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I was prompted this morning that my Mac HD was almost full. However, I read in Info:
Capacity 494 GB
Available 232 GB
Used 452 GB...
What's the rational here ?
MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 2023)
The "Available" designation just means that at some point macOS may release that space to be re-used as that storage area is being used by macOS. Many times this may be due to Time Machine backup snapshots (or third party backup snapshots). Make sure all of your backups have successfully completed transferring to external media. Even if you delete large amounts of data, the data may not be completely removed as a copy may still remain in a hidden APFS backup snapshot which should be automatically deleted some time after the backup has been transferred to external backup media (no idea how long before it is automatically removed....may be a day or possibly up to a week).
View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support
Here is an Apple article which mentions this about "Available" (aka "Purgable") space where I'm posting the relevant section here:
Get detailed information about a disk in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support
* Amount of space available, which can include both free space and “purgeable space”—or space that macOS can free up when needed by removing files from your computer (you can’t manually remove the files that are designated purgeable, but macOS removes them as space is required)
You can try rebooting the Mac to see if any of the "Available" space is reduced and increases the "Free" space value. Maybe even try booting into Safe Mode to see if it frees up any more space as Safe Mode does delete some temp & cache files.
The only value you need to worry about is the "Free" space value. There is nothing you can do with the other values (maybe thin or delete an APFS snapshot, but you may be interfering with your backups at that point). Plus the details in the macOS storage management area are not always accurate as to the amounts used by various items. Again, the only useful value is the "Free" space being reported.
FYI, make sure to always keep at least 20GB of free space available at all times for the normal operation of macOS or bad things might happen depending on the file system used. Some workloads may require even more free space since 20GB of space can quickly disappear. With an APFS file system, when you completely run out of free space, then you may no longer be able to delete anything in order to free up space which then will require erasing the drive followed by reinstalling macOS & restoring from a backup.
The "Available" designation just means that at some point macOS may release that space to be re-used as that storage area is being used by macOS. Many times this may be due to Time Machine backup snapshots (or third party backup snapshots). Make sure all of your backups have successfully completed transferring to external media. Even if you delete large amounts of data, the data may not be completely removed as a copy may still remain in a hidden APFS backup snapshot which should be automatically deleted some time after the backup has been transferred to external backup media (no idea how long before it is automatically removed....may be a day or possibly up to a week).
View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support
Here is an Apple article which mentions this about "Available" (aka "Purgable") space where I'm posting the relevant section here:
Get detailed information about a disk in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support
* Amount of space available, which can include both free space and “purgeable space”—or space that macOS can free up when needed by removing files from your computer (you can’t manually remove the files that are designated purgeable, but macOS removes them as space is required)
You can try rebooting the Mac to see if any of the "Available" space is reduced and increases the "Free" space value. Maybe even try booting into Safe Mode to see if it frees up any more space as Safe Mode does delete some temp & cache files.
The only value you need to worry about is the "Free" space value. There is nothing you can do with the other values (maybe thin or delete an APFS snapshot, but you may be interfering with your backups at that point). Plus the details in the macOS storage management area are not always accurate as to the amounts used by various items. Again, the only useful value is the "Free" space being reported.
FYI, make sure to always keep at least 20GB of free space available at all times for the normal operation of macOS or bad things might happen depending on the file system used. Some workloads may require even more free space since 20GB of space can quickly disappear. With an APFS file system, when you completely run out of free space, then you may no longer be able to delete anything in order to free up space which then will require erasing the drive followed by reinstalling macOS & restoring from a backup.
macOS how can I have 450 GB used on 500 and still see 232 GB available...
