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continuously decreasing disk space on macbook

Hello there,


I have the following problem and I hope for some help:


My macbook´s disk space continuously decreases down to about 40-80mb.

I deleted some files to create about 10GB free disk space. It worked for like a day but it was still decreasing. Now it went down again to 40mb. After a restart there is only 3GB space available. And after about 30 minutes it goes down to 40mb again.


Does anyone have a clue how to solve this problem?


Thank you.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.5

Posted on Nov 2, 2022 2:12 AM

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Posted on Nov 2, 2022 6:56 PM

Try booting into Safe Mode to see if that helps. If not, then while booted into Safe Mode disconnect the laptop from the network in case the issue is due to some cloud service. You do not want to run out of space on an APFS volume or you will have problems. If an APFS volume runs out of free space, then you will not be able to delete anything in order to free up space due to how the APFS file system works and Apple's poor implementation by overlooking the need to permanently reserve a small amount of space for system use so files can be deleted.


If this is able to stop the free space from being consumed, then make sure you have a good backup before doing anything else since that should be the first priority if you don't have backups.


You will want to check Activity Monitor on the "Disk" tab to see which app/process is writing the most data. Within Activity Monitor click the "View" menu and select "All Processes" since it may be a system level process which is normally hidden from view.


FYI, you need to keep at least 20GB+ of free storage space available at all times for the normal operation of macOS. Some workloads may require even more free space. As you have discovered, sometimes that free space can be consumed quickly.

1 reply
Question marked as Best reply

Nov 2, 2022 6:56 PM in response to F_86

Try booting into Safe Mode to see if that helps. If not, then while booted into Safe Mode disconnect the laptop from the network in case the issue is due to some cloud service. You do not want to run out of space on an APFS volume or you will have problems. If an APFS volume runs out of free space, then you will not be able to delete anything in order to free up space due to how the APFS file system works and Apple's poor implementation by overlooking the need to permanently reserve a small amount of space for system use so files can be deleted.


If this is able to stop the free space from being consumed, then make sure you have a good backup before doing anything else since that should be the first priority if you don't have backups.


You will want to check Activity Monitor on the "Disk" tab to see which app/process is writing the most data. Within Activity Monitor click the "View" menu and select "All Processes" since it may be a system level process which is normally hidden from view.


FYI, you need to keep at least 20GB+ of free storage space available at all times for the normal operation of macOS. Some workloads may require even more free space. As you have discovered, sometimes that free space can be consumed quickly.

continuously decreasing disk space on macbook

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