After emptying Trash, the available space on my MBP SSD doesn't change

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After emptying Trash, the available space on my MBP SSD doesn't change

I have a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017) with a 1TB SSD, and when I empty the Trash (usually >5GB at a time), the space available as reported in the Finder as well as in the Manage Storage pane *doesn't change*, however the "System" size *continues to increase*.

For example, just now, before deleting about 57.6GB from my Trash, my available space was about 575GB. But after emptying the trash, the available space is showing 572.4GB.

Can someone confirm to me that this is a normal function of the SSD, and that reclaimed space available on the SSD is only released as the remaining available space gets lower?? I seem to remember reading that somewhere a while back, but can't find any confirmation of it.

If this is normal, so be it. But I can't seem to find any information about this behavior.

This is a Manage Storage screenshot after the above-mentioned Trash deletion.

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 14, 2019 2:54 PM

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Answer 1

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HWTech

Level 9

55,838 points

Jul 14, 2019 6:09 PM in response to seperry1

The best way to know how much free space you have is by using "Get Info" on the volume or a folder.

The APFS file system has two cases where deleting an item may not reclaim any space:

1) You copied the file(s) elsewhere on the same drive. With APFS, there is only a single physical copy of the data, so when you delete one "copy" you are only deleting that particular link/reference to it. Only when all copies of the file have been deleted will you recover storage space.

2) APFS file system can use snapshots which is usually used by backup software such as Time Machine. Other apps may also make snapshots. I believe macOS will make system snapshots when performing updates. These snapshots will either automatically be removed after a certain time period or whenever storage space is needed. You can see the current snapshots using the Terminal command line:

tmutil  listlocalsnapshots  /

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Answer 2

Jul 14, 2019 6:46 PM in response to seperry1

Some of these displays with categories are based on Spotlight Index data. Spotlight is really good an adding things to the index, but not so good at removing them when you do things like re-Install MacOS.

You can ask spotlight to re-Index your drive easily, then wait about an hour for it to complete and see if it corrects the sizes.

How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

Typical system and Applications takes on the order of 40GB. Unless you KNOW that there are some big boat anchors in there, that 296 GB does not look correct. There are some problems that can develop where certain databases are expanded far beyond what is reasonable. To find out about that, all that is needed is the name of the gigantic file.

that and other issues can be found with programs like OmniDsikSweeper. Be sure you give it Admin access so it can look at everything.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more

.

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Answer 3

seperry1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 15, 2019 12:26 AM in response to HWTech

Thanks for this info. I ran this command line you suggested, tmutil listlocalsnapshots /, and found 22 snapshots. I then ran this command line for each snapshot with the date at the end and deleted each one: sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots

This opened up about 98GB!

Thanks for the help. FYI, this article was also helpful in understanding how to delete the snapshots: https://www.macworld.com/article/3260635/how-to-delete-time-machine-snapshots-on-your-mac.html

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Answer 4

Jul 15, 2019 6:22 AM in response to seperry1

That is an interesting article, but it ignores the far more obvious and more practical solution:

Just connect your Time machine backup drive and all the snapshots will get removed automatically while your backup is brought up-to-date..

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Answer 5

seperry1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 15, 2019 7:21 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I actually did that. Prior to using Terminal to search for the Snapshots, I ran a Time Machine backup. It was after that that I found the snapshots.

And really, it was nice that I was able to reclaim some space, but the continuing issue of available space not showing up after a major Trash dump remains. I just deleted about 20GB of personal files, and uninstalled two apps, and the available space didn’t change.

I guess I need to make an appt. with the Genius Bar.

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Answer 6

seperry1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 15, 2019 12:19 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for the suggestion, but re-indexing my SSD had no impact on my available storage.

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After emptying Trash, the available space on my MBP SSD doesn't change

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