SSD Usage With Nothing On the Drive

Sojourner9 wrote:

It still does not explain why the emptying the trash did not free up space. I will not get an answer to that now.

FYI, with the APFS file system if you delete large files, the free space may not become available right away. macOS uses APFS system snapshots when updating the OS (possibly when installing apps as well, but I'm not certain on this) and for backups (at least TM backups, but also some other backup apps as well will utilize the APFS snapshot feature). If an APFS snapshot has not been deleted yet, then any files you delete will still remain within the APFS snapshot until the snapshot is deleted. macOS normally deletes these snapshots at specific times and after a TM backup has been transferred to the backup drive.

Also, if you copy a file on a single APFS volume, you are not creating duplicate separate file. While there will be two separate file names, the names point to the exact same data saving space. If you begin to modify one of the files, then the file being edited will just have new "links" added for the changed data, but the unchanged data will still be shared. So if you delete just one of those files, the data (or majority of the data) still remains on the drive under the other file name.

I did not think of this earlier, because of how you described the problem. I don't think any of it applied anyway except for the possibility you did not have enough free space to delete those items. Keep this in mind though for future reference. Here are a couple of article explaining this new behavior/features of APFS file systems:

https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/43043-using-apfs-on-hdds-and-why-you-might-not-want-to/

https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/56681-working-with-macos-snapshots/

View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

Anyway it looks like I am back up and running. Not sure if I am going to find something missing later. It is kind of nice to look at the Applications directory and see everything having a date that is the Monterey release date or the date of the specific app.

I have probably cleaned out 10 years of old apps going back three Macs.

This process can be time consuming & complicated, but sometimes it is needed especially after years of use and migrations. No one really likes to go through this process. Your installation definitely seemed to have a few issues. Glad it worked out for you.

Since no one else has responded, I will put in my two cents for what it is worth. While technically you can run a system modified such as you have, I have personally found that macOS does not like to deviate from system defaults. Years ago I wanted to do the same thing, but decided against it when I realized macOS really wasn't designed for that type of setup. You were smart to leave an admin user account on the main boot drive as that does allow you to continue to administer your Mac when something goes wrong.

Keep in mind, that while you may be saving your files to your user account on the external drive, macOS is likely still using the internal drive for temporary storage and cache files for many or perhaps all your running apps & projects.

Also keep in mind that the macOS Storage Management screen is not really accurate on the categories. You can try using OmniDiskSweeper to see where the largest files/folders are located which may give you a clue.

If you are using iCloud or other file syncing service, then that could explain some of it. Try booting into Safe Mode to see if things improve. If they improve, then perhaps you have some third party software that is interfering with the normal operation of macOS. The most common types of apps which interfere with the normal operation of macOS are anti-virus apps, cleaning apps, and third party security software (all of which are not needed on a Mac).

Continued.....

I'm not a macOS expert, but from what I've seen & experienced I personally would want to keep things as simple as possible. To that end, I would only configure the apps to default to storing files at a specific location which in your case would be external media. Many apps will still use the main boot drive for hosting temp files, cache files, and possibly even a folder containing in process work (this may be happening with your current setup as well). For example, when selecting an external location for a file download some apps may still download the file to the main boot drive before transferring it to the external media. Same thing may happen with other workflows. Having a computer with sufficiently large storage helps in all cases either by not having to use external media (simplest setup & it just works), or it gives you enough work space for the temporary storage I mentioned earlier before the data is transferred to external media (only requires one small preference change instead of several possibly major preference changes to one or more apps which quickly leads to a complex system setup which is more prone to breakage).

If you are going to perform a clean install and you want or need to create system modifications to work from external media, then I would suggest creating a new thread for that purpose to see what more knowledgeable contributors may suggest for your workflow. I know a few very knowledgeable & respected contributors who have written instructions on these forums on how to store iPhoto/Photo data on external media. I don't use either app because I don't like their complexity and many unknowns which would cause me grief after I invested too much into the app.

I have learned from personal experience & observation that macOS really doesn't like deviations from Apple's default configuration. I recently experienced a macOS custom configuration which broke macOS. This was a custom configuration performed using exposed configurations from the macOS GUI (I wish I could recall exactly what setting this was, but I don't recall it being anything that should have caused any problems). It shocked me (it takes a lot to surprise & shock me these days), but it also further confirmed my suspicions that macOS does not do well with unexpected situations. While this may have always been the case to some extent, I've only recently taken notice of it with recent versions of macOS as I think it is getting worse.

