Deleting files not freeing up space

[Hank Meyer]

I should have about 50 gigs free on a 500GB internal hard drive on my MBP. Its a spinning disk drive. I've been deleting lots of files in the last few days and not seeing much change. I just deleted about 5gigs of videos after copying them to external drives and still when I go to More Info under About this Mac and click on Storage, I'm still only showing 50GB free. Is there a way I need to refresh or something?

Thanks.

----------

I guess its working. I did a right click on the Macintosh HD in the finder window and its showing 88GB free, which is about what it should. I guess now its just a question why the Storage tab under Get More Info (from: About this Mac) isn't updating.

 

[CipherMe]

Empty the trash.

 

[JTToft]

If you have Time Machine enabled, it keeps a certain amount of backups locally, which will be automatically deleted if the space is needed. In some places those backups are included in the reported used space, and in others it isn't, which is why there can be a discrepancy between what amount of free space is reported in one place and another.

Does that apply to your situation?

 

[Hank Meyer]

Empty the trash.

Thanks. I'm dumb, but not silly. I did do that and before expecting them to clear.

----------

If you have Time Machine enabled, it keeps a certain amount of backups locally, which will be automatically deleted if the space is needed. In some places those backups are included in the reported used space, and in others it isn't, which is why there can be a discrepancy between what amount of free space is reported in once place and another.

Does that apply to your situation?

Interesting. Thanks. yes I have TM enabled and I even disconnected the external drive (in addition to emptying the trash ) and it still wasn't showing additional free space. Are you saying that the stuff I was emptying in the trash was going to that Backups tab that you referenced? Is it dangerous to attempt to delete those local backups?

----------

So just how much HDD space should I keep free? 50GB on 500 gigs is 10%. Last I remember about 20% would be more ideal. Which means I need to free up some more space.

 

[JTToft]

Are you saying that the stuff I was emptying in the trash was going to that Backups tab that you referenced? Is it dangerous to attempt to delete those local backups?

- Yes, that'd be my guess. How large is that section? If it matches the discrepancy you see in your free space, then that's your answer.
You can either let it be, or disable the feature entirely. I wouldn't begin poking around in the backups manually.

 

[Hank Meyer]

Boom!

- Yes, that'd be my guess. How large is that section? If it matches the discrepancy you see in your free space, then that's your answer.
You can either let it be, or disable the feature entirely. I wouldn't begin poking around in the backups manually.

BOOM! Yes, that matches the section.

I guess I'll let it be. I'm kinda ignant about the OS X even though I've had it for 2 years now. Can't shake the MSFT mindset

Thanks

 

[janitor3]

Next time you delete something, click on finder & click on "secure empty trash". You'll be surprised how many files are still on the computer.

 

[dsmedic10]

Not to hijack the thread, but Secure Empty Trash doesn't delete extra files that are hidden or otherwise not deleted using the normal "Empty Trash" command. It just zero's out the deleted data, making it much harder for someone to 'undelete' the files if your laptop/drive is stolen.