Can't free up disc space...

[lieven question]

I tried to free up space on my Hard Disc on my Macbook Pro.

I had about 183 GB of pictures in my iPhoto Library. So I bought an external drive and copied the Library to the external drive. Next I deleted the iPhoto library by going to the Finder/Pictures and moved the iPhoto Library to the Trash basket. Next I emptied the Trash.

Next I start to use the library on the external drive as my new iPhoto library. Everything works just fine.

But the problem is that when I check the disc space, there is no additional free space available. Instead of freeing up the space from iPhoto Library dat I had deleted, the hard disk is filled with 205,45 GB of backup info instead (see image underneath). I have no clue what this is?

Does anybody know why this is and what to do about it? How can I delete this “Backup”-files. Or do I need to do something else?

Thank you in advance for you help!

Lieven

 

[Dark Dragoon]

The backup data is from Time Machines local snapshot, it allows you to recovery deleted files if you haven't backed up to the TM drive. It also stores some local snapshots on the system for a while regardless.

What should happen is that the backup data will be flushed later on, I think it may take up to a week for this to happen.

However it's worth noting that if the drive gets too low on free space, the backup data will be automatically removed.

This is why if you check the Available space which you can see on the bottom of the Finder window (If it's hidden go to, View > Show Status Bar) does not take into account the backup data as it is potentially available to be used.

So you don't need to do anything, the space is available for you to use.

 

[lieven question]

Can't free up disc space...

Hi Dark Dragoon,

Thank you so much for your quick response. Your explanation really makes sense. I see what happens after a week.

Kind regards and keep up the good work!