shamalk

Q: Mac OS X 10.8.2 Shows wrong available disk space

Hi,

The free disk space (available disk space) reported in Disk Utility, About My Mac and Finder is inconsitent. I have attached a screenshot. Please help me to resolve this issue.

 

Notice that the free space reported:

  • About This Mac - 26.75 GB
  • Disk Utility - 26.75
  • Finder - 120.97 GB

 

If you add all the used space as shown in 'About This Mac' it adds up to a 142.38 GB which is greater than my disk size 120.47 GB.

 

Calculation: 3.41 (Audio) + 2.97 (Movies) + 2.01 (Photos) + 13.02 (Apps) + 94.22 (Backups) + 26.75 (Free) = 142.38 GB.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Screen Shot 2012-10-25 at 3.51.15 PM.png

MacBook Air, MID 2012

Posted on Oct 25, 2012 1:23 AM

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Q: Mac OS X 10.8.2 Shows wrong available disk space

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  • by Soulfulwriter,

    Soulfulwriter Soulfulwriter Jun 13, 2014 5:22 PM in response to lubnah
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 13, 2014 5:22 PM in response to lubnah

    Hi,

     

    I confirmed. About This Mac > More Info > Storage, toggling the Time Machine switch off then on again fixes everything.

     

    Thank you.

  • by Nosferius,

    Nosferius Nosferius Nov 6, 2014 3:23 AM in response to lubnah
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 6, 2014 3:23 AM in response to lubnah

    I've also confirmed this trick works for OS 10.9 Mavericks

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Nov 6, 2014 4:01 AM in response to Nosferius
    Level 7 (30,924 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 6, 2014 4:01 AM in response to Nosferius

    Nosferius wrote:

     

    I've also confirmed this trick works for OS 10.9 Mavericks

     

    Please note what I said about this "trick" back in February:

     

    That's because that deletes your local snapshots. So, really, you're compromising your backup system in order to make two numbers that really don't matter that much agree with each other. That doesn't make much sense.

  • by Nosferius,

    Nosferius Nosferius Nov 7, 2014 7:34 AM in response to thomas_r.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 7, 2014 7:34 AM in response to thomas_r.

    Hi Thomas,

     

    In my case it concerned a mac that was imaged using a default image we have here and was for some reason giving the issue as shown in the original post. The mac was not back-upped yet nor did it need one so I could do this without thinking but of course I would think twice when I'd have this issue on a mac with a lot of user data on it

     

    Of course if someone has a resolution for this problem that uses a different method I'd love to hear it.

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Nov 7, 2014 7:39 AM in response to Nosferius
    Level 7 (30,924 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 7, 2014 7:39 AM in response to Nosferius

    Nosferius wrote:

     

    Of course if someone has a resolution for this problem that uses a different method I'd love to hear it.

     

    You're still thinking about it wrong. As has already been said, this is not a "problem," it's simply a difference in how different programs report free disk space. There is no "solution," per se, except to be aware of the difference and why it exists.

     

    If you are ever in a situation where you need to keep track of every megabyte of disk space, you probably need a larger disk. We are long past the days when you could reliably expect to know exactly how much free space there is.

  • by snacks,

    snacks snacks Dec 2, 2014 9:15 PM in response to thomas_r.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 2, 2014 9:15 PM in response to thomas_r.

    Thomas_r,

     

    I understand what you are saying, and I read the link to describe local snapshots. 

     

    I have same problem with Disk Utility and finder not matching up, but they don't mach up by more than 250 GB.  What prompted this was tech tool gave me a warning for less than 10% disk space, but I have close to 30% actually available... I went to Disk utility to see what was up and it failed verification, so I ran repair from a recovery startup.... it failed.  I switched off the time machine, and back on, restarted into recovery and repaired, success.

     

    So the question is, based on your warning, why wouldn't I want to delete the local snapshots if they are causing a problem, especially when I have proper backups on two time capsules?

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Dec 3, 2014 3:51 AM in response to snacks
    Level 7 (30,924 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 3, 2014 3:51 AM in response to snacks

    snacks wrote:

     

    So the question is, based on your warning, why wouldn't I want to delete the local snapshots if they are causing a problem, especially when I have proper backups on two time capsules?

     

    What you just described is entirely different from wiping the local snapshots just to make two meaningless numbers match up.

     

    However, I'd warn you that what you observed may be the result of the initial stages of disk failure, and really had nothing to do with the local snapshots except for the fact that removing those files made it possible for Disk Utility to repair, because the corrupted parts of the disk happened to involve the local snapshot files. Fortunately, it sounds like you already have two backups... but you may want to consider making a third, using a different backup tool (like Carbon Copy Cloner), just to be on the safe side.

  • by rinnovare,

    rinnovare rinnovare Jan 7, 2015 11:56 AM in response to tim098
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2015 11:56 AM in response to tim098

    Toggle time machine fixed the problem, THANK YOU

  • by danielbelum,

    danielbelum danielbelum Mar 26, 2015 2:45 PM in response to Soulfulwriter
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 26, 2015 2:45 PM in response to Soulfulwriter

    Still the right answer - Time Machine on/off. Wish I started here

  • by theHillbillyGeek,

    theHillbillyGeek theHillbillyGeek Apr 9, 2015 9:12 PM in response to shamalk
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 9, 2015 9:12 PM in response to shamalk

    I just updated to 10.10.3, and updated XCode on my MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)

    The finder status bar showed 703TB; about this Mac shows the "real" 500 GB hard drive size, but the "703TB backups fill the display bar.

    I toggled Time Machine, and the finder windows now show 240GB free...

    The app store shows the iTunes 12.1.2 update and the OS X Updates, but not the XCode update.... weird.

    hard drive.png

  • by Phil 1960,

    Phil 1960 Phil 1960 Apr 11, 2015 4:00 AM in response to Van4130
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 4:00 AM in response to Van4130

    But only after doing a restart while time machine was turned off.

  • by hillbillygeek,

    hillbillygeek hillbillygeek Apr 11, 2015 6:52 AM in response to theHillbillyGeek
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 6:52 AM in response to theHillbillyGeek

    Now I seem to have a PetaByte Hard Drive... who knew?

     

    harddrive1.png

  • by Phil 1960,

    Phil 1960 Phil 1960 Apr 11, 2015 7:00 AM in response to hillbillygeek
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 7:00 AM in response to hillbillygeek

    I had exactly the same issue with my MacBook Air. I turned the Time Machine OFF, restarted and turned on the Time Machine again.

    This fixed it.

  • by hillbillygeek,

    hillbillygeek hillbillygeek Apr 11, 2015 7:42 AM in response to hillbillygeek
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 7:42 AM in response to hillbillygeek

    OK: after turning off time machine, and a restart, disk space display's back to normal. Was fun having a 2 Petabyte HD for a while, tho

  • by Phil 1960,

    Phil 1960 Phil 1960 Apr 11, 2015 7:47 AM in response to hillbillygeek
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 11, 2015 7:47 AM in response to hillbillygeek

    The only issue is that this does not seem to be a permanent solution, after a while my "PetaByte" drive reappeared and I had to apply the same fix again. Let's hope the guys at Apple have this sorted in the next update.

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