How to delete purgeable data in BigSure

Snowmanmb wrote:

I have since moved out over 18GB, emptied my trash, shut down the computer, and I still get the error message that about 6GB more disk space is required. All the files I moved out were video files.

Have all of your backups completely transferred to external media? If not, then make sure all the backups have completed successfully. macOS uses APFS snapshots when using Time Machine as well as many other backup apps. Plus macOS creates snapshots when updating macOS (and may during a software install/update). Normally these snapshots are deleted automatically once the backups have completely transferred, or after several days (or a week). This means when you delete files, there may still be a copy of the file within the APFS snapshot.

You can check if there are any APFS snapshots as well as thinning or deleting snapshots using the information in this article:

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

FYI, you should always have at least 20GB of free storage space on the boot drive for the normal operation of macOS. Usually macOS displays notifications when the free storage space drops below 20GB. If the APFS volume becomes completely full it can be impossible to delete any files in order to create more storage so never let your APFS volumes get too full.

Why do you want to delete your files that are purgeable? Do you have no use for them on your drive?

Purgeable doesn't mean unneeded. That storage is taken up by files that can be retrieved from some other location, like iCloud Drive. Being purgeable, the OS will clear the space if it needs the space for some other purpose.

What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how can I clean it out?

Free up storage space on your Mac

OmniDiskSweeper Safe to use

How to delete Time Machine snapshots on your Mac

See used and available storage space on your Mac

• Other: Contains files that don’t fall into the categories listed here. This category primarily includes files and data used by the system, such as log files, caches, VM files, and other runtime system resources. Also included are temporary files, fonts, app support files, and plug-ins. You can't manage the contents of this category. The contents are managed by macOS, and the category varies in size depending on the current state of your Mac.

When was the last time the computer was Restarted ?

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