Sonoma Upgrade - HUGE loss of space on SSD

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Level 1

14 points

Sonoma Upgrade - HUGE loss of space on SSD

Greetings,

I just upgraded from BigSur to Sonoma on my M1 Mac Mini last night (awaiting delivery of a new Laptop, so figured I'd get both machines operating with the same system), and it all went smoothly and everything's working fine, but the free space on my hard drive has gone from 99 to 69 GB!

Now I realize that new OSes are generally a BIT larger than their predecessors, but that's ridiculous, and in poking around and comparing things to a clone I still have of the pre-updated system, I find that the size of the system folder is substantially smaller (presumably years of accumulated system-related caches etc. in the BigSur folder), the Library folders are essentially the same, and the Application folders - when I do a Get Info on the actual folders is also essentially the same pre-and-post upgrade.

However, if I go into System Settings and check General/Storage, the space IT claims is being used by Applications is roughly double the actual number (and just about that 30gigs that has been added to my SSD consumption). And no applications in the User-specific Applications folders in either scenario.

As anyone else encountered this? Any ideas as to how to get the available SSD space back to the real world?

Thanks (screen caps below)

Mac mini (M1, 2020)

Posted on Nov 6, 2023 9:32 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

61,376 points

Nov 7, 2023 2:40 PM in response to Jregann

Sometimes deleted data can be hidden in a hidden APFS snapshot. Usually these APFS snapshots will be automatically deleted in a day to a week once backups have been transferred to external media, but some backup software may have options to retain an APFS snapshot for longer. You can use the instructions in this Apple article to view & delete APFS snapshots (you need to click on the "Data" volume before you will get the "Show APFS Snapshots" option on the "View" menu):

View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

Plus with APFS volumes, if any data is copied to another location on the same APFS volume, a second physical copy is not created....you will have two filenames which link to the same physical data, but it is possible macOS may report the data twice in its storage computations. Deleting one item will still keep the physical data until the other link is also deleted.

You can try using an app like OmniDiskSweeper to identify where the largest files & folders are located, however, with all the new macOS security & privacy features, not everything is available to these apps (AFPS snapshots being one, but even some system items located in your home user folder may not be accessible even if running the app with root privileges).

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Answer 2

Jregann Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 7, 2023 1:46 PM in response to HWTech

Thanks for the response. Oddly enough, the pre-Sonoma Users folder was about 30 gigs larger than the Sonoma Users folder ...

(which would seem to be going in the wrong direction, given that the overall free space (as indicated by the Macintosh HD window went from 99 GB (the image below is showing the HD (99.42 GB) and an external hard drive with 305.91 GB)

to 66.94 GB...

(I've since trashed a couple of old applications and moved some music to the external drive, and my 'window-indicated' free space is now up to 86.2, but given the lost 30 gigs, I suppose that should really be up around 116 by now.)

Disk Utility, whether I'm choosing "HD" or "DATA"...

...shows "Available" matching the HD window, but "Free" space being about 10 GB less. The "Macintosh HD" Get Info window, matches the status at the bottom of the HD window and the "Available" number.

But after all that, the only thing that seems to match, size-wise, with the missing 30 gigs, is the difference in User Folder sizes - but again, that's going in the wrong direction.

Perhaps some future update will make the hard drive space magically re-appear. I'm not worried about running out of space for apps, etc. Ive pretty much got all I'll be using, and I keep everything that DOESN'T have to be in the system folder on an external drive. I'm just concerned that if the system itself doesn't think that 30 gigs exist any more, it may not use that space for RAM swaps and other things that could 'wear the drive out' sooner than WITH that 30 gigs available.

Anyway, thanks again for the response.

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Answer 3

Jregann Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 6, 2023 11:52 AM in response to Jregann

Update: Ran First Aid, no change.

Deleted about 10GB of old applications, and the Application folder Get Info reflects that - now at 28.82 GB. Also the overall reported free space has gone from 69 to 78 GB.

However, in System Settings General/Storage, the reported size of the Applications only went from 67.46 to 67.45 GB.

I think the appropriate comment here is..."huh?"

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Answer 4

HWTech

Level 9

61,376 points

Nov 7, 2023 9:50 AM in response to Jregann

The information details in the Storage Management area is known to be incorrect for the various categories. Not sure if that is due to Spotlight indexing issues or not. The only thing I worry about is how much Free storage space is listed within Disk Utility when viewing the "Data" volume details (Ignore the "Available" value since it is very misleading). Most of your storage will be taken up by data you have created or downloaded which should be located within you home user folder. I don't worry about my applications because I only install applications I actually need to use and delete any that I no longer use.

Storage with APFS volumes is complicated.

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Answer 5

Jregann Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 7, 2023 3:29 PM in response to HWTech

No snapshots showing in Disk Utility (I don't use Time Machine - I make full bootable clones with SuperDuper), so nothing to recover there. I'll see if OmniDiskSweeper reveals anything.

Thanks again,

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