About This Mac - disk free space info delayed?

[btownguy]

Got a new MBP with SSD. I recently moved to using Aperture importing my pictures into Aperture. The amount of data was roughly 125Gb. After I got comfortable with everything I deleted the actual files on my HD.

If you go to About This Mac, More Info, Storage, it does not reflect this new 125Gb of free space.

If you right-click on the SSD in Finder, the space Available does look accurate.

Does About This Mac only update periodically?

 

[tmoerel]

Got a new MBP with SSD. I recently moved to using Aperture importing my pictures into Aperture. The amount of data was roughly 125Gb. After I got comfortable with everything I deleted the actual files on my HD.

If you go to About This Mac, More Info, Storage, it does not reflect this new 125Gb of free space.

If you right-click on the SSD in Finder, the space Available does look accurate.

Does About This Mac only update periodically?

Actually.....Is there a section called backups in the Available Disk Space? Because OS X makes local Time Machine backups using some of the available space. The space these use show ip in Storage Info but are not counted in the free space shown by the finder.
The reason the finder is not showing these is that if your free space gets too low, these local Time Machine backups slowly get deleted as if they never had been there.
So don't worry and look at what the finder tells you. That is the real space available. The backup data is just temporary and will be wiped when the space is needed!

 

[btownguy]

Actually.....Is there a section called backups in the Available Disk Space? Because OS X makes local Time Machine backups using some of the available space. The space these use show ip in Storage Info but are not counted in the free space shown by the finder.
The reason the finder is not showing these is that if your free space gets too low, these local Time Machine backups slowly get deleted as if they never had been there.
So don't worry and look at what the finder tells you. That is the real space available. The backup data is just temporary and will be wiped when the space is needed!

How/when are these local Time Machine backups used? I already have an external HD connected for Time Machine backups.

 

[tmoerel]

How/when are these local Time Machine backups used? I already have an external HD connected for Time Machine backups.

When you have no external disk connected it will try to use some of the available space on your local hard disk to store some local time machine backups. Once the Time Machine disk gets connected these backups then get copied to your time machine.
This gives you the possibility to even go back to a previous file version form an hour ago when away from your time machine disk.

 

[btownguy]

When you have no external disk connected it will try to use some of the available space on your local hard disk to store some local time machine backups. Once the Time Machine disk gets connected these backups then get copied to your time machine.
This gives you the possibility to even go back to a previous file version form an hour ago when away from your time machine disk.

Just looked back in About This Mac and it does have a category for "Backups" and the amount is the 120 Gb that I'm "missing". Will my disk continue to fill up to 80% with backups or will these get "cleaned out" after I connect back to my external physical Time Machine hard drive?

 

[tmoerel]

Just looked back in About This Mac and it does have a category for "Backups" and the amount is the 120 Gb that I'm "missing". Will my disk continue to fill up to 80% with backups or will these get "cleaned out" after I connect back to my external physical Time Machine hard drive?

These will get cleaned out when your disk gets over 80% or when space is needed. Nothing to worry about

 

[btownguy]

These will get cleaned out when your disk gets over 80% or when space is needed. Nothing to worry about

So is right-click, "Get Info" the only place to see how much true free space you have on a hard disk? Activity Monitor has taken the disk space view out and "About This Mac" isn't truly accurate.

 

[tmoerel]

So is right-click, "Get Info" the only place to see how much true free space you have on a hard disk? Activity Monitor has taken the disk space view out and "About This Mac" isn't truly accurate.

Or just turn the status bar in the Finder on and you will always see the available space at the bottom of each finder window!