Cannot reduce storage

I'm puzzled here because this should be simple yet I keep thinking I must be overlooking something obvious.
My wife Annie has a 2018 MBPr 13" with 8Gb RAM and 500Gb SSD. Just recently she tells me she has been seeing a low RAM notification although I have not seen this myself.

First thing I checked was storage and found that she only had 94Gb of storage left.

So I set her to the task of doing a bit of a clean up. I know she trashed at least 5Gb of junk, emptied the trash and restarted. She still had only 94Gb. Thinking some sort of error I used the storage management tool in the Apple menu to remove another 4Gb of old files. Still no change.
I ran Disk Utility First Aid, nil issues, ran OnyX, did a CCC backup and reduced the number of Disk images, did a Time Machine backup to dispose of any saved data on the SSD, shut down and rebooted several times. Still 94Gb of free storage.
There has actually been some variation in that figure but no more than 500Mb either way.

What am I missing? I can trash a single movie on my MBP and see the menu meters graph on my menu bar drop within seconds?

I'm stumped.


Sent from my iPhone

Moved from the Lounge to here. Not a Lounge subject.

I'm wondering if your wife's hard drive is loaded up with snapshots from CCC and Time Machine. Those can build up fast and eat hard drive space quickly. Supposedly, they are removed when the drive begins to fill up, but I have found that it doesn't always work right.

Run this command from terminal to see if snapshots exist on her SSD:

sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /Volumes/

Let us know.

Thanks Chas, strange I changed the post from Schwebs Lounge to macOSX. Oh well no matter. I'll try your suggestion but I already ran TM and CCC, reducing CCC snapshots to one. Still who knows?

The point is, even if the storage is filled with backups deleting 10gb of data should make a difference to the remaining storage and it hasn't.

Rod

There is an explanation for the deleted snapshots not being seen or recognised after deletion.

As I’m on a short holiday break, I don’t have access to my iMac where all this info is stored.

But if you go on to the CCC website, bombich.com, I think - then click on the snapshots post, there is a detailed explanation of the whole process with appropriate explanations - and how to handle the matter.

It might be on this: https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/leveraging-snapshots-on-apfs-volumes

If not there, then definitely on the same website.

Sorry I can’t be more helpful, Rod.

Ian

Just out of curiosity, I tried "sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /Volumes/"

Terminal came back with: listlocalsnapshots: Unrecognized verb.

Well I ran the command and I got results listing 4 snapshots. This is the normal amount I think. The TM snapshots being dated yesterday and CCC only has two.

MightyGem said:

Just out of curiosity, I tried "sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /Volumes/"

Terminal came back with: listlocalsnapshots: Unrecognized verb.

Click to expand...

Are you sure you entered the command correctly? It works for me and as you can see from Rod's reply above, it works for him too.

Well I ran the command and I got results listing 4 snapshots. This is the normal amount I think. The TM snapshots being dated yesterday and CCC only has two.

Click to expand...

Okay, those snapshots unless they're gigantic are not the cause of all the space being taken up on her machine. There must be something else going on.

Is it time to run DaisyDisk to see what's hogging the drive?

Just recently she tells me she has been seeing a low RAM notification although I have not seen this myself.

First thing I checked was storage and found that she only had 94Gb of storage left.

Click to expand...

Which is it, low RAM or storage space???

And "only had 94Gb of storage left" is definitely NOT a point of being short of storage space.

And are you saying that if you Trash 5± GB data and empty the Trash that the Finder doesn't account or show the 5± GB amount as being deleted??



- Patrick
======

Yes Patrick, that's the issue that's troubling me. Trashing data is not being reflected anywhere. I am sure we have erased at least 10Gb of data yet the storage remains at approx 94Gb. My original thinking was that a low RAM notification might occur if vacant storage fell below the recommended 20% free. So although I'm surprised her data has exceeded 400Gb, it's never been over 300Gb in the past that is not so much an issue as the inability to increase storage by erasing data.

I did think it might be an indexing issue but it's consistent across several apps including EtreCheck which shows a few errors that I don't understand.

Yes Patrick, that's the issue that's troubling me. Trashing data is not being reflected anywhere. I am sure we have erased at least 10Gb of data yet the storage remains at approx 94Gb. My original thinking was that a low RAM notification might occur if vacant storage fell below the recommended 20% free.

Click to expand...

Just to be sure, I am sure you have Emptied the trash and the Finder is not showing anything in the Trashcan.

Just double checking...

But I am also wondering if there is not a bit of confusion over a shortage of RAM or a shortage of drive space. Not the same thing, and I didn't think any recent Mac OS X version actually gave a shortage of memory/RAM warning. It will just use some drive space if such a need arises. ie: swap files, as possibly show in the Activity Monitor etc.

Does using the Get Info on your in-use drive not show any increase in used space after downloading a large, say 5-10GB file, and likewise, does it show a decrease in used space when such a file is Trashed and Deleted???



- Patrick
======

Well yes I have emptied the trash.
I have not seen this notification so I don't know what it said.
Suffice to say it resulted in my having a look at storage, just on spec because Annie said the MBP was running a bit slower some times.
So I said maybe it was a good time to do a bit of housekeeping. So she went through her downloads folder and trashed a lot of stuff she'd had for years. Then she said she was puzzled because despite trashing about 30 files the storage was still the same.
Now I was curious, so I used the Mabagement tab under storage in the Apple menu disposing of about 15 items, .ipa files and others with the same outcome, no change in storage.

Are you sure you entered the command correctly?

Click to expand...

Yes, copy and paste. Get the Password prompt, enter password, Return, and then get "listlocalsnapshots: Unrecognized verb"

Don't know what to tell you? The command works perfectly for me and many others including Rod who used it.

According to your profile, the latest macOS version you're using is 10.10.5. If that's correct, it could be the reason the command won't work for you?

Needless to say this is not actually helping me much.
Today she is down to 82Gb and I am completely stumped as to why her documents folder is so large.

@MightyGem

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

Open Terminal and type - tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

You can copy/paste the above and hit return. No PW.

The list appears.

Both versions, chscag's and this, work on my Mac. The only reason I use the one I've posted in preference, is that I am scared of Terminal and even more so of any "sudo" command. I guess I'm a coward.

Ian

Rod Sprague said:

Needless to say this is not actually helping me much.
Today she is down to 82Gb and I am completely stumped as to why her documents folder is so large.

View attachment 29511

Click to expand...

That sure is a lot of documents? Seems like almost 300GB of documents alone?