Warnings in 26.4 Disk Utility, "INO_EXT_TYPE_PURGEABLE_FLAGS: found purgeable flags xfield even though the file is marked as purgeable". Cause?

Question

Warnings in 26.4 Disk Utility, "INO_EXT_TYPE_PURGEABLE_FLAGS: found purgeable flags xfield even though the file is marked as purgeable". Cause?

Just upgraded to MacOS 26.4, and Drive Genius started throwing warnings from fsck_apfs, "INO_EXT_TYPE_PURGEABLE_FLAGS: found purgeable flags xfield even though the file is marked as purgeable". I booted into recovery mode, and ran Disk Utility on the Data partition of the boot drive, and it reported the same. It ended with the message that the drive is corrupted and needed repairs, it said 'performing deferred repairs, then reported that volume /dev/rdisk3s5 appears to be OK. Running it again in recovery reported exactly the same warnings and that the disk is corrupted.

Where is the corruption, and what can I do to fix it, if possible, short of reformatting and re-installing?

MacBook Pro (M1 Max, 2021)

Posted on Mar 27, 2026 2:04 PM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

157,526 points

Mar 27, 2026 4:27 PM in response to andrewdiseker

Drive "Genius" has been known to corrupt perfectly good hard disk drives. Rule 1 of Macs is don't install junk.

Uninstall it in accordance with its instructions, run Disk Utility in Recovery mode again, and if the errors persist reformat the disk.

Back up the Mac first (obviously).

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Answer 2

leroydouglas

Level 10

202,218 points

May 17, 2026 6:23 PM in response to cantrax

Typically you can ignore the warnings.

You can try running Time Machine to remove local snap shots and compare your results if you are so inclined.

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Answer 3

Apr 5, 2026 8:55 AM in response to John Galt

I ended up making a clone of the drive, used it to reboot, reformatted and reinstalled Tahoe, then restored everything from the last TimeMachine that I made an hour earlier. Everything works, no more Disk utility warnings when checking the drive. I have had success with Drive Genius in the past, for relatively minor issues on non-system disks.

Thank you for responding.

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Answer 4

Doug Metz

Level 2

372 points

Apr 20, 2026 11:12 AM in response to andrewdiseker

Found these same errors today on my Data volume, with 2 major differences:

I don't have Drive Genius installed, or anything of the sort - I keep things squeaky clean
Running Disk Utility in Recovery, it reports that the drive appears to be OK without doing any reported repairs.

Subsequent checks consistently report the errors, and also report that the volume appears to be OK. So the inode errors appear to be unrelated to Drive Genius.

macOS 26.4.1 / 16" M4 Max MBP

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Answer 5

May 13, 2026 12:19 PM in response to Doug Metz

I am experiencing the same issue, and I do not have Drive Genius installed. I have attempted all possible solutions, but none have resolved the problem. This occurred after the 26.5 update. I am reluctant to perform a complete clean reinstall of Tahoe all my software, but it is noteworthy that this issue has affected all of 6 my laptops since the update.

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Answer 6

cantrax

Level 1

8 points

May 17, 2026 6:15 PM in response to Lady Engineer

I am having the same issue since updating to Tahoe 26.5. Everything seems to work but wondering if this is a software update issue. I rebooted in the safe mode and did the recovery mode. Any ideas?

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