Why doesn't my disk space free up after moving files to an external drive?

I figured out my problem I kept trying to delete secure mail but it was ghosted... once i had acutall trash in my trashbin showing I tried again and it was no longer ghosted.. I had almost two million in my trash ..took over a week to delete.. but I am good now with lots of room on my drive..

I have the same issues.

This may sound like a silly solution, but it has worked for me in the past...

I take my mac to work and connect to their network as well. When i take my mac out of the house and away from my network, the space seems to free up again, so when i get home and re connect, the free space is there! No Idea why it doesn't just do it straight away, but it is what i do to show that I have freed up space.

Maybe take the mac away from your house (and network), try connecting it elsewhere, or ven just use it away from home and then bring it back. See if that works?? Obviously make sure you delete your files before you take the mac away from home.

Sorry for such a stupid suggestion, but it worked for me. Good luck and let me know if you find out your solution 🙂

After racking my brain and doing a lot of searching I finally found out why my available space was never going up no matter how many files I deleted.

Read this:

http://toti.posterous.com/hidden-local-backups-with-mac-os-x-lion-filli

It basically has to do with a lovely hidden file that was introduced in Lion that TimeMachine uses to store local backups in when your laptop is away from its normal external hard drive (.MobileBackups) . And apparently the only way to see it is in the Storage tab of the "About this Mac" window (Backups).

Mine had gotten up to 207GB!

Run this command in Terminal:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

Here's after:

Zero KB! Lovely!

Thank you. Been searching for a solution for a few days. This was it.

This link: http://toti.posterous.com/hidden-local-backups-with-mac-os-x-lion-filli is no longer available and I'm having the same issue where I delete files off my internal hard drive, yet the amount of gigs used when I check remains the same. Can you please provide details as to what was said in that link? It would be REALLY helpful. I'm at a total loss here.

The only thing that you really need to gleen from that page is to run this command in Terminal:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

and it should solve your problem.

I've been having this problem, too and I've had a hard time finding answers. I tried this command in Terminal, and it did the trick! Thank you very much, varr!

I ran the command on Terminal and it still wouldn't do anything.

First off all you must check what uses most of your memory on your mac.

I did that with Terminal comand:

du -sh *

And found out that it was .cleverfiles (more then 250GB)

I did some investigation and found out that it was one inecent backup program Diskdrill that was making backups for my files on my mac. So whenever I deleted a file this program saved it. So there is no chance to make any free space while this program on mac. So I had to delted this backup files to make free space and Diskdrill itself.

When I put comand:

sudo rm -r /.cleverfiles

to terminal, everything came back to normal, no more copies, backups or duble files.

Try to check if you have any backup program like Disk drill. And choose another way to back up your mac, becouse this is going to kill your mac...

Hi,

I too did the error of trying DiskDrill and now I don't manage to free disk space.

I tried to put to terminal both commands "sudo tmutil disablelocal" and "sudo rm -r /.cleverfiles" but all I get is:

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.
To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.
Password:

However, when I then try to type something after "password", the terminal won't accept anything.

Help would be greatly appreciated. And if you reply to, could I please ask you to do it in rather clear way as I'm no way any computer expert (I didn't even know what is "terminal" until I googled it just now when this IDIOTIC problem came up)...

I've also got rid of the application Disk Drill, thinking that would solve it but as I've just learned it did not.

Thanking you infinitely in advance.

Do NOT use Onyx for cleaning caches. In fact do not clean caches at all. That does not help; caches are there to make things faster, and caches as they grow, will be handled by the OS: daily, weekly, monthly. When you clean caches they will just grow again, and you win nothing.

Do not use any "cleaner" app; whatever they promise you, it can only lead to trouble.

Just remove large files, that you can access from another media when needed.

Do not use Terminal whn you don't understand it.

Example: when you type "something" after "password:", it will be accepted or not without showing anything, you just hit Enter after typing. As long it is not your account password, it will again ask for "password:"

Ask somebody here what exactly must be done to stop local snapshots. Or read the famous pages about TimeMachine by Pondini (they may no longer be available since he died shortly).

Thanks but I haven't even tried to clean caches.

My trash is empty but still I can't see on my disk new 30GB (at least) space that should be there now.

Another thing I found, but don't manage to get rid of: I found in the Library -> Application Support -> CleverFiles and in that folder an application BackService. I threw it in the trash but when I try to empty trash bin, I get "The operation can't be completed because the item "BackService" is in use.

How do I disable this BackService???

Terminal + password: the system doesn't accept any typing, not even one letter.

I managed to solve my problem.

If you have the same problem, that is the disk space issue is connected to Disk Drill, this one worked for me:

- if you have thrown the application in the trash bin and deleted it permanently, reinstall it

- then go to Disk Drill -> Preferences -> General and click the radio button "Remove Disk Drill"

- and voilà, I got my disk space back

The second step is explained also on their website: http://help.cleverfiles.com/how-to-uninstall-disk-drill/

Have a nice Monday everyone - mine just got a lot better.