ToddN2000 wrote:
So it all started when I accidentally moved most of my saved videos and photos from my desktop folder onto my icloud drive. I have since undo that, but that's not what this question is about.
Oh, I bet it is. 😄
After fixing that up, I was looking through the storage part in my system settings when I noticed how my applications section was taking up a ton of space (see picture below). At first I was confused by this
Why were you confused? Was it because you are a rational human being with quaint old ideas about mathematical addition and subtraction?
The problem here was the big re-arrangement and then the "fixing up". Those kinds of major upheavals of your filesystem will take a few days to settle down. It's kind of like surgery in a way. Until it heals a bit, you probably shouldn't look under the bandage.
I counted the amount of storage for each app (at least the ones using 20MB or more) and the total space ended up being less than 19GB.
Never try to do your own storage counts. It won't ever add up.
Why does my laptop believe that my applications are taking up more than 100GB?
Because the system tries to categorize files by type, not location. Many of the files that it categorizes are in various hidden folders that you aren't looking in.
Plus, all of this goes wildly out of whack when you run out of storage space. When you did your big re-arrange and subsequent fix, you probably ran out of storage. I don't care what it's telling you about your "available" storage. It's lying to you - a bald-faced lie.
Would shutting down my laptop solve my issue?
It would not.
You need to keep the computer plugged in and running. Eventually, it will delete the temporary files and local snapshots that are keeping all that data and causing all the confusion. Hopefully it will settle down in a couple of days.
In the future, you might find various 3rd party storage management tools to be useful. They can show you the actual size of directories, including hidden ones. That can be helpful, but also potentially dangerous. Make sure you know what you're deleting. If in doubt, ask here for help. Also remember that with Apple's new APFS file system, no matter how, the math won't ever add up. It's a feature.
