Thank you ever so much Daniel! I have just replaced my 1TB external data drive connected to my Mac Studio, as it seems to have mysteriously filled in a similar unknown manner to yours, although more so. When coping the data across to a new 2TB drive I was stumped by why only 430GB was copied, either by the file system or Carbon Copy Cloner. Where had the other 540GB disappeared to?
Using your suggestion below, I see that I have a current single Studio SSD Time Machine snapshot of 95.82GB from January 6th. On my new 2TB drive I simply have 55.1MB one. After reconnecting my 1TB drive, and using your suggestion, it shows a 539.45GB Time Machine snapshot from January 6th, along with a previous CCC one of the same date at 539.45GB However, there is a previous CCC snapshot listed at 539.44Gb from Nov 14th 2024 and a previous CCC snapshot to that of 193.59GB on October 29th 2024, 193.38GB on Oct 17th and 193.27 on May 1st 2024. Something seems to have happened between October and November, a change in Sequoia version’s impact and hence failure to cleanup snapshots correctly? From your notes I am assuming I can simply delete all those snapshots on the 1TB drive to reclaim my 539.45GB of space? I am planning on repurposing this to a selective archiving drive, hence the plan was simply to reformat it, but interesting digital forensics on your part. Hopefully this, like your info, may show up some other missing capacity for other members on their external drives. Many thanks again for your posting. cheers Douglas Elford elford AT mac.com PS I have cc’d you in as being a former early member, but now long term resident of Canberra, I do not think my reply post will go thru to the list. > On 10 Jan 2025, at 1:49 pm, wamug-requ...@lists.wamug.org.au wrote: > > Send WAMUG mailing list submissions to > wa...@lists.wamug.org.au > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.wamug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/wamug > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > wamug-requ...@lists.wamug.org.au > > You can reach the person managing the list at > wamug-ow...@lists.wamug.org.au > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of WAMUG digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Hard drive/SSD space missing? (Daniel Kerr) > 2. Re: Hard drive/SSD space missing? (Tim Law) > 3. Re: Hard drive/SSD space missing? (J Philippe Chaperon) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2025 21:23:08 +0800 > From: Daniel Kerr <wa...@macwizardry.com.au> > To: WAMUG <wa...@lists.wamug.org.au> > Subject: [WAMUG] Hard drive/SSD space missing? > Message-ID: <f4aa85f0-4843-475c-8b05-14f78e747...@macwizardry.com.au> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > Hi WAMUG,? > > Hope everyone is going well, and had a good Christmas and New Year. > (I?ll apologise up here for my long post,?but it?s quite a bit of info to > explain things.). > > Just thought I would share the following for something I came across > recently, that others may be interested in. > > If you?re curious, or often thought you?re missing storage space on your > internal drive, but couldn?t work out where it could be,?the following may be > helpful. > I think this only affects the last 2 or 3 operating systems - so mostly in > macOS 15 (Sequoia), macOS 14 (Sonoma) and macOS 13 (Ventura)?.but it could be > in others past that as well. > > Time Machine does some local ?Saves? to your internal drive - even if you > have an external drive being used for Time Machine. (Which we all should > have,?but that?s a whole other subject). > You can read more about the Time Machine local storage here - > https://support.apple.com/en-au/102154 > > However, in some instances, it doesn?t delete these as well as it > should,..and it can chew up GB?s of data. So even though all your data is > being saved to your external drive, it?s also writing data internally as > well. And although it?s ?meant? to delete these, I?ve seen quite a few > instances recently where it doesn?t. And there are quite a lot of Apple forum > posts for people with the same issue. > My self included. > > I like to run my laptop quite lean on storage used, so even though it?s a 1TB > SSD, I like to keep at least 700GB free. Older or more files I move off to my > iMac drive or multiple external ?Archive drives?. (As it?s cheaper to have > external SSD drives with lots on them, then paying more for an internal SSD. > But I noticed it was under 500GB the other day, and couldn?t work out where > the space was being used. (Which is similar to a lot of the forum posts I > read as well). > And found, that almost all this space was taken up with local Time Machine > images, and not deleted. So I removed these (plus another folder I?ll mention > later) , and gained back 200GB of space - the amount I couldn?t work out > where it was. > > To find this, you can do the following. > Go to Macintosh HD then Applications folder then Utilities folder. Open the > program called Disk Utility. > Beside the name ?Disk Utility? in the top bar of that window, I like to click > on ?View? and set it to ?Show All Devices?. > Then on the left hand side you?ll see a sort of break down of the drive. It > will read something like - > Internal (heading). > APPLE SD ABC123 Media (or