As for new computers, make sure to spec them out with all the memory & storage you will ever need (or think you may need) for the life of the Mac since memory & storage are no longer upgradable on most Macs after purchase.

I understand the need to rant to let out your frustrations, as I do this all the time since I know Apple no longer cares like most other large corporations these days. Apple is not here on these forums, so if you want to let Apple know how you feel, then you can provide product feedback here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Edit: added link to product feedback.

Thanks for the extra information.

Is the data you want to delete located on the internal or external drive?

How much free space does the Finder report on the drive? When using an APFS file system, if there is not enough free space on the drive volume, then data cannot be deleted (or modified) which could possibly explain why the items are never moved to the Trash. Perhaps this is what is happening. Have you tried deleting just a single file? You can also try deleting the file immediately instead of sending the file to the Trash in case the issue is with the Trash itself. To immediately delete a file, highlight the file in the Finder and press Command + Option + Delete. macOS will alert you and prompt to confirm deletion.

When you boot this Mac, what OS are you booting into? Booting into Safe Mode should boot into the same OS except not load the Login Items, or any of the third party drivers.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

As far as using a NAS for TM backups, the only NAS I've seen mentioned which seems to work is Synology (I have a co-worker who uses a Synology NAS for TM backups).

With all the extra information about multiple issues with your Mac, I think your best option is to perform a clean install of macOS and manually reinstall your third party apps and manually transfer your files from external media back onto the new user account of the clean install. Doing it this way will unfortunately render your existing TM backups useless I think, but I would still retain them just to be safe. I don't use TM, so maybe another more knowledgeable contributor can chime in regarding whether old TM backups can be accessed when manually recreating the user account(s). It may be possible to migrate a macOS user account, but you need to be careful to uncheck everything else on the migration. I tried this years ago, and still found that macOS had modified some things outside of my home user folder (I don't recall the details after all these years).

To help with your concerns about missing an important file, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the user account(s) or even the entire drive into a .dmg archive bundle which you can store on external media (USB drive or even your NAS). After you perform the clean install and create your new macOS user account, you can mount the archived .dmg image to manually transfer your files. Just make sure after creating the .dmg archive, that you test open it and make sure you can read some random files. If you transfer the archive to another location, then make sure to test open the archive again. Personally I would also manually transfer your files to external media just to be sure since that should give you two different copies in case something happens to the .dmg archive. If you have access to another Mac, I would even test open the .dmg archive with another Mac as well. As you can see I'm a bit paranoid about data as well.

So what exactly happened with Safe Mode?

Keep in mind I don't use the cloud syncing services, so I'm not completely certain how each of them behaves (especially iCloud). I would suggest either logging out of any cloud file syncing services or at least disconnect from the network. Try deleting those items again and empty the Trash to see what happens.

While I am aware of MacPorts, I've never actually used MacPorts. However, it is usually best to uninstall anything you are no longer using and likely won't use again. Doing this reduces the complexity of the system, reduces clutter, and makes the computer more secure by reducing the number executables that could be leveraged for security vulnerabilities to compromise the system.

As for the five volumes associated with the boot drive, that is normal for recent versions of macOS which utilizes APFS volumes for a read-only macOS system volume, a read+write volume for home user folders, an Update volume for staging macOS updates, a Virtual Memory volume for the Swap files, Recovery volume, and a PreBoot volume. See this article for more specific details if you are interested:

https://eclecticlight.co/2021/01/13/big-sur-boot-volume-layout/

You may want to run EtreCheck to look for possible software issues and posting the report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper so other contributors can see if anything stands out that may be causing problems. If you give EtreCheck "Full Disk Access" it will provide more details which may contain more clues.

This may be a good time to make a good manual backup of the system and perform a clean install of macOS. Then manually reinstall your third party apps. Just store your large files on an external data drive instead of moving the entire home user folder, or possibly consider a NAS especially if you have multiple systems which may need to access the data. Just remember to backup all external media (including the cloud) which contains important & unique data in addition to the computer itself. Sometimes this may be a faster option than trying to figure out what has gone wrong. If you've added lots of third party apps and various third party programming tools/utilities, then they can all make modifications to the system that can sometimes be difficult to track down. I'm suggesting manually reinstalling apps & data because migrating/restoring from a backup can often bring back unwanted items as macOS does not provide enough granularity in what is transferred (personal experience).