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Something is guzzling disk space

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  Something is guzzling disk space D.M. Procida <daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> - 2025-08-28 08:44 +0000
    Re: Something is guzzling disk space David Kennedy <davidkennedygm@gmail.com> - 2025-08-28 10:21 +0100
    Re: Something is guzzling disk space TimH <thnews@poboxmolar.com.invalid> - 2025-08-28 19:10 +0000
    Re: Something is guzzling disk space Martin-S <invalid@nomail.com> - 2025-08-29 15:41 +0000
      Re: Something is guzzling disk space nospam@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder) - 2025-08-29 22:11 +0200
        Re: Something is guzzling disk space RJH <patchmoney@gmx.com> - 2025-08-30 05:44 +0000
    Re: Something is guzzling disk space Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> - 2025-09-01 14:07 +0000
      Re: Something is guzzling disk space D.M. Procida <daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> - 2025-09-01 15:19 +0000
        Re: Something is guzzling disk space WolfFan <akwolffan@zoho.com> - 2025-09-02 07:01 -0400
        Re: Something is guzzling disk space Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> - 2025-09-02 14:05 +0000
      Re: Something is guzzling disk space Alan B <alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> - 2025-09-02 10:33 +0000
    Re: Something is guzzling disk space Steve Hodgson <hamrun@gmail.com> - 2025-09-03 08:56 +0000

#181770 — Something is guzzling disk space

I've always been a bit tight on storage on my MacBook, at 500GB.

Lately though something has guzzled an extra ~40GB, and it's hard to know
what.

OmniDiskSweeper, which has always been useful, isn't able to peer into /var,
and I suspect it's there (36 GB for Multipasss!), or in logs somewhere, that
the storage is being consumed.

A restart can claw back a few GB, but they disappear again soon.

It's a bit rubbish to have to go on a file hunt in 2025, but what do you
recommend?

Daniele

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#181771

On 28/08/2025 09:44, D.M. Procida wrote:
> I've always been a bit tight on storage on my MacBook, at 500GB.
> 
> Lately though something has guzzled an extra ~40GB, and it's hard to know
> what.
> 
> OmniDiskSweeper, which has always been useful, isn't able to peer into /var,
> and I suspect it's there (36 GB for Multipasss!), or in logs somewhere, that
> the storage is being consumed.
> 
> A restart can claw back a few GB, but they disappear again soon.
> 
> It's a bit rubbish to have to go on a file hunt in 2025, but what do you
> recommend?
> 
> Daniele

I've always stuck to Daisy Disk when investigating that sort of thing...

And they do a free trial.

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#181775

On 28 Aug 2025 at 9:44:49 am BST, "D.M. Procida"
<daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:

> I've always been a bit tight on storage on my MacBook, at 500GB.
> 
> Lately though something has guzzled an extra ~40GB, and it's hard to know
> what.
> 
> OmniDiskSweeper, which has always been useful, isn't able to peer into /var,
> and I suspect it's there (36 GB for Multipasss!), or in logs somewhere, that
> the storage is being consumed.
> 
> A restart can claw back a few GB, but they disappear again soon.
> 
> It's a bit rubbish to have to go on a file hunt in 2025, but what do you
> recommend?

GrandPerspective is still going, and  works fine for me.

https://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

-- 
TimH
pull tooth to reply by email

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#181780

On 28 Aug 2025 at 08:44:49 GMT, "D.M. Procida"
<daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:

> It's a bit rubbish to have to go on a file hunt in 2025, but what do you
> recommend?

I have often found the obscure 'System Data' to balloon to 80GB and more on
our MBPs. (You can check in System Settings >General >Storage.)

It seems to be a temporary storage for all sorts of things, TM snapshots etc.,
but it isn't user manageable. I once saw it drop dramatically as I was looking
at the bar graphic :)

Another place to check is ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
I think, it can contain iOS updates and device backups.

-- 
Martin

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#181782

Martin-S <invalid@nomail.com> wrote:

> On 28 Aug 2025 at 08:44:49 GMT, "D.M. Procida"
> <daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:
> 
> > It's a bit rubbish to have to go on a file hunt in 2025, but what do you
> > recommend?
> 
> I have often found the obscure 'System Data' to balloon to 80GB and more on
> our MBPs. (You can check in System Settings >General >Storage.)
> 
> It seems to be a temporary storage for all sorts of things, TM snapshots etc.,
> but it isn't user manageable. I once saw it drop dramatically as I was looking
> at the bar graphic :)
> 
> Another place to check is ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
> I think, it can contain iOS updates and device backups.