some name for the SSD component in later > computers). > Container disk# (eg Container disk1, Container disk2 or 3 etc) > Macintosh HD - volumes ***** This is the one > we?re interested in ****** > Maintosh HD > Data > > You want to click on the one noted above called ?Macintosh HD - volumes, so > it?s highlighted on the left hand side > Then go to the View menu and choose ?Show APFS Snapshots? > > On the right hand side, you?ll then get a new part to the window under a > heading ?APFS Snapshots on ?Data? > With Name, Date Created, Tidemark, Size, Kind. > All of these will be listed like > com.apple.TimeMachine.year-month-day-time.local - and under size, will show > how big each snapshot is. and date created. > > Now, given all this info a) should be deleted with 24 hours according to > Apple and b) is already duplicated to your main external Time Machine,?.these > files technically are all duplicates. And using space on your internal drive. > > I went through and deleted close to 150GB of these things,?and gained back > 150GB of space. > > To remove them all, if you so want to,..you can highlight all of them and hit > the minus sign (-) down the bottom of the window. > (Command A when you click on that part of the window and hit those keys on > the keyboard will highlight All of them in that window. Or you can also use > Shift key to select between two points, or Command key to randomly select > ones you want.) > Once all highlighted, and you hit the minus (-) sign, these files will all be > deleted, and you should then see the space come back to your main drive. Thus > freeing up drive space,?and using less space on your computer! > > In some of the previous systems, there was a way to run a Terminal command to > stop it doing this. But from what I?ve gathered so far, it?s been removed and > doesn?t work in Sequoia. And no real ?easy? way as yet to stop it from doing > this. Bar checking these say on the 1st of each month as a bit of house > keeping to ensure it does actually remove them. > > > For a bonus bit of space, you may also not be aware of?.in Sequoia (and > possibly some of the previous ones), the Apple screen saver that does all the > lovely flyby?s around the world,..which look nice when the screen saver comes > on,?but some are 4K files and take up a lot on your system as well. (In my > case,?the folder I removed was another 50GB of these files! And I don?t use > that screen saver,?so I deleted that folder. > > You can find this one in - > Macintosh HD - Library - Application Support - com.apple.idleassetsd - > Customer. > In there can be a folder something like 4KSDR240FPS - in my case, this folder > was 50GB alone. I?ve seen others where it?s 25GB. So can depend on the size > of your SSD storage. If you want to keep them ?just incase?, you can copy > them to an external drive before deleting them. > (I normally make a folder to put them in called something like ?From > MacHD-Library-Application Support-idleasset-Customer? - then put it inside > that folder. Then in 6-12 months if I?m looking at it going,..now where did > THAT come from,?I have a visual guide to show me WHERE it was on the main > internal drive. ) > > As mentioned, by removing not only these internal Time Machine backups, as > well as the Customer 4KSDR240FPS folder,?it gained back the 200GB of storage > I couldn?t work out was missing. So definitely something I?ll be keeping a > track on going forward. > > > Quite a lot of people on the Apple forums found the same thing, and have been > putting in Feedback notes to Apple, to bring back the option so we can at > least a) get Apple to resolve or b) give us the option to turn it off or on > as we want to. So I?d recommend doing that also, if you find your computer > has a lot of storage being used in those things too. > > You can give Apple feedback here - https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos/ > > Which, if you find yours is similar, I?d recommend putting in the feedback. > As the more people that report it, hopefully in some software updates we get > the facility back to disable it if we so want to. > Or someone who does their coding puts in a line of code that says ?if local > backup is more then 24 hours old, delete it?. (And not use up my SSD life > span faster by constantly writing more data to my drive then it needs to!). > > Hope others find it useful, and that it may also find missing space you > weren?t aware of. > Again, apologies for the ?essay?,?.but wanted to try and get as much of the > info down as possible. :) > > Will be interested if others have similarly large folders as well. :) > I hope everyone has been having a good start to 2025 and the year carries on > well! ? > > Kind regards > Daniel > > NOTE : I would recommend at least ensuring all your external Time Machine > backups are up to date before doing any of this. Just to be on the safe side. > --- > Daniel Kerr > MacWizardry > > p : 0414 795 960 > e : <daniel AT macwizardry.com.au> > w : <http://www.macwizardry.com.au> > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <https://www.mail-archive.com/wamug@wamug.org.au/> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Settings & Unsubscribe - <https://lists.wamug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/wamug>
