available space is 211GB and I feel is correct. however the chart below is incorrect. any idea how to fix this? for some reason photos are appearing under documents and photos!
I've spoken several times with apple support and they couldn't resolve the matter. we tried reindexing the disk and troubleshooting it without any success.
thanks
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.15
I just want quickly to share my experience of this problem - YMMV.
For me, I was also indifferent to this "unreliable interface" right up to the point where the Mac would fail tasks due to lack of disk space, even when I "knew" there was plenty. Then I got interested! ;-)
Long story short, Apple support (Europe) won't help you, because their "script" goes from Step 1 - "restart everything", Step 2, "Oh, you're right - soemthing is wrong", Step 3 "Reinstall the OS". This was where I ended up after a 2-hour phone call with 3 different advisors, escallating to a so-called "senior advisor" in Ireland. I declined to pick up that proffered sledghammer. You may have more luck with US advisors, who, anecdotally, seem to have more both expertise and patience.
For me, the problem turned out to be with Time Machine. Firstly to understand the "unreliable interface" a little:
The terminal commands @leroydouglas has given you above tells you what's REALLY going on with your disk space, as understood by the underlying UNIX operating system. The "Storage" user interface does not count storage that it thinks is temporary and will be reused/overwritten/purged my MacOS and associated applications, reasoning that MacOS/apps will be able to use that already-used space if needs be.
However, it is possible for some apps (in my case Time Machine) to loose track of this temporary (and therefore not counted) storage, and never tidy it up. Time Machine keeps local snapshots (on your source disk) of backup data, before incorporating those snapshots into the backup on the target (usually external) disk. These can be several and very large (in my case ~280 GB).
The solution to my problm was shockingly simple and easy - delete these "orphaned" local snapshots. Shockingly - because 2 hours of Apple support didn't even mention anything like this. Simple - because you only have type a couple of commands.
Turn off your Time Machine and let any backup in progress complete. Then you can view your local snapshots like so:
$ tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
This will give you a list of any that exist; note their timestamps, then get rid of them
$ sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots <timestamp>
Once done, I recommend waiting a while, checking the "real" disk space with the command
$ df -h /
and after the space has been "recovered", do a reboot.
Here is a better description of tmutil for this use case:- https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/362552/something-taking-up-90gb-of-storage-in-macos-catalina-10-15-beta
Hope this helps
I just want quickly to share my experience of this problem - YMMV.
For me, I was also indifferent to this "unreliable interface" right up to the point where the Mac would fail tasks due to lack of disk space, even when I "knew" there was plenty. Then I got interested! ;-)
Long story short, Apple support (Europe) won't help you, because their "script" goes from Step 1 - "restart everything", Step 2, "Oh, you're right - soemthing is wrong", Step 3 "Reinstall the OS". This was where I ended up after a 2-hour phone call with 3 different advisors, escallating to a so-called "senior advisor" in Ireland. I declined to pick up that proffered sledghammer. You may have more luck with US advisors, who, anecdotally, seem to have more both expertise and patience.
For me, the problem turned out to be with Time Machine. Firstly to understand the "unreliable interface" a little:
The terminal commands @leroydouglas has given you above tells you what's REALLY going on with your disk space, as understood by the underlying UNIX operating system. The "Storage" user interface does not count storage that it thinks is temporary and will be reused/overwritten/purged my MacOS and associated applications, reasoning that MacOS/apps will be able to use that already-used space if needs be.
However, it is possible for some apps (in my case Time Machine) to loose track of this temporary (and therefore not counted) storage, and never tidy it up. Time Machine keeps local snapshots (on your source disk) of backup data, before incorporating those snapshots into the backup on the target (usually external) disk. These can be several and very large (in my case ~280 GB).
The solution to my problm was shockingly simple and easy - delete these "orphaned" local snapshots. Shockingly - because 2 hours of Apple support didn't even mention anything like this. Simple - because you only have type a couple of commands.
Turn off your Time Machine and let any backup in progress complete. Then you can view your local snapshots like so:
$ tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
This will give you a list of any that exist; note their timestamps, then get rid of them
$ sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots <timestamp>
Once done, I recommend waiting a while, checking the "real" disk space with the command
$ df -h /
and after the space has been "recovered", do a reboot.
Here is a better description of tmutil for this use case:- https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/362552/something-taking-up-90gb-of-storage-in-macos-catalina-10-15-beta
Hope this helps
It is an unreliable interface—
Are you having some bigger issue, why the concern?
If you absolutely find it imperative, you can drill down to all the details:
See used and available storage space on your Mac
How to free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206996
User tip: "Other and What Can I Do About It ?"
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-5142
ref: https://eclecticlight.co/2020/04/09/where-did-all-that-free-space-go-on-my-apfs-disk/
Try something like OmniDiskSweeper for a GUI to get a good look at itemized file size and location:
OmniDiskSweeper http://www.omnigroup.com/more
Others for example—
Disk Inventory X: http://www.derlien.com/ (takes forever to load up.)
Grand Perspective: http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
Or alternatively from the Terminal.app, more detail copy and paste the command line:
File size, and finding missing GB— list the items in the home folder with the sizes, including invisible items.
sudo du -h -d 1 ~/
File size, and finding missing GB —will list the items in root with the sizes, including invisible items.
sudo du -h -d 1 /
—————————————————
general trouble shooting to see ALL user, other User accounts. You can see how much storage each of those user folders
sudo du -hd 1 /Users
https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/partition-a-physical-disk-dskutl14027/mac
Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204215
About Local snapshots
About Time Machine local snapshots - Apple Support https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015
thanks so much for taking the time to reply.
I don't have any big issues related to this.
I was just wondering why apple support can't fix it!
also, what if I save more data on the hard drive, what will happen then? will it say no space left when in fact I have over 200Gb of free space!
thanks for the assistance. my time machine is off and I don't use it. apple support thought the problem was with the indexing but reindexing the drive didn't work. I really don't want to reinstall OS. any other solutions?
Mac not showing correct available disk space