How do I free up purgeable space on my MacBook?

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Level 1

13 points

How do I free up purgeable space on my MacBook?

For more than a year now, on my 2015 MacBook running Monterey, whenever I delete files and empty the trash I don't get any less Used space on my drive, but instead the purgeable space increases. On my 500 GB drive, the Used space is now up to 477 GB. I just tried switching my cloud storage from Sync to Dropbox, and now Dropbox refuses to store my files locally, saying there isn't enough space. I've uploaded screenshots from finder and system below.

How do I get the Used space to actually go down when I empty the trash, or alternatively, free up purgeable space? I found many existing questions about this but none of them had satisfactory answers (the "answers" were just links to generic Apple documents about "how to free up space").

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Jun 14, 2023 3:32 PM

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Answer 1

mike1127 Author

Level 1

13 points

Jun 14, 2023 4:01 PM in response to TheLittles

thank you, but I don't think your reply is relevant. First, I don't have an "Other" category listed in About my Mac. Second, your link indicates how to delete unwanted files such as the Caches stuff. I've deleted the Caches stuff and much more. That's not the problem. I have no problem finding files to delete. The problem is that when I delete files and empty the trash, it doesn't decrease the Used space but instead increases the purgeable space. I'd like to know how I can free up some of that purgeable space.

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