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System information storage doesn't make sense/Documents Folder Doesn't Add Up

I am trying to organize my hard drive and looking at space available I see that many things are showing up twice. Once under "documents" and then in another section below. Music, for instance, shows up under documents as taking up 35.93GB and then takes up 31.27GB in its own app. Also, Why is the documents folder 43.8 GB. Nothing in it even adds up to that amount? This is insane and I want to know what the 43.8 GB is when my actual documents only take up about 6GB and everything else under that section (e.g., music, pictures, movies) is already taking up space in a different section.

Posted on Dec 17, 2020 5:15 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 17, 2020 5:37 PM

Welcome, JennaLStack, to Apple Support Communities!


The Named Storage Categories are just that: categories of various kinds of files.


They are not about specific locations, even if there are locations with the same or similar names.


About the only issue is that the categorization is not “foolproof”: while it never counts any files more than once, it can have difficulty classifying individual files into a “correct” Category that you, the user, can be guaranteed to agree with. Many files could be easily assigned to multiple categories: the question, that it doesn’t always answer correctly (in the opinion of any given user), is which Category is the “best” fit, for any given file.


(This is probably why the files you will find under any given Storage Category will tend to include more files than the assigned Storage Category amount given.


This is also why the amounts assigned to various Storage Categories can shift, not just between times when you check such things, but even while you watch: it has happened to me at least a few times.)


Does this help?

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 17, 2020 5:37 PM in response to JennaLStack

Welcome, JennaLStack, to Apple Support Communities!


The Named Storage Categories are just that: categories of various kinds of files.


They are not about specific locations, even if there are locations with the same or similar names.


About the only issue is that the categorization is not “foolproof”: while it never counts any files more than once, it can have difficulty classifying individual files into a “correct” Category that you, the user, can be guaranteed to agree with. Many files could be easily assigned to multiple categories: the question, that it doesn’t always answer correctly (in the opinion of any given user), is which Category is the “best” fit, for any given file.


(This is probably why the files you will find under any given Storage Category will tend to include more files than the assigned Storage Category amount given.


This is also why the amounts assigned to various Storage Categories can shift, not just between times when you check such things, but even while you watch: it has happened to me at least a few times.)


Does this help?

System information storage doesn't make sense/Documents Folder Doesn't Add Up

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