I deleted a 20Gb file, but got no extra space

Hey there!

Have you since restarted the Mac since deleting the file? This would be my first step, then check/empty the Trash.

Otherwise, you did delete from About This Mac > Storage > Manage Storage?

Does the Trash actually show as empty?

Are there any external hard drives connected?

(The Trash May reflect the .Trash of the external drive, and some people try to move the backup location to external drives, is why I ask).

Can you show a screen shot of your storage?

If your Mac is having issues with indexing, it may report the storage wrong, usually just temporarily, if so, try doing the steps here:

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

Make sure to drag, then remove the entire volume, usually “Macintosh HD” into the Spotlight window. Give it some time to complete, even a full day, then check.

If it truly was an iOS backup as well, can you check the Finder location to see how many backups are there still and the sizes of them?

(Open Finder > Go > Go To Folder,

Type in:

~/Library/Application Support/Mobile Sync, and press Go.

From there you’ll see the backups folder, open that and you’ll see the backups there, you can get the sizes by highlighting and pressing Command i on the keyboard. Perhaps the backup didn’t delete from the interface for some reason.

Also sometimes, when doing a process such as deleting a large file, or signing out of an account, in rare cases floods the Caches directory, if so, you can safely delete the Caches, but first check the size of the folder, if not large, leave it alone.

The same process, Finder > Go > Go To Folder.

Type:

~/Library/Caches, press Return.

On the keyboard press “Command i”, you’ll see the size of the folder on the top right of that window.

If more than say 10gb, just select all the contents IN the Caches folder, (Not the folder itself), Move To Trash, Restart, THEN empty the Trash.

Hope something here helps, but the more information you provide, the better we can help! Cheers.

Did you empty the Trash? By the way, it's "GB," not "Gb."

b=bit

B=byte

Hey again!

It seems as your Mac is still not indexing the file system as it should, as I can see the change instantly when I delete large files.

Did you happen to use that article provided by Apple to reindex Spotlight?

If not, I’d really give it a try, especially if it took days for the reported storage to display correctly.

Here’s that article again:

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

If there is any troubles with the process, let me know, or anyone else here, glad to help!

No I seriously doubt that.

I’d say the most likely scenario is corrupted files, and/or incompatible files and/or apps or programs also transferred along with your personal data and files.

I know if the previous Mac had performance issues, out dated software, and you transfer ALL the data to the new Mac......yes, the processing speeds and performance are much better, but you’re probably transferring some of the same files that we’re holding your old Mac back.

I know migrating the data from a backup is the simplest way to transition from old Mac to new Mac, and that is usually seamless, don’t even have to think about it.

But sometimes, it’s best to restore, the data manually, meaning to move specific folders to the new Mac, such as Documents and Music, or, even relying on iCloud data, (Or another cloud service), which makes it easy, as all you have to do is sign into your account(s) on the new Mac.

Other preferences and data are also stored in Time Machine, so if you were missing something after a manual setup, you can usually find whatever you’re missing in the backup, if not iCloud or another service.

Another example.....in Time Machine Preferences > Options, (In System Preferences), there is an option to exclude System files and Applications.

Say you had this option enabled on the old Mac, to exclude those files form being backed, THEN, you migrated / restored the data to the new Mac. There could likely be a chance that the new Mac is working just fine, or better than the old Mac, without this other software that you might even not even need or want transferred in the first place.

I’d say, the most likely cause, overall, of performance issues on a new Mac, are transferring old, un-needed, and even incompatible or damaging software from an older Mac, due to the other app/program developers not keeping up to Apple’s standards, especially security standards, but also just updating their software to work normally with the OS without causing an issue.

You can search and find for some of these files causing an issue, by using System Information, Finder, Console. But if you have a new Mac that’s taking days to update the storage view, and you DID follow the re-index I instructions, as the other steps of course, it maybe a good idea to look at other transfer methods.

If this is the only issue you’re having though, I’d give the new Mac time to index and adjust, but if other related issues with performance, apps crashing, or anything like that, it may be worth starting fresh, (Resetting the Mac to defaults, and transfer the data differently).

Otherwise, if that’s all it is, I’m sure it’ll be just fine after some time! Hope that all makes sense and helps!