Apps taking up too much space

I should have probably clarified that I'm on a 2019 MacBook Pro with 500 GB of storage total (after the over reporting forced me to move a lot of stuff onto an external hard drive) but this is what I mean, About this Mac says I'm using 127 GB in apps but the applications folder says I'm only using 70 up the top and 52 under the size.

but then OmniDiskSweeper supports the get info of the applications folder and says its in the low 50s (and that I'm somehow using over 100 odd GB more than my hard drive is even capable of)

What I want to know is WHY my computer is over reporting the used storage (specifically Apps) and how to fix it. I've tried rebuilding spotlight and that didn't help at all

Just restarted my computer and ran it again, all those issues I just mentioned are gone now. I'll set my computer up to reinstall the OS tomorrow and I'll probably also use this newfound knowledge to go through and properly delete all the old support files from apps I no longer have (until now I though that the computer would automatically delete the files because it always just said "to uninstall move to bin"). The only thing that I want to figure out now is why About This Mac is still over reporting the size taken up by my apps. The only thing I can think of is that maybe that category includes Application Support from Library because their total is only 10 short of the displayed size.

Disk utility says I’ve used even more storage. It says I’ve used a total of 333 GB (on the APFD volume group) and only have 162 free, while about this mac says I’ve used a total of 234 and still have 265 free (this is after I’ve had to offload a stupid amount of stuff to an external hard drive) which frankly is confusing me even more. Because now I not only have 3 seperate values for how many space “Apps” is taking up I also have two seperate values for how much storage I’ve used and how much I have available

I’ve already done the housekeeping and gotten rid of everything I don’t need and moved everything I can to an external hard drive. My issue isn’t anything else. It’s that “Apps” is being over reported by over 2x it’s actual size. And omnidisksweeper is saying that I’ve used 676.2 GB on the drive list and only 161 after “sweeping” the disc. My computer only has a total of 500 so it’s impossible to have used 600 GB.

I want to fix the over reporting issue so that I won’t have to worry about being told I’m out of space at some point in the future despite not being anywhere near full

I'll do that now but I've also posted a reply with a bit more information and some screen shots to better illustrate what I mean. I apologise if I came of as rude earlier I hadn't meant to. I'm just pretty frustrated with this because it used to be that the "other" section was absolutely enormous and was causing issues and once I got that fixed only a few months later and "Apps" was over reporting its size to the point I had to go out and buy an external hard drive to store stuff on because I had run out of space

That's all good man, I went through your list and dealt with most of it, some of them were a bit difficult to get to (virtual box for example I deleted ages ago and had to go all the way out to Computer/Macintosh HD/Library to get rid of the file because apparently there's [at least] two seperate Library folders).

However I'm having issues with some of them, particularly Clam (another app I deleted ages ago) which seems to still have an unassigned file somewhere that is loading a launch agent (frankly idk if I'm using the right words or just gibberish but oh well). thing is I'm 100% certain that I deleted the file its referencing, I even tried to find it using terminal and (after letting it search nearly every file and folder on my computer) it says it doesn't exist, but EtreCheck says its still there:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchAgents/uk.co.canimaansoftware.ClamXAV.UninstallWatcher.plist

        Executable: /usr/local/ClamXAV3/bin/Uninstall.app

        Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK

Launch Agents:

[Loaded] uk.co.canimaansoftware.ClamXAV.UninstallWatcher.plist (Not signed - installed )

Could that be because I haven't restarted my computer since deleting it? As for Nord, I pretty much exclusively use it to access foreign Netflix and stuff tbh, I really don't care much for the supposed privacy or security, I just live in Australia where we have half the catalogue of other countries on literally almost every streaming platform.

Additionally, EtreCheck is saying I still have 3 apps running that I deleted;

Running app: /Applications/Gemini 2.app/Contents/MacOS/Gemini 2

Running app: com.macpaw.CleanMyMac-mas.Menu

Running app: com.macpaw.Gemini2.LoginItem

I'm not too sure if any of this is at all important or not but I figured I'd ask just in case

Well for whatever reason after reinstalling Mac OS it correctly reported the total size of applications on my Mac. For about a minute, and then grew right back up to 126 GB. Frankly I've got no clue as to why it says I've used so much. I might either repost this question (including more information about my system and what I've tried to fix it) or I might post one simply asking what is exactly included in the Applications category and then try find where the extra data is.

As an update to my last comment, get info of Applications is now perpetually calculating size and when using terminal to try figure out how big it is I'm told that it is 0 bytes. I think I may have screwed up my computer somehow and I'm not trying to decide if it will just be better (and safer) to just do a factory reset. Thanks to my numerous storage issues over the last two years I have MORE than enough space on external hard drives to copy anything I want or need onto it and just transfer it back later.

Edit: Get info just now finally started to report the size (terminal still says 0), still either 50 or 70. GB smaller than about claims (depending on which of the two values from get info you use).

Man this is weird as, everyone online managed to get this fixed with just the spotlight reindex but I can't do it after doing some serious cleanup and repair