Finder claims 260 GB free - About this Mac claims 190 GB

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Level 1

14 points

Finder claims 260 GB free - About this Mac claims 190 GB

I am finding large discrepancies between the finder's reporting of available space on my HD and other sources. For example, here are the reports:

Finder: 260 GB

df -h : 190 GB

About this Mac: 190 GB (storage tab)

Disk Utility: 190 GB (below bar graph), 260 GB (table below bar graph)

The "Other" category in the bar graph shows 176 GB. The finder estimate jumped up 70 GB when I reimported about 400000 mail messages.

Does anyone have any ideas about what is happening?

I am running OS X 10.11.4 on a retina MacBook Pro (early 2015) with a 500 GB SSD.

Thanks.

Warren Nagourney

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9), null

Posted on Apr 3, 2016 8:21 PM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Apr 3, 2016 9:26 PM in response to warrennn

You may notice a difference in available space statistics between Disk Utility, Finder, and Get Info inspectors. This is expected and can be safely ignored. The Finder displays the available space on the disk without accounting for the local snapshots, because local snapshots will surrender their disk space if needed.

About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs

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Answer 2

warrennn Author

Level 1

14 points

Apr 3, 2016 9:31 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thanks, you are absolutely correct -- the storage tab in About This Mac shows 70 GB of backups and this accounts for the difference.

wn

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