Deleting Files Not Freeing up HD Space

[RedTeamGo]

I'm trying to free up space on my HD and am trying to delete files. I started with larger audio/video files, but noticed my HD wasn't freeing up any space.

Yes I empty the trash.

Also I tried moving the files to another folder thinking maybe the folder was corrupt but nothing is working.

Any thoughts?

 

[thundersteele]

time machine local snapshots

how do you check your HD space?

 

[RedTeamGo]

Using Activity Monitor.

Doesn't free up anything when emptying newly deleted files in trash.

----------

What about local snapshots? What is that/what can i do?

 

[thundersteele]

The simple solution:

right click on "Macintosh HD" and select "Get info." This will tell you how much space is actually free on your HD. There you should also notice the effect of deleting files.

Local snapshots explanation:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878

The OS keeps copies of your deleted files. If you go to "About this mac", "More Info" and select the storage tab, the space occupied by these backups is labeled as "Backups."
The link above explains that OSX will free this space up if necessary, or automatically after a week or so, provided you do also perform external backups.
If you don't like this behavior, you can google or search this forum for how to disable the local backups.

 

[GGJstudios]

I'm trying to free up space on my HD and am trying to delete files. I started with larger audio/video files, but noticed my HD wasn't freeing up any space.

Yes I empty the trash.

Also I tried moving the files to another folder thinking maybe the folder was corrupt but nothing is working.

Any thoughts?

For space issues, there are a few things you can try:

• Try restarting your computer as a first step
• Search with Finder to see if the space is being consumed by a very large file or several large files. Adjust the 50GB in the illustration to whatever size you deem appropriate.
  
  
• For Time Machine users on Lion, Time Machine local snapshots may be consuming space.
• Use DiskInventory X (pre-Lion), OmniDiskSweeper, JDisk Report or GrandPerspective to see how space is being used on your drive. Some of these apps may show more detail than others, so try several.

 

[Gryz]

The simple solution:

right click on "Macintosh HD" and select "Get info." This will tell you how much space is actually free on your HD. There you should also notice the effect of deleting files.

Local snapshots explanation:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878

The OS keeps copies of your deleted files. If you go to "About this mac", "More Info" and select the storage tab, the space occupied by these backups is labeled as "Backups."
The link above explains that OSX will free this space up if necessary, or automatically after a week or so, provided you do also perform external backups.
If you don't like this behavior, you can google or search this forum for how to disable the local backups.

So is this local backup of deleted files only done if you are using Time Machine?

 

[RedTeamGo]

Thanks...

Clearing backups worked great.

 

[thundersteele]

So is this local backup of deleted files only done if you are using Time Machine?

Yes. The above link says

On portable Macs, local snapshots are automatically enabled when you turn on Time Machine. Just like regular Time Machine backups, local snapshots are made hourly in the background.

 

[calli68hill]

deleting files does help ......

As I have been crazy about a solution to this I have worked on the time machine problem to regain free space on my harddrive,and found a solution:
Download Ommnidisksweeper and install (its free)

http://download.cnet.com/OmniDiskSweeper...-6226.html

open and sweep your HD that you use on your mac,be careful that it is the right one and not a partition.
Let it seize up all the files on your drive,be careful the gray ones are very important files!Do not touch them.
you will find a file called .cleverfiles click on it or select this file.you will see another folder called hlink.ref mine was about 200 gb
Launch the folder to see it in finder and as you can see ...again a hidden file.Now grab all the contents of this folder and drag to the trash and click delete.What you have deleted are the "deleted files" that have not been deleted due to the time machine snapshots...and my hardrive just got 200 GB back.
As a last step open the Disc Utility that rests in your utility folder in Applications and do a verify permissions or repair permissions and your done. Now I am 50% more happy

But remember if you want these deleted files back ..they are gone now unless you backed them up on an external harddrive and recover the last backup from there depending on the time you backed up last...

 

[atthecross]

thanks for the link!

 

[throAU]

The time machine local backups will be re-claimed if you are running low on space, hence they are not reported by "get info" on your hard drive.


If you want to get rid of them entirely, you can do so, but you need to either turn off time machine entirely, or do


sudo tmutil disablelocal

and re-enable with

sudo tmutil enablelocal

in a terminal window.


Time machine will still run to an external disk with local backups disabled.