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Is it normal for Apple SSD to appear as full, while Macintosh HD appears normally?

This is from my girlfriends macbook air, according to the overview it is from early 2015. I'm asking about this because the macbook is running insanely slow, and I'm wondering if this could be causing it. I'm trying to offload pictures onto an external hard drive, but the photos app keeps closing within a minute after opening.


Another possibility would be that there's 45 gb of "other" that I can't find the source of. I used Grand Perspective and attached a photo below of the results, but none of the categories seem to be large enough to add up to 45 gb.


I'm not sure what I can do to improve my situation here, does anyone have any ideas?

Posted on Jan 10, 2021 7:57 PM

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Posted on Jan 10, 2021 8:26 PM

When highlighting the physical disk in Disk Utility, the blue bar being full is normal. With ~35GB of free space, the computer should be functioning normally. Here are some steps that may help.


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Jan 10, 2021 8:26 PM in response to tongues

When highlighting the physical disk in Disk Utility, the blue bar being full is normal. With ~35GB of free space, the computer should be functioning normally. Here are some steps that may help.


Jan 10, 2021 8:20 PM in response to tongues

The first screenshot showing the Apple SSD is fine it is just showing the capacity of the disk is 120GBS, it does not mean it is full.

On your second screenshot you have highlighted the Macintosh HD and you can see the usage of the disk in it various categories as well as the free space.

The thing about the macs storage display is that it is almost always wrong and has been like this for years.

One way to check is by rebuilding the Spotlight index.


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

Move the Macintosh HD (or the name you gave your disk) in to the Privacy panel.

Quit System Preferences.

Open System Preferences> Spotlight> Privacy highlight Macintosh HD and press the minus button.

The mac will start rebuilding the Spotlight index.

Check by clicking on Spotlight in the menubar and enter word, if it is indexing you should see a progress bar.


If re-indexing has not solved your problem then run this app, https://www.omnigroup.com/more

this will give an accurate account of the storage used. When the app has created its overview you can look at

the Users folder in the output and see what each user has stored, you can then delete files from there.

Do not delete any files or folders in any System or Library folders or any files you do not understand.

Grand perspective may look impressive but is it really helping.

I prefer this free app to accurately show exactly your disks usage,

https://www.omnigroup.com/more

its not pretty but it works and is easy to understand.

Is it normal for Apple SSD to appear as full, while Macintosh HD appears normally?

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