The amount of space given in the footer may be wildly unreliable.
(and fluctuating)
As for the System Data: A restart may liberate a lot
of god only knows what in system files,

Jan

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#181783

On 29 Aug 2025 at 21:11:28 BST, J. J. Lodder wrote:

> Martin-S <invalid@nomail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 28 Aug 2025 at 08:44:49 GMT, "D.M. Procida"
>> <daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> It's a bit rubbish to have to go on a file hunt in 2025, but what do you
>>> recommend?
>> 
>> I have often found the obscure 'System Data' to balloon to 80GB and more on
>> our MBPs. (You can check in System Settings >General >Storage.)
>> 
>> It seems to be a temporary storage for all sorts of things, TM snapshots etc.,
>> but it isn't user manageable. I once saw it drop dramatically as I was looking
>> at the bar graphic :)

I had a situation where, reading from Disk Utility, the 500GB SSD (Apple
SSD/Container disk1/Macintosh HD) on my 2020 Intel iMac was showing 25GB
available, 470GB used.

In the Macintosh directory below was a volume (or partition?) called
'Macintosh
HD - Data' which showed 500GB capacity, 170GB available, 140GB purgeable,
460GB used.

The Purgeable Space then (over a day or so and a few restarts) changed to
System Data, as reported in Disk Utility, at 160GB.

60GB of this space was in a folder called 'Metadata'. In the end, from memory,
I had a deletion spree, and simply binned a good deal of this system data and
metadata.

It was annoying as I only had about 200GB of 'used' space - OS, documents, and
photos. Well over half the disk was taken up with what seemed to be some sort
of system cache.

Anyway, no harm arose, and I've since moved to a new Mini.

>> 
>> Another place to check is ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
>> I think, it can contain iOS updates and device backups.
> 
> The amount of space given in the footer may be wildly unreliable.
> (and fluctuating)
> As for the System Data: A restart may liberate a lot
> of god only knows what in system files,
> 

Indeed. If anything the free space on this Mini increases by the day. I
started at 500GB (of 1TB) free when I first set up the Mini about 6 months'
ago. As at now, it's 640GB free according to Finder. I haven't deleted or
changed anything - just use it normally, adding photos and documents most
days. iCloud has remained stable.

I've no idea what's going on. It all works so I just let it do its thing.

-- 
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

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#181797

On 28 Aug 2025 at 09:44:49 BST, "D.M. Procida"
<daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:

> Lately though something has guzzled an extra ~40GB, and it's hard to know
> what.

If you have Time Machine running, you can clear out the current set of
local snapshots it makes. It'll give you a clearer idea of "real" data
usage on the drive.

Terminal: tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999999 4

Then I'd proceed with GrandPerspective (run via sudo for best results on
this sort of thing) and a reboot.

Doesn't always work; one of the more unpleasant iosifications of macOS
is the 'system data' ie who the fuck knows. I had to do a forced reboot
from a runaway app memory leak recently (Tahoe beta too, tbf) where free
space had gone from 100gig to 3gig. Reboot *should* fix that, didn't.
Actual data from `du` was in the 850gig range; `df` was 3gig though.
tmutil above didn't help. I shunted 100gig of stuff off the drive
manuall.

After logging an issue through Feedback Assistant the disk space
gradually recovered on its own and now I've 200gig space. Again, who the
fuck knows. Apple certainly haven't responded to the bug report.

    Cheers - Jaimie

-- 
"No flying cars yet?", he wrote from a 2 inch by 4 inch
pocket computer instantaneously to subscribers
worldwide using only his right thumb.
                                                    -- @wjflowers

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#181798

On 1 Sep 2025 at 16:07:02 CEST, "Jaimie Vandenbergh"
<jaimie@usually.sessile.org> wrote:

> Apple certainly haven't responded to the bug report.

Ha ha ah ha.

