Issue with Number of snapshots

I've seen a few reports that sometimes macOS doesn't always automatically delete some APFS snapshots as it should. Most APFS snapshots should be automatically deleted after about a week, although Time Machine snapshots may stay longer if you haven't connected your backup drive. Have all your backups been completely transferred to your backup media?

macOS will create an APFS snapshot whenever updating macOS or possibly other software installs, plus backup software will create APFS snapshots.

Here is an article on how to thin and delete APFS snapshots:

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

If it took that long to verify snapshots it is likely that hard disk drive is operating in a state of failure. Contact Support to evaluate your repair options.

Kenoli Oleari1 wrote:

Great link, thanks.

My backup drive has never been disconnected from my computer through all of this.

Still curious why terminal sees a very different number of snapshots than disk utility and why verifying them is such a time consuming process.

Snapshots of a system contain hundreds of thousands of files and links since it is after all a snapshot of the whole system. If you have 22 snapshots, then it is like scanning 22 volumes.

Too bad snapshots can't be turned off.

You will be greatful for those snapshots when a macOS update goes wrong and may allow you to roll back the system to before the attempted update.

The real question is why you have all those snapshots. Is an app creating all those snapshots cluttering your drive or is macOS not automatically deleting its own snapshots? I'm not sure how you would go about locating the reason for all those snapshots.