Deleting Files Releases No Disk Space

travis- wrote:

I have the same problem! It seems the system is occupying all my disk space - 234 of 251GB. I deleted several GBs of files, and within minutes, I was out of space again. Help!

See the above information about OmniDiskSweeper. That will find the space on your disk, and show you want is taking up all your space in System.

FYI: If you are going to piggy back on someone else's post, it is often times useful to read all the replies, as they may help you.

See "What is 'Other' and What Can I Do About It?"

<https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-5142>

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Also see Time Machine Local Snapshots

<http://pondini.org/TM/30.html>

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OmniDiskSweeper (free download)

<http://www.omnigroup.com/more>

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When using OmniDiskSweeper, or any utility that shows all your files... See the following article if you want to run it as root

<http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/how_to_recover_missing_hard_drive_space>

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Boiler Plate Warnings:

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If you have a recurring, running out of disk space, problem, then OmniDiskSweeper may help identify where the space is going. Posting the suspected locations and files will help the forum help you to figure it out. Remember, we cannot see into your disk, you have to give us information to work with.

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DO NOT delete files in your Home Folder -> Library tree as there are things like your iPhone backups, your email messages, your application preferences, etc… If you think you have found something in your Home Folder -> Library that can be deleted, you should ask first.

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DO NOT delete files outside your home folder, as you may end up deleting something essential to macOS, and turn your Mac into an expensive “Door Stop”.

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I will point out that you will find some very large files in private -> var -> vm (these are the macOS virtual memory paging files (swapfiles) and where macOS stores the copy of RAM when your Mac is put to sleep). The swapfile(s) get deleted on reboot, and the sleep image is just going to be created again when you put your Mac to sleep.

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If you think you have found something to delete outside your home folder, it would be best to ask first before deleting. There are many examples of people deleting files outside their home folder, or renaming files, or changing the ownership or file permissions, and then their Mac stops running. Do not be one of those people. Ask first.

I have the same problem! It seems the system is occupying all my disk space - 234 of 251GB. I deleted several GBs of files, and within minutes, I was out of space again. Help!

You might have a lot of hidden files. This happened to me too where it didn't allow me to update my MacBook Pro to High Sierra

. I went through and deleted message transcripts, audio and even uninstalled unused programs, pretty much any hidden files I had no use for. I did this by just typing random letters into finder. I had so much stuff I didn't even know existed. Once you've done that maybe look at using an external hard drive for extra storage.

Im no pro, but I hope it helps 🙂

I would check the "Disk Drill" documentation first. There may be a configuration option that limits how much data is saved, and if you adjust that, maybe Disk Drill will reduce the size of the file itself.

Or there is a Disk Drill "Disable" option that will purge the file cleanly for you and not leave dangling Disk Drill infrastructure hanging around.

I cannot tell you if you can safely delete .cleverfiles, as I do not know enough (or anything about it for that matter) about Disk Drill.

Having said that, chances are if you have deleted Disk Drill from your system using the vendor's uninstall instructions, then you can delete any residual files that did not get remove, such as .cleverfiles

I suggest you have a backup before you do. Even better the truly paranoid computer use, will have 2 backups, using 2 different backup utilities, going to 2 different backup devices. Because if "Murphy's Law" gets invoked, it does not care if you have a lived a "Pure Life" 🙂

Try re-indexing Spotlight by excluding your hard drive and then remove it.

Spotlight – Re-index

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Oh and if you do accidentally delete anything in the utilities folder or important things like that (as i learnt the hard way).. you can easily get them all back just by updating your system