BB623
Level 4 (1,171 points)
Apple TV

Q: Purgeable in Disk Utility

There is a large section on HDD that states purgeable in Apple, About and in disk utilities.  It's available space but how do you purge or see what's there?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Sep 21, 2016 10:06 AM

by jameson.h,Solvedanswer
jameson.h jameson.h
Community Specialists
A:
Hello BB623,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. 

I understand from your post that you can see a large section of space called Purgeable in the About This Mac section of your MacBook Pro. I know how important it is for you to know what the Purgeable section is and what is in it. The following article will provide you with additional information regarding the section of storage called Purgeable: 

What is ‘Other‘ and ‘Purgeable‘ in About This Mac?
 
  • In macOS Sierra, “Purgeable” content appears when you've turned on Optimize Mac Storage. It's storage space that your Mac can automatically make available when storage space is needed. Files marked as purgeable can always be downloaded again on demand.
Best Regards.

Posted on Sep 22, 2016 9:40 AM

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BB623

Q: Purgeable in Disk Utility

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  • Helpful answers

  • by jameson.h,Solvedanswer

    jameson.h jameson.h Sep 22, 2016 9:40 AM in response to BB623
    Community Specialists
    Sep 22, 2016 9:40 AM in response to BB623
    Hello BB623,
    Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. 

    I understand from your post that you can see a large section of space called Purgeable in the About This Mac section of your MacBook Pro. I know how important it is for you to know what the Purgeable section is and what is in it. The following article will provide you with additional information regarding the section of storage called Purgeable: 

    What is ‘Other‘ and ‘Purgeable‘ in About This Mac?
     
    • In macOS Sierra, “Purgeable” content appears when you've turned on Optimize Mac Storage. It's storage space that your Mac can automatically make available when storage space is needed. Files marked as purgeable can always be downloaded again on demand.
    Best Regards.

  • by BB623,

    BB623 BB623 Sep 24, 2016 7:24 PM in response to jameson.h
    Level 4 (1,171 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 24, 2016 7:24 PM in response to jameson.h

    Can you uncheck "Optimize Storage".  

  • by alex_h1,

    alex_h1 alex_h1 Sep 24, 2016 8:10 PM in response to BB623
    Community Specialists
    Sep 24, 2016 8:10 PM in response to BB623
    You can adjust the settings, but there is not a specific check for it. The following link has information about how the optimize storage works and how to adjust it. 

    Free up storage space on your Mac

    Cheers.

  • by BB623,

    BB623 BB623 Sep 24, 2016 8:11 PM in response to alex_h1
    Level 4 (1,171 points)
    Apple TV
    Sep 24, 2016 8:11 PM in response to alex_h1

    Thanks,

    This got me back to default.   The Purgeable size is huge.  Does it reduce over time?

  • by Chastings,

    Chastings Chastings Sep 28, 2016 7:37 PM in response to jameson.h
    Level 1 (57 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 28, 2016 7:37 PM in response to jameson.h

    I have purgeable space accumulating but "Optimize Mac Storage" is disabled.   Should this occur?

     

    Curt

  • by nitinm98,

    nitinm98 nitinm98 Oct 16, 2016 4:18 AM in response to BB623
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Windows Software
    Oct 16, 2016 4:18 AM in response to BB623

    I was using bootcamp I have 20 gb of purgeable space how to convert that to free space

  • by Golfhacker27,

    Golfhacker27 Golfhacker27 Oct 16, 2016 6:25 AM in response to Chastings
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 16, 2016 6:25 AM in response to Chastings

    Same for me. I did not select the optimize function, but found that 40gb of my files had been arbitrarily and randomly tagged as purgeable by the system. Including new files that I did not want removed from my HD. This was a week ago.

    Then yesterday, those files were purged. For no apparent reason or trigger. Are they gone forever? How to prevent more files from being purged? Who knows, cos Apple aren't giving any info or options on how to manage or prevent this.

  • by Chastings,

    Chastings Chastings Oct 17, 2016 6:50 AM in response to nitinm98
    Level 1 (57 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 17, 2016 6:50 AM in response to nitinm98


    If you have TimeMachine enabled it might be that local snap shots are the issue.  Generally when the backups are successfully completed, the OS will delete the local snapshots.   I have seen a delay in this which causes the local snapshots to remain.


    An option is to disable local snapshots but know that this will delete any TimeMachine local backups created between TM backups.  It not delete any files other than the backups that have not been written to TimeMachine.

     

    The command to disable snapshots is:

    sudo tmutil disablelocal and must be run from a terminal session.  It will also prompt for an admin password.

     

    To renable use:

    sudo tmutil enablelocal

     

    Hope this helps.

     

    Curt