be kind of similar like reformatting, but without deleting anything. I have it always activated:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837


Maybe deleting some cache files or whatever can help also. There are applications for rebuilding, repairing, cleaning etc. everything.
But you should rather ask @Weaselboy what is harmless, how to do it otherwise and if it makes any sense at all instead of using something like this and praying your Mac won't explode :

Or just ignore that crappy Storage display.

 

[ytech]

After reindex via settings, i got more realistic info and... 'other' came back!
Now, I did a disk aid in the UI and not via recovery mode, test came out good..
Should i also do it via recovery mode?

 

[Weaselboy]

Should i also do it via recovery mode?

Nah... you are fine. Sometimes if there are errors found you need to go to recovery to fix them, but since no errors were found you are good to go.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

@ytech

That looks really better. I am happy it worked for you that way.

The Terminal is sometimes a little tricky for a normal users. There are many possibilities that could have caused it did not work.

Some Terminal commands don't even give any output. For example when you just forget the / (what is important to reindex the whole drive), I don't see if it's not doing anything at all or just reindexing the current directory (with or without subfolders?).
I don't know myself what the first command in my screenshot did.

About a year ago I did not even know the simplest Unix commands. And typed in things like "dir" instead of "ls" or "cd.." instead of "cd ..", got errors and had to google for everything.

Nah... you are fine. Sometimes if there are errors found you need to go to recovery to fix them, but since no errors were found you are good to go.

Exactly!

Don't worry. Your drive is not damaged. I never really thought that.

It was just a suggestion if spotlight reindexing does not help. Because Disk Utility can fix some little harmless mess in the file system. You don't even see if it repaired something (what does it very often) when you don't look in the details. Only if there is a serious damage you get an error.

And when you start it from Recovery it is able to do more because nothing is in use and can't be changed.