HD Capacity available includes "purgeable" space. What is this, and should I remove it??

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The Storage Tab in About this Mac shows “Purgeable” content when you've turned on Optimize Mac Storage. It's storage space that your Mac can automatically make available when needed. Files considered purgeable can always be downloaded again on demand.

Cheers!

I believe the question is also about why the empty space is being declared purgeable within the "Get Info" window. What you've shown is not the "Get Info" window, but instead information about used space.

Try selecting "Mac HD" in the Finder and then choose "Get Info" from the File menu. A window will appear with information about "Capacity", "Available", and "Used". Next to "Available" with an amount of disk space and after it in parentheses will be another amount with the word "purgeable" next to it.

For example, on my computer the "Get Info" window for the "Mac HD" is declaring it has:

Capacity: 499.05 GB

Available: 476.23 GB (443.3 MB purgeable)

Used: 22,816,690,628 bytes (22.82 GB on disk)

I think that is confusing because I can't tell whether it means I could have 476.23 GB + 443.3 MB, or that I actually have 476.23 GB - 443.3 MB. In my case it obviously isn't going to make a significant difference at this moment since the purgeable amount is merely MB and not GB. Sometime later when the purgeable is actually GB instead of just MB then it'd be nice to understand what is meant: is it "could be" or is it "is"?

The 443.3 MB value also doesn't match anything for me in the dialog you referenced from the "About This Mac" option in the apple menu of the menu bar. Nor have I noticed the value in the dialog that appears when I choose the "Manage..." button in that dialog and browse through the various files and their sizes that it reveals.

As such, this purgeable value in the "Get Info" window for the "Mac HD" next to the "Available" amount of space is incomprehensible to me. Personally, I'm not worried about it, I just don't know what it's trying to tell me.

Oh, wow. While writing this the values have changed to:

Available: 476.24 GB (449.1 MB purgeable)

Used: 22,811,861,444 bytes (22.81 GB on disk)

Well, it seems to be saying it has used more space while I've been writing this. It's also seems to be saying I have more available space and that I have more purgeable space. Okay, maybe I understand. The additional space that has been used while writing this message is perhaps also purgeable thereby increasing the available space reported. It would seem the available space is not completely available but is instead possible to be available.

I would hazard a guess that the actually available space (at this moment) is 476.24 GB - 449.1 MB. So, not plus but minus. I guess it's saying it can delete some of the used space to make...

Uh oh, it changed again...

It's fluctuating too much. This is third time I have checked while writing this and this time the purgeable remained the same value while the available value decreased. No, this isn't making any sense trying to make deductions from these inconsistent fluctuations.

I don't know, I give up, I don't know what it is saying or why it's telling me at all. It doesn't seem like it's something I can do anything about.

Trying observing the "Get Info" window yourself for a bit and see if the fluctuations make any sense to you. The information doesn't seem reliable to me.