macOS not showing the actual free space of external WD ssd

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Level 1

36 points

macOS not showing the actual free space of external WD ssd

I have two 2TB WD Blue external SSD NVMe drives. I copied 900GB from one to the other.

But Monterey macOS is not showing the actual free space of the external ssd: Alle the space of the old file is occupied; I cleared the waste bin; restarted in safe mode; restarted. Still the same.

The Finder/information panel give the too-large volume; as well as Disk Utility. They give 1.3Tb while there is now one file left of 400Gb.

Monterey 12.0.

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 12.0

Posted on Dec 8, 2021 5:13 AM

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Answer 1

Owl-53

Level 10

104,215 points

Dec 8, 2021 7:13 AM in response to alberti-nl

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

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Answer 2

alberti-nl Author

Level 1

36 points

Dec 8, 2021 9:00 AM in response to Owl-53

Thanks. However, the spotlight/Privacy tab is empty (nothing excluded).

So should I

select the specific drive to 'privacy = excluded', then restart,
and then take it out again, restart?

The location is indexed, I can see the files, and spotlight brings the content up.

The problem is, the system (=Monterey 12.0.1 so to say) thinks the disk is almost full while I off-loaded content.

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Answer 3

leroydouglas

Level 10

200,214 points

Dec 8, 2021 10:04 AM in response to alberti-nl

alberti-nl wrote:

I have two 2TB WD Blue external SSD NVMe drives. I copied 900GB from one to the other.

But Monterey macOS is not showing the actual free space of the external ssd: Alle the space of the old file is occupied; I cleared the waste bin; restarted in safe mode; restarted. Still the same.

The Finder/information panel give the too-large volume; as well as Disk Utility. They give 1.3Tb while there is now one file left of 400Gb.

Monterey 12.0.

?

From the Finder side bar select your "external drive" —Command i opens the info pain.

You should see Capacity, Available, Used storage

ex.

Get to know the Finder on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 4

alberti-nl Author

Level 1

36 points

Dec 8, 2021 11:49 PM in response to leroydouglas

Of course, having seen that, I had seen the problem.

Now please, is there a suggestion how to get the system to free up the space?
I can - but do not like - to copy the folder to a HDD, reformat the SSD and copy back.

Here my proof.

As you see, Disk Utility is also wrong wrong.

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Answer 5

alberti-nl Author

Level 1

36 points

Dec 9, 2021 12:23 AM in response to alberti-nl

Just for completeness, I tried to do what P.Phillips suggested. [Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac]

I selected the external drive to the privacy tab of spotlight, restarted. After restart, the external disk still is identified as having 1.3TB in use.

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