Resolved Deleting trash doesn't free up space

[rawdawg]

SOLVED!! -- Not sure how to add "solved" to title...

Hi,

I've googled this and get a lot of old answers that don't seem relevant to my situation. I have a 2017 with 1TB internal SSD. I use TimeMachine to an external and use external hard drives for videos.

My hard drive space was getting low (around 55GB) so I trashed (and yes, I emptied the trash can) over 100GB of media that was already backup up. The trash can is empty now and I've restarted multiple times but my available hard drive space is actually reading less then it was before. On one restart is even read 10GB less but then jumped back up. Right now it's hovering around 45GB free and it seems to go up and down a bit.

Does this sound familiar?

OS: 10.13.6

 

[Howard2k]

Sometimes I find it's slower to update the reported free space. What I normally do after deleting a large amount of content and emptying the recycle bin is to ensure that all my Time Machine volumes are up to date (I use multiple volumes so do a backup to each one), then go to About This Mac, Storage, Manage. It can take a few minutes or the OS to tabulate everything. My "System" storage just showed up as 65GB but now it's showing as 25GB.

For me that seems to be the best way to ensure that the free space reported in Finder is up to date.

I've also heard that you can force Spotlight to re-index and that may be worth doing too.
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201716

 

[jpn]

i think you are right to focus on Time Machine.
the snapshots that it keeps might be the reason for this.
google about how to safely delete these.

 

[rawdawg]

... go to About This Mac, Storage, Manage. It can take a few minutes or the OS to tabulate everything. My "System" storage just showed up as 65GB but now it's showing as 25GB.

For me that seems to be the best way to ensure that the free space reported in Finder is up to date.

I've also heard that you can force Spotlight to re-index and that may be worth doing too.
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201716

Thanks!!! I just did this and it totally worked!! My original google searches were speaking of the TimeMachine issues but that wasn't it for me. I just waited a short 20 seconds for it to calculate and my OS is now showing I had 520GB FREE!! For more then I thought this whole time.

I even went to that manage screen before but didn't wait for it to calculate.

 

[Howard2k]

Thanks!!! I just did this and it totally worked!! My original google searches were speaking of the TimeMachine issues but that wasn't it for me. I just waited a short 20 seconds for it to calculate and my OS is now showing I had 520GB FREE!! For more then I thought this whole time.

I even went to that manage screen before but didn't wait for it to calculate.

Good stuff!