Why is there such a large discrepancy in the amount of free space on my hard drive displayed by the Finder and by System Settings?

Chrysothlypis wrote:

Why is there such a large discrepancy in the amount of free space on my hard drive displayed by the Finder and by System Settings?

56.49 GB free according to the finder, 131.31 GB free according to system settings. Which one is correct?

Neither. Look closely at the display. It doesn’t actually say “free” at all. It says “available”. I could give you a long explanation of that term, taking about local disk snapshots, APFS, purgeable space, yada, yada, yada. The bottom line is that it’s all bogus. The only one you should trust is what is displayed by Disk Utility.

This discrepancy never used to occur.

What do you mean by “used to”? That’s a true statement, but it has worked this way for several years now. You just now started getting low enough on free storage to notice.

Why do more and more insanely annoying problems like this emerge with every update?

That’s a more complicated answer. But perhaps you can answer it yourself. You’ve noticed more and more insanely annoying problems like this emerge with every update, you say? To paraphrase Capt. Jack Sparrow, but you are doing the updates. Or maybe there is a better metaphor. You keep applying updates to get your next “fix”. Yet you always seem to wind up with more problems.

There’s no easy answer. This is not an addiction that you can kick. After all, you’re out of free disk space and probably need a new computer, which will come with yet another update. The trick is to be honest with yourself about how much storage you need and that you need instantly available. Do you buy a bigger drive, buy iCloud storage, or buy external drives? When the next update comes around, does it have anything that you really need and can’t live without? Be honest now. You were alive before the update.