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

Have a look Here...

Where did my Disk Space go?

And Here...

http://macmost.com/what-to-do-when-your-hard-drive-is-full.html

Are you sure you moved them and not just copied them to the external.

Have you emptied the trash?

Do you have Time Machine running? It takes hourly snapshot of your files and stores them on the internal drive if a TM external is not connected to the computer.

Get a real search program, EasyFind, and do a wildcard search for the extension used in those movies (*.movie file extension) and see what it turns up. You could try using Spotlight but I it doesn't accept wildcards and doesn't search everywhere on your drive, useless IMHO.

To check TM open Sys Preference then Time Machine. Not sure where or how it saves the Snapshots it takes. I have that turned off and only turn time machine on when I'm going to do a backup.

CanBritGirl wrote:

how would i check where time machine is pointing to and backing up?

When you post, you should mention what version of the OS you are using.

If you're using Lion, see

<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878>

When you move files from the internal hard drive to an external hard drive by dragging one or more files what you are really doing is making a copy of the files. If you REALLY want to move the files from the internal hard drive to an external one then you should hold the option key. This is really a good thing because it errs on the side of preserving data and making YOU be conscious of making a copy on an external drive, then deleting the originals.

Finally... when and if you do put files in the trash remember to empty the trash

I hope this help.

Wayne Contello wrote:

If you REALLY want to move […] then you should hold the option key.

You mean the ⌘ (command) key, not the ⌥ (option) key. ⌘drag moves across volumes, ⌥drag copies, within the same volume or across volumes.

Yup. Thanks fane_j,

Option will modify the action of copying to "add" a new thing

Command will copy then delete. Thanks for clarifying.

I have the extract same issue. MacBook Pro with a 500gb internal drive. I have 17gb free space I spent the afternoon moving project and files to an external 1tb drive. My external show I have now used 200+gb of space and I only free up 6gb on my internal drive. Oh I am an IT tech I know the difference between move and copy.

As an It Tech then you have heard of OmniDiskSweeper? then open that up and look at what is takeing up all the space.

I have the same problem...on a new iMac running Lion.

I have exactly the same problem on a MacMini running Lion. Moved not copied files to an external hard disk but the computer hard drive space is not freed up. Tried repairing permissions and a general cache clean with Onyx but no joy.

I am stuck with the same thing.. I have a regular desktop mac and move all to an external hard drive and then deleted all my files... funny thing when I put them in the trash.. the trash automatically emptied right away... files are no longer there but the drive is still full.. very frustrating

I had the same issue and deleting on my desktop and also using external HD as scratch disk for imovie and deleting never shown at all.

I ran the disk Inventory X and it shows all the files in hlink folder which is used by "Disk Drill" application... How Diskdrill app avoid emptying trash is beyond me and it also very difficult to get rid of it as well.

I will avoid disk drill as it shows under hand methods to sell its products.

First once Disk Inventory shows the files use it show in the finder and start deleting this horrible hlink folder.