Cannot copy file. Not enough free space.

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Level 1

88 points

Cannot copy file. Not enough free space.

I am trying to copy a recent copy of my iPhoto Library from a clone to my Pictures folder on my MacBook Pro's harddisk. I have delete the iPhoto Library in that folder and have emptied the trash. Finder shows that I have more than 600 GB of 1 TB free on the built-in harddisk, and the copy is "only" 397 GB. Nevertheless, I am receiving the error that there is not enough free space to do the copy. I have tried booting from the clone and then copying to the built-in harddisk, but the result is the same. Can anybody help?

Thanks,

Richard

MacBook Pro (17-inch Late 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.5), 2.4 GHz Core i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB HD

Posted on Aug 25, 2013 1:39 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Aug 25, 2013 4:02 PM in response to Richard Liu

See what the Storage display shows for free space.

It may be much smaller than the 600 GB shown by the Finder. If so, the difference may be your Local Snapshots, in the Backups category. If so, you can delete them by just turning Time Machine OFF briefly.

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Answer 2

Oct 17, 2013 7:04 PM in response to Pondini

Thanks as this solved the same problem for me. USing get info showed I had 50gb free, but Storage under About This MAc showed only 10gb free. Turning off Time Machine briefly provided about all of the 50gb of free space allowing me to add the large iPhoto Library from my Desktop iMac.

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