Help freeing up hard drive space?

Question

Level 1

4 points

Help freeing up hard drive space?

I have a macbook air M2 2022 (14.1.2) 250GB hard drive, no matter what I do to delete old files etc my hard disk storage just keeps getting lower. Its saying my applications are taking up 186 GB of space but when view them in the list on the screenshot something isn't making sense. Is it maybe huge cache files on google chrome? I've deleted apps like Garageband and iMovie. If I download a game or movie for example and delete them once I no longer need them, it doesn't free up the space again back to where it was before I downloaded them, it's like some junk files are always left over somewhere.... It's driving me crazy lol!

Posted on Aug 15, 2024 4:14 AM

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Answer 1

PRP_53

Level 10

91,111 points

Aug 15, 2024 4:44 AM in response to JamieTuk

There is Purgeable Space and there is Empty Space.

These are Not One and the Same

Purgeable Space which is Controlled by the Operating System.

When the Operating Systems decides the computer needs additional Empty Space, it will move a portion of the Purgeable to Empty space

AFAIK - there is no User Actions to hasten this transition from Purgeable to Empty Space

It can day or longer before this will occur.

Restart in Safe Mode.

This will perform a Disk Repair, clear System Cache files and only load Apple Software, extensions and fonts. The boot up will be slow and can take some time - Normal.

Safe Mode will also eliminate Third Party Software, extensions and drivers from loading. It will only load the Minimum amount of Core Apple Processes to allow the the computer to function at a reduced Level of Performance

Manually Deleting System Cache Files or Application Specific Files may present temporary relief

Though, System cache files and Application cache files, Will be recreated as the System or Applications requires them