ziggy29 wrote:
I have close to 500 GB in files on the internal 1 TB drive
What kind of files?
the Mac (OS 26.1) reports that I am only using a little over 200 GB of space because it thinks there is 293.9 GB of purgeable space that isn't there.
Disregard anything about "purgeable" or "available" space. Storage is complicate enough as it is without having to explain what Apple's trying to do there.
The 491 GB of reported files on the Info tab is about the right amount of space but the Storage preference shows only 209 GB used (inconsistent with the bar graph that shows almost half the volume used by files).
My first question is the most important one. Storage can be reported in many different ways, depending on how you're looking at it. Plus, many of the representations that Apple gives you will only make you more confused.
That 208.4 GB value is the correct one. That's how much storage you've used on the drive. This is a low-level view of the drive itself. It's adding up the low-level APFS blocks in the file system.
What you're seeing in the Finder's Get Info is more of a high level view. This is the sum of individual files. But multiple files can share the same underlying blocks. So such files of size 5 GB, totalling 10 GB, will only take up 5 GB. If you have many such files, then you can get into the kind of discrepancy that you're describing.
And that's just one possible explanation. There are a number of other potential scenarios that could wind up looking the same way.
It looks like you're doing very well storage-wise. I wouldn't worry about it.
The only important value if your free storage. This is not the same as "available" storage. If you look at Disk Utility, looking directly at one of the low-level devices or APFS containers, it will tell you the correct amount of "free" storage. Keep that over 100 GB and you'll be fine. If it gets much less than that, your performance will suffer.
Unfortunately, many of the other storage displays are misleading. I mentioned that the 208.4 GB value was correct. But the graph right below it is not. That 208.4 is 20.95% of the available storage. You can easily see that the chart is showing a different value. I have a screen measurement tool, so I can tell you that the graph is showing 42.09% used, which doesn't correspond to any other values that you've shown.
There's no way around this, I'm afraid. There's no easy way to map how those low-level blocks are used to the high-level file view.
