I empty trash but not free disk space

Why is every response to this question from morons??? The issue the poster and I are having is after clearing up many gigs of data (100+ gigs in my case); yes we found the folders, deleted them and successfully emptied the trash, our available free space does not change. This is not user error. The only user error is you idiots assuming this poster doesn't know how to permanently delete files. If someone qualified has experienced this issue before and is aware of a solution please respond, otherwise, please keep your moronic replies to yourself!!!

I had this same issue. What worked for me was in Finder Window, going to highest level where I could see my devices listed (i.e. Network, Remote Disk, "Macintosh HD").

Then doing a Control-Click on the "Macintosh HD" (or whatever you have named your Startup Volume) gives a drop-down menu with a choice called "Manage Storage...."

This brings up a new window that has a left sidebar that puts your startup volume through a routine that gets a fresh calculation of your used and available disk space.

I have asked to remove the post of Saifan Pilot above: is a commercial post, and the recommendation is as bad as can be possible almost, CleanMyMac is bad software and can cripple your mac with damage that you can not undo. As dialabrain already remarked.

If your Trash does not give more free space after emptying: do a start in Safe Mode, then restart again. Normally the space will be freed again:

Shutdown, start while holding the shift key, keep holding, it is slow, login, then choose restart from the apple icon menu.

Lex

For what it's worth, I've run into this problem several times.

Just this morning, I deleted 280GB of video files & still shows 5.21GB free. Time Machine is not enabled, so that's not the issue.

What seems to remedy it (at least for some time) is to reboot into recovery mode, run disk first aid, then restart again.

I do not have an explanation on why this works, except that offline disk first aid forces a TRIM operation on the SSD.

Disk First Aid while the machine is booted normally (not recovery mode) will report that everything is fine - so it's not a data or disk structure corruption issue.

I 'll try to explain right now total storage is 120.11 GB

Hover the cursor towards right . System is using 16.71 GB

Purgeable data is 1.58 GB

Free is 100.84 GB it means from total Hard disk space that is 120.11 GB I can use still free space 100.84 GB that is left for me to utilize .

Did you have a green check marks as shown in your system and also in front of store iCloud .

Is your garbage bin empty now?

This is my workflow:

I use Finder

• Go to the hard drive "Macintosh HD" in the side tool bar.
• Use list view sorted by size in descending order.
• Finder → View → Show View Options
• Check "Calculate All Sizes" & Click Use as Defaults
• Finder → View → Show Status Bar (this will show space available on the bottom of the window)
• Now I find folders that are large and drill down into each one recursively, to find folders in each one that have lots of space used.

See screenshots below:

You could try booting into Safe Mode (hold "Shift" on restart) - let it boot and then restart normally again. It carries out some general house cleaning duties so might help.

Also read that SSD's don't always release space when deleting files until required, something to do with reducing read/writes to save on disc usage - not sure how true that is but I've deleted files in the past and it's been awhile before I have seen the space come back.

There are other places where you can free up disk space, besides the obvious (deleting unused content from Downoads folder, Desktop etc...)

There are caches.

You can either use a cleaning software, like Clean My Mac: http://macpaw.com/cleanmymac

Or you can do it yourself (carefully): https://macpaw.com/how-to/clear-cache-on-mac

http://osxdaily.com/2016/01/17/empty-cache-safari-mac-os-x/

How are you viewing the amount of space you delete and the amount of space available?

The only explanation I have is perhaps you deleted files from an external hard drive which went into the trash. When you empty the trash, with that external hard drive not connected to the computer, it probably ques them for deletion next time the hard drive is connected.

FWIW, installing CleanMyMac is possibly the worst thing you can do to a Mac.

Read these articles : macOS Sierra: Increase disk space

: Free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support