Trashing files didn't recover space

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Level 4

3,262 points

Trashing files didn't recover space

I bit of a mystery ... any ideas where to dig around trashing files to find the culprit before I get nasty with it with an Erase / Restore?

iMac 2017

Mojave 10.14.6 (all updates ran, well maintained machine)

NOTICED MY ORIGINAL APPLE 1TB SSD had only about 60GB available

I trashed and emptied over 100GB off my desktop

but the available space remained about 60GB

I tried everything I know and all were clean

PRAM zap

unplugging it from power for hours

Boot Safe Mode

ran cocktail 12.5 Mojave Edition

ran Disk Utility

left it run (not sleep) over nite

opened Storage in About this Mac (see clues below)

CLUES:

Storage shows System at 447GB, but Info on my root system folder shows 9gb (which is normal compared to my other Mojave/FCPX machine)

PS: Okay, I checked my other machine - Storage on it shows over 300GB, System Info 9GB running similar apps

I have a large FCPX project going and haven't deleted my render files, but they don't explain WHY deleting over 100GB of files did not reduce my available space - which is my first concern -

Posted on May 18, 2022 3:24 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

-g Author

Level 4

3,262 points

May 19, 2022 7:09 PM in response to -g

CONCLUSION

I ran a carbon copy cloner BACKUP to an erased SSD and it was solid 350GB less than the suspect boot SSD

then I ran a TimeMachine backup to an Erased SSD and was a solid 350GB less than the suspect boot SSD

I then booted Command+R to Erase the suspect boot SSD and run the Restore process, but last minute I noticed Disk Utility was noting 350 GB of available space on the suspect boot SSD

I rebooted off the suspect boot SSD and lo and behold — it was showing 350GB available free space that I new was on it

I am backing out of this fire drill and getting back to work ...

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Answer 2

-g Author

Level 4

3,262 points

May 19, 2022 12:01 PM in response to -g

changed my FCPx Render and Cache file preferences to my secondary SSD -- the FCPx process moved 50GB in its process

the 50gb showed up in boot SSD Available space as expected (it reduced 50gb)

next, I'm going to run Carbon Copy Cloner to back up my boot SSD -- CCC is great at not copying files in Trash -- still curious if the 100gb files I originally trashed are ghosted somewhere...if I can root them out -- the clone should give me another clue...

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Answer 3

-g Author

Level 4

3,262 points

May 18, 2022 3:41 PM in response to -g

my point is I trashed and emptied well over 100GB of photos and clips off my desktop and my available space stayed the same

otherwise the iMac is running good

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Trashing files didn't recover space

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