Disc Utility and Other Volumes on Hard Drive

[TartanTrumpet]

I've noticed a reduction in the available space on my hard drive.

Disc Utility indicates a large part of my drive is dedicated to 'Other Volumes' (see attachments). What is this and how do I reduce the space other volumes occupies? I noticed that snapshot (see attachment 5) has 170.46 GB dedicated to Other Volumes.

I've also noticed that I have 16.81 GB purgeable. How do I purge?

I've tried Googling, but the solutions are various and, to me, confusing. I don't want to start messing with things I don't fully understand and end up breaking something.

Help and guidance appreciated.

 

[pareshd]

First, ensure you have a Time Machine backup. If you’re using it, back up regularly. Otherwise, Time Machine stores temporary backup snapshots on your hard drive. You can delete these snapshots if they persist after a fresh backup (it’s possibly from an old backup drive). https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255461563?sortBy=rank.

Check Settings/Storage for any Apple TV media that can be removed from your Mac.

Run the free Onyx utility to clean up space. https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html. It removes temp items and caches, freeing up space. If you use Cloud storage, set it to optimise hard drive space under iCloud Drive settings or Dropbox Sync Preferences.

If you still have an issue, use OmniDiskSweeper to identify and delete space-eating files and folders. Be cautious when deleting anything you’re unsure of. Good luck.

 

[tonmischa]

From your screenshots everything looks normal.
Very useful reading:

An atlas of recovery and boot volumes: High Sierra to Monterey

From High Sierra’s four-volume group to macOS 12 on Apple silicon with three containers and 11 volumes, and both regular and fallback Recovery volumes.

eclecticlight.co

Purgeable: Will be deleted automatically when the Mac needs the space.
Probably contains snapshots that are needed for TM backups, or deleted files that have not YET been completely deleted by the OS.

My advice: If you dont fully understandwhat you are doing, let it be.

Also: Onyx is a great tool. But only use it if you have A REAL ISSUE THAT YOU NEED TO SOLVE. Deleting caches and temp files - without any real reason behind it - will make your mac slower. Because it has to rebuild these temp files and re-download these caches.

 

[eyoungren]

Just curious OP…do you empty your trash ever? Anything you toss in the trash is not actually deleted until you empty the trash. If you don't empty the trash periodically those items are still taking up space.

 

[TartanTrumpet]

Emptying the trash? Yes, I do that almost daily.

 

[TartanTrumpet]

From your screenshots everything looks normal.
Very useful reading:

An atlas of recovery and boot volumes: High Sierra to Monterey

From High Sierra’s four-volume group to macOS 12 on Apple silicon with three containers and 11 volumes, and both regular and fallback Recovery volumes.

eclecticlight.co

Purgeable: Will be deleted automatically when the Mac needs the space.
Probably contains snapshots that are needed for TM backups, or deleted files that have not YET been completely deleted by the OS.

My advice: If you dont fully understandwhat you are doing, let it be.

Also: Onyx is a great tool. But only use it if you have A REAL ISSUE