"About this Mac" storage pane

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Level 4

2,242 points

"About this Mac" storage pane

On Friday I took delivery of a brand new iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch. High Sierra 10.13.3) with a 500GB SSD internal drive, and am thoroughly enjoying it but have noticed one “issue” so far: the storage window in “About this Mac” is stuck forever calculating the space on the internal SSD, and stays grey, never showing the breakdown as coloured stripes as it did on my old 2013 iMac. However the space shown seems to be correct…

Is this an oddity with internal SSDs or is something wrong here? I´ve re-indexed Spotlight three times to no avail. This isn´t a big deal, I´d just like to know how to get the breakdown and colours back! And it doesn´t work in Safe Mode either. Thanks for any help/suggestions! Ian.

Posted on Mar 5, 2018 3:34 AM

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Answer 1

den.thed

Level 9

77,176 points

Mar 5, 2018 11:10 AM in response to Ian Leckie

You're welcome!

I'm still using the previous 1.9 version of ODS and it works fine with High Sierra. I actually never use the Delete feature to remove files from my drives, but it is a very handy tool for locating files and checking disk usage on both internal and external drives.

If you like, you can still get and try the 1.9 version from the link I posted above.

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Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

122,549 points

Mar 5, 2018 6:15 AM in response to Ian Leckie

Ian, what I posted yesterday still holds true. Apparently you had the same post in two sections and they deleted the one with my reply. I still stand by what i said.

You can certainly have yours looked at.

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Answer 3

Ian Leckie Author

Level 4

2,242 points

Mar 5, 2018 6:58 AM in response to dialabrain

Yes, sorry, my mistake about the double posting 😟 I won't bother having my Mac looked at for the moment as it´s really no big deal. Just thought there might be some .plist or something hidden away in the System folder that I could trash!

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Answer 4

dialabrain

Level 10

122,549 points

Mar 5, 2018 7:09 AM in response to Ian Leckie

No need to be sorry. My feeling is it's caused by some kind of housekeeping the Mac is doing. As I mentioned I've seen it myself and it just went away. I've also seen something similar with Get Info windows where it seems to take "forever" to calculate a folder size yet the next time Get Info is open the size comes right up.

You can always phone Apple tech support. I would ask for a "senior advisor".

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Answer 5

den.thed

Level 9

77,176 points

Mar 5, 2018 10:26 AM in response to Ian Leckie

I have noticed some wonkyness with "About This Mac > Storage" for sometime now.

Try restarting your Mac and then re-opening About This Mac > Storage.

If that doesn't help, try temporally ejecting and disconnecting your external drives.

Personally I still prefer using OmniDiskSweeper to get an accurate readout of data usage.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more

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Answer 6

Ian Leckie Author

Level 4

2,242 points

Mar 5, 2018 10:33 AM in response to den.thed

Thanks for replying!

"Try restarting your Mac and then re-opening About This Mac > Storage.

If that doesn't help, try temporally ejecting and disconnecting your external drives."

Have done what you suggested plus re-indexing Spotlight again — no change! But thanks for the link to the OmniDiskSweeper website. They only offer a test build version for anything higher than macOS 10.12, and as I'm on 10.13.3 I´ll wait until they catch up!

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Answer 7

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,562 points

Mar 5, 2018 6:08 AM in response to Ian Leckie

You have 90 days of complimentary AppleCare phone support, I'd recommend using it. If you are not familiar with this please review Complimentary AppleCare Support

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Answer 8

Ian Leckie Author

Level 4

2,242 points

Mar 5, 2018 6:09 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Thanks for replying, will do!

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Answer 9

Ian Leckie Author

Level 4

2,242 points

Mar 5, 2018 11:37 AM in response to den.thed

Ok, I‘m going to try ODS tomorrow when I have time! I just need an app that gives me the occasional detailed breakdown of drive storage in addition to Apple‘s „manage storage“ feature!

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"About this Mac" storage pane

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