Cannot reduce storage

[MightyGem]

@MightyGem

Instead of the sudo prefix Terminal, try this - no password needed:

Open Terminal and type - tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

Ian

Nope. Still tells me that listlocalsnapshot is an unrecognised verb.

PS. My profile is out of date. I'm using 10.12.6

 

[MacInWin]

listlocalsnapshots is plural. You said. "Still tells me that listlocalsnapshot is an unrecognised verb." If that is what actually came back, you left off the "s" at the end.

 

[MacInWin]

Hmmm, didn't listlocalsnapshots first appear in 10.13? That might explain why it's not available in 10.12.

Let me do some digging, I seem to recall an issue in 10.12 with a never ending growing system file. I'll have to search.

 

[chscag]

Hmmm, didn't listlocalsnapshots first appear in 10.13? That might explain why it's not available in 10.12.

I believe that's correct and would explain why it doesn't work for him. Prior to High Sierra, Time Machine snapshots could be suppressed, but with the advent of APFS the snapshots are automatic and it does not matter if the Time Machine drive is attached or not.

 

[Rod]

Well that doesn’t seem to be my wife’s problem. I guess I’ll download Daisy Disk and do a bit of digging. As usual there are two large areas of storage. Music and Photos. So the usual solution apart from thinning is to move these libraries on to an external storage device complicating backups and access with a portable device. The alternative is to try to find all the data that the device classifies as documents. The documents folder itself is only 12.5Gb yet the Apple menu (About This Mac) states there are 241Gb of files classified as documents on the device.


Sent from my iPad using Mac-Forums

 

[Rod]

So I downloaded Daisy Disk and found the below results:


So she has 370Gb of Hidden Space of which 166.4Gb is Free or Purgeable.
This phenomenon is apparently a characteristic of APFS but my question is what to do about it? Do we just ignore it and allow the system to use this space as it sees fit while the Apple menu continues to say the is only 81Gb of storage left or is there a way to free it up so that indexing can see it?

 

[MacInWin]

Not an APFS characteristic, I don't have that issue and I'm on Mojave with APFS. On my system Daisy Disk reports that the Hidden space is mostly Time Machine temporary files (the snapshots) and will be purged at the next TM backup. Total space is about 64GB, all but 1-2 are purgeable. TM runs twice a day on my system, so it will be purged at midnight tonight. If it's the same on that machine, the snapshots must be growing in number and maybe in size. If you open, on her machine, terminal and then "man tmutil" the list of actions should show listlocalsnapshots as one option. Is that there, on her machine? It won't be on yours, if you are running 10.12.z because it did not appear until 10.13.

 

[Rod]

I'm also on Mojave. I have already posted the results of a terminal search for snapshots. She only has 4 including CCC so it's unlikely they would take up 360Gb. I'm doing a fresh TM backup now so that should remove an TM Snapshots but I noticed when running Disk Utikity it checks 4 system snapshots for what it's worth. Now I'm wondering about duplication but honestly I'm grasping at straws here.

 

[MightyGem]

listlocalsnapshots is plural. You said. "Still tells me that listlocalsnapshot is an unrecognised verb." If that is what actually came back, you left off the "s" at the end.

Sorry, my typo. I left the "s" off in the reply, but not in Terminal.

 

[Rod]

For those who replied to the subject of this post (as opposed to the issue of the localsnapshots on Terminal) I checked the new TM backup I did for my wife's MBP and noted it was 160Gb smaller than the displayed storage in DU and under the Storage tab in the Apple Menu. Currently I'm doing a full restore from the TM Backup hoping that will clear up the Hidden and Free/Purgeable space.

 

[IWT]

Sounds like a good plan, Rod.

Do let us know how it turns out.

Ian

 

[Rod]

We completed the restore from TM. Now 196Gb free. What is a little odd is that my wife now has a heap of old unread emails in Mail dating back to 2010. Emails she has never seen. I believe there may have been another user account in my wife's name that for some reason she stopped using. She created another admin account using a variation of her original username and although deleted it's been hanging around it the background ever since.

 

[IWT]

Women,huh!

Ian

 

[Rod]

Hmm. Well this method although time consuming is obviously the "easy" way to solve the problem she had compared to digging with Daisy Disk to delete selected free or purgeable space which I think may have taken just as long in the end and a lot more thinking on my part.

 

[pine man]

Good to hear you have resolved the issue.

I have been watching with interest and, thanks to testing some of the suggestions, I found that every time I updated my iPhone using iTunes it stored a copy of that update on my mac and I had 63GB of old updates!!

 

[pm-r]

I found that every time I updated my iPhone using iTunes it stored a copy of that update on my mac and I had 63GB of old updates!!

That is one of the reasons why I prefer to use my desktop as a target for my Downloads if there's ever an option to do so, where they are obvious and can be dealt with as necessary.

But I'm glad you found them all, as that's a lot of wasted drive space.



- Patrick
======

 

[IWT]

Good to hear you have resolved the issue.

I have been watching with interest and, thanks to testing some of the suggestions, I found that every time I updated my iPhone using iTunes it stored a copy of that update on my mac and I had 63GB of old updates!!

I am not in the least doubting what has happened in your case; but as far back as I can remember, after every update (I think) and most certainly after every Upgrade, the "old" iOS was automatically put in trash. Which is one of the reasons that one couldn't downgrade the iOS to a previous version unless you were very quick about it and got the signed-off previous version from the Apple site before Apple withdrew it.

Ian

 

[pine man]

after every update (I think) and most certainly after every Upgrade, the "old" iOS was automatically put in trash

Thinking back, you are correct, that used to be the case for me but for some reason it stopped and, probably the last 30 or so, remained.

I no longer update via iTunes.

 

[chscag]

Good to hear you have resolved the issue.

I have been watching with interest and, thanks to testing some of the suggestions, I found that every time I updated my iPhone using iTunes it stored a copy of that update on my mac and I had 63GB of old updates!!

The way to avoid that (if possible) is update over the air. I have unlimited data so it's easy for me to do. I realize that some folks have limited data plans and it's better for them to use iTunes.

 

[pm-r]

The way to avoid that (if possible) is update over the air. I have unlimited data so it's easy for me to do. I realize that some folks have limited data plans and it's better for them to use iTunes.

Can they not do the same update via Wi-Fi if they have wi-fi Internet access??


- Patrick
======