Finder's free space not accurate

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Level 2

257 points

Finder's free space not accurate

My 1TB MacBook Pro now has around 180 GB free after I backed up two iOS devices via iTunes (for a total of 75 GB). I deleted those backups and restarted, and no change in the Finder-reported free space. Even worse, I use Dropbox's new online-only file sync, so that files are reported by the Finder as 0 kb unless I actually download them. But according to Grand Perspective, while I have around 500 GB freed up this way, it still only looks as if I have around 180 GB free no matter what I do. Thoughts?

MacBook Pro 15”, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 17, 2020 1:48 PM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

56,948 points

Jul 17, 2020 7:37 PM in response to David Toub

Did you remember to empty the Trash?

Are you using any backup software such as Time Machine? If so, then Time Machine (or other backup software) may have created a system snapshot which includes all the synced data even though you later deleted it. Until Time Machine (or other backup software) performs the backup transfer to your external backup drive those "deleted" synced files will still exist in the system snapshot taking up storage space. Once the backup is complete the snapshot will be deleted along with the remaining copies of the "deleted" synced files.

Even if you are not backing up macOS can take system snapshots before software updates and installs and will keep these system snapshots for about a week before they are automatically deleted. You can check if you have any APFS snapshots and thin and/or delete those APFS snapshots using information in this article:

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2018/04/07/reclaiming-drive-space-by-thinning-apple-file-system-snapshot-backups/

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Answer 2

David Toub Author

Level 2

257 points

Jul 17, 2020 7:54 PM in response to HWTech

Uh, yes I emptied the Trash.

This seems to be an issue for tons of users of Dropbox and Dropbox support has not been terribly insightful. What seems to be happening is that all the freed up space is getting dumped into Other by the OS. It might relate to the APFS snapshots, certainly. But it is really odd that even with Dropbox supposedly setting both the physical and logical sizes of offline-only files to zero kB, the OS still is counting the logical size.

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Answer 3

HWTech

Level 9

56,948 points

Jul 18, 2020 8:39 AM in response to David Toub

Glad you were able to reclaim the storage space.

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

240,881 points

Jul 17, 2020 7:49 PM in response to David Toub

OmniDiskSweeper shows you the files on your drive, largest to smallest, and lets you quickly Trash or open them.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more/

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Answer 5

David Toub Author

Level 2

257 points

Jul 17, 2020 7:55 PM in response to BDAqua

And I use Grand Perspective.

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Answer 6

David Toub Author

Level 2

257 points

Jul 18, 2020 4:15 AM in response to David Toub

OK, problem solved: I deleted all of Carbon Copy Cloner's snapshots as well as an old APFS snapshot from macOS and I got 500 GB or so in the process. All good.

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Finder's free space not accurate

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