Daniele

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#181800

On Sep 1, 2025, D.M. Procida wrote
(in article <mhlrrpFhjr1U1@mid.individual.net>):

> On 1 Sep 2025 at 16:07:02 CEST, "Jaimie Vandenbergh"
> <jaimie@usually.sessile.org>  wrote:
>
> > Apple certainly haven't responded to the bug report.
>
> Ha ha ah ha.
>
> Daniele

’No reply’ is better than the ‘working as designed/intended’ reply 
that you might, if our Apple overlords are in a good mood, get if you’re 
reporting a bug while on one of their beta programs.

When I get one of those, I tend to reply “this is an example of piss-poor 
design and evil intentions”. For some reason I never get a reply to those 
messages. There’s one particular bug in Music for iOS which was around in 
iTunes for iOS and which I’ve reported multiple times over a Very Long 
Time. At first I got the ‘working as designed’ reply; lately, no reply. 
Whenever I get a new beta I check to see if it’s still there. It is. I 
report it. Again. I suspect that it will never be fixed, but, hey, I report 
it anyway. Music will, sometimes, forget where it is when playing back a 
large, more than 100 track, playlist, especially if most of the tracks are 
NOT from the Apple Store. Not every time, just often enough to be annoying. 
So I get to the car, plug the iPad or iPhone in by either USB or Bluetooth, 
makes no difference, and expect my playlist to play... and instead get the 
very first track, alphabetically, in my music database. And have to dig up 
the playlist and the correct track. It’s not earth-shattering, but it is 
annoying and it’s been around for over a decade.

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#181802

On 1 Sep 2025 at 16:19:21 BST, "D.M. Procida"
<daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:

> On 1 Sep 2025 at 16:07:02 CEST, "Jaimie Vandenbergh"
> <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
> 
>> Apple certainly haven't responded to the bug report.
> 
> Ha ha ah ha.

Indeed!

Last actual response I got to a bug report was back in 2022, and that
was only a "We think we fixed it in the latest release" automated one.
Last human response was 2019.

    Cheers - Jaimie

-- 
If you think it's simple, then you have misunderstood the problem
                                            -- Bjarne Stroustrup

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#181799

On 2025-09-01, Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
> On 28 Aug 2025 at 09:44:49 BST, "D.M. Procida"
><daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> Lately though something has guzzled an extra ~40GB, and it's hard to know
>> what.
>
> If you have Time Machine running, you can clear out the current set of
> local snapshots it makes. It'll give you a clearer idea of "real" data
> usage on the drive.
>
> Terminal: tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999999 4
>
> Then I'd proceed with GrandPerspective (run via sudo for best results on
> this sort of thing) and a reboot.
>
> Doesn't always work; one of the more unpleasant iosifications of macOS
> is the 'system data' ie who the fuck knows. I had to do a forced reboot
> from a runaway app memory leak recently (Tahoe beta too, tbf) where free
> space had gone from 100gig to 3gig. Reboot *should* fix that, didn't.
> Actual data from `du` was in the 850gig range; `df` was 3gig though.
> tmutil above didn't help. I shunted 100gig of stuff off the drive
> manuall.
>
> After logging an issue through Feedback Assistant the disk space
> gradually recovered on its own and now I've 200gig space. Again, who the
> fuck knows. Apple certainly haven't responded to the bug report.

Not sure if this relevant (or even correct!). My understanding is that 
if you have large files they will be snapshotted when you edit them even 
if they have been excluded from TM backups. The way around this is to 
put them in a separate TM excluded volume and back them up manually to 
another external drive. TM will not create snapshots of the contents of 
excluded volumes thus minimising snapshot growth on the internal volume 
you backup via TM. So for instance I keep all my VMs in a separate volume 
created on my internal SSD. 

-- 
Cheers, Alan

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#181803

On 28 Aug 2025 at 09:44:49 BST, "D.M. Procida"
<daniele-at-vurt-dot-org@invalid.com> wrote:

> I've always been a bit tight on storage on my MacBook, at 500GB.
> 
> Lately though something has guzzled an extra ~40GB, and it's hard to know
> what.
> 
> OmniDiskSweeper, which has always been useful, isn't able to peer into /var,
> and I suspect it's there (36 GB for Multipasss!), or in logs somewhere, that
> the storage is being consumed.
> 
> A restart can claw back a few GB, but they disappear again soon.
> 
> It's a bit rubbish to have to go on a file hunt in 2025, but what do you
> recommend?

Maybe try a scan with Hyperspace to see what could be recalimed.

https://hypercritical.co/apps/
-- 
Cheers,

Steve

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