My MBP (mid-2015, macOS Monterey) has an internal SSD of 256GB. Today I found the MBP is running out of space. I run GrandPerspective to find what to delete but found that all files together use only 108GB, while Disk Utility shows 235GB used. I tried rebooting, First Aid, but nothing helped.
The largest yellow square is Xcode, its size is 15GB.
MacBook Pro
I'm assuming you have emptied the Trash (no insult intended as it is easy to forget this sometimes).
I never understood why developer's choose to use a graphical representation of the storage space as it provide no real insight. Try using OmniDiskSweeper which gives you a Finder style list view organized by the largest items first. This makes it extremely easy to see exactly which folders actually contain the most data.
https://www.omnigroup.com/more
Many times a lot of data will be stored in the user's home Library folder which can contain iPhone/iPad backups as well as some other items that sometimes can consume lots of data. Do not delete the cache folders/files though as these will be automatically managed by macOS or the apps using the cache.
Are you using any cloud file syncing services which may be repopulating items you thought you may have deleted/moved?
Have you copied any large folders/files onto the same APFS volume? If so, then deleting one copy will not do anything since the copy is just a link to the original item(s) due to how the APFS file system works.
https://eclecticlight.co/2020/04/14/copy-move-and-clone-files-in-apfs-a-primer/
Also, make sure your backups have all finished transferring to external media so that the APFS snapshots will be automatically deleted after a predetermined amount of time by the backup software. If there are still APFS snapshots, then they can contain lots of data you thought you had deleted already.
https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/view-apfs-snapshots-dskuf82354dc/mac
Disk Utility is showing you have just 12.97 GB free which is not enough free space for macOS. You want to always have at least 20GB of free storage space available at all times for the normal operation of macOS. Even this 20GB can be quickly filled by the temp & cache files used by macOS and your apps so you usually want to have much more free space available depending on your workload. If you completely run out of free space on an APFS volume, then you may not be able to delete any items to free up space due to how the APFS file system works since it is a Copy on Write (CoW) file system which requires free space to make any changes even when deleting items. If this happens, then you will need to erase the Volume Group and restore its contents from a backup (and reinstall macOS if it is a boot drive).
Follow the very good advise from Luis S
G=HAs the user ( you ) Logged Out of iCloud completely and restarted the computer in Safe Mode.
Let it run this way for 3 - 4 minutes and restart in Normal Mode.
The Sign Back into iCloud.
We are attempting to Force a Re-Sync after the cache files may have been removed when booting into Safe Mode and back to Normal Mode
I deleted some apps. The trash is (and was) empty. iOS backups and even macOS caches are visible in the GrandPerspective window. The problem is ALL folders, including /System, /Library, /Users, /Applications, and hidden ones (such as /var, /etc...) now together use only 90.4GB (as you can see in the OmniDiskSweeper window), while Disk Utility shows 187GB is used.
>> Are you using any cloud file syncing services which may be repopulating items you thought you may have deleted/moved?
I use iCloud sync, and local files are visible in GrandPerspective/OmniDiskSweeper.
>> If there are still APFS snapshots, then they can contain lots of data you thought you had deleted already.
I have checked, and there are no snapshots.
>>Disk Utility is showing you have just 12.97 GB free which is not enough free space for macOS. You want to always have at least 20GB of free storage space available at all times for the normal operation of macOS.
I had 100GB free and they just disappeared. That's why I am asking for help.
Got it. It is ~/Library/Caches/CloudKit/com.apple.bird
Finder says this folder is 39GB (74GB on disk!). Both GrandPerspective and OmniDiskSweeper did not find this folder so large. The latter one says it is 0 byte.
As for now, I don't know what to do with this 'bird' folder. I don't know if I may delete it. I think I'll wait for a few days, maybe iCloud will resolve the problem itself.
Between the first posing of the question it was showing Monterey 12.5.1 and in the more recent posting the Operating System has been updated to Monterey 12.6 which is good.
There maybe some Local Time Machine Backup Snap Shot awaiting to be transferred to the External Drive
How to delete Time Machine snapshots on your Mac
Additionally -->>
Notation - If the user is using a cloning software like Carbon Copy Cloner - suggest tweaking the Safety Net Feature in this software. It may be making additional Snap Shots that are not being Cloned to the Eternal Drive. If this should be the case, these Snap Shot could be using additional space on the drive
Yes, I updated macOS to let the system run all usual service routines, though it did not help. There are no local Time Machine backups. It is off. Lost space found in ~/Library/Caches/CloudKit/com.apple.bird folder. It occupies >70GB of space for unknown purposes.
Delete that folder, empty the trash, and restart your mac.
Got the space back? Great.
The only question is whether macOS will mark this space as "purgeable" instead of "free".
Let us know.
By the way, you can always delete stuff in ~/Library/Caches. It is best to then restart, or at least logout and login, to make sure no old cache remains in use by some program.
Belo is what I get using " ~/Library/Caches/CloudKit/com.apple.bird folder " and the Combined Storage Used is no where near would your computer is reporting
There is a folder 763036... inside my com.apple.bird folder. As for now it is 39GB (74GB on disk):
Inside this folder:
So, I need to get rid of these tmpm files.
MBP 2015 SSD lost its free space
