Getting Different Answers as to How Much Free Space my Hard Drive Has

From another contributor @etresoft regarding Free Space and Available Space 

Free vs available disk space huge differe… - Apple Community

Quote >>  “ The "available" storage is the amount of used storage that the operating system could automatically delete if it felt that it was really necessary. The "free" storage is the amount that you can actually use for something.

There are system processes that run in the background and automatically delete some of the "available" storage and convert it to "free". If you completely run out of storage, then those system processes will try a little harder.

When you "delete" files you are just hinting to the operating system that you don't need those files anymore.

The operating system will eventually remove them, but on its own schedule.

Certain tools will allow you to force the issue and manually clean up some of this storage and manually delete local snapshots. But that is only temporary. "  << End Quote 

Purgeable Space is controlled by the Operating System and not the user 

Get detailed information about a disk in Disk Utility on Mac

Perhaps some guidance here? https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254157506

Same link that I posted. ;-) Except I have problems getting the forum software to resolve my URLs to titled versions 50% of the time I post them so in the end I just give up and leave them as bare URLs.

Yes same here

Usually I will copy only the Title of the Thread into Notes application

Then, copy the url and add as a Link into the Text of the Title.

Extra steps ?

Yes, though I have the time and patience to do this since retiring in 2007

Our Friend is in Emergency 😔

DJWillis wrote:

I used Disk Utility to figure out how much free space is left on my 1tb internal hard drive. It said 95gb free. Then I deleted 60 gigabytes of files, and now it says it I have 102 gigabytes free. Why isn't it showing 155 gb free (95 + 60)?

There are a few different explanations. Could be that you have some local snapshots that are saving some of the data. Could be that you have some low-level shared blocks that are saving some of the data.

I did not add any files, just deleted some.

Look on the bright side. Technically speaking, it's possible to delete a bunch of file and actually lose free hard drive space. It's not likely, but there does exist a worst-case scenario of all the issues I mentioned above.

I emptied the trash if that matters.

It does not.

Then I went to the Finder and selected my internal hard drive and did a Get Info on my hard drive, and it shows 542 gb available (440 purgeable)?

That's about what I would expect.

Why the difference between the Get Info and the Disk Utility amount of free space?

It's like when you go into the library and they organize books by genre. Why the difference between "fiction" books and "history" books? Can't really answer that question. Some books are facts. Some are fiction. Generally speaking, there's more money to be made in fiction. Facts can be disturbing and uncomfortable.

Is "purgeable) space basically considered free space?

Free space is free space. When free space is used for any other purpose, it is "used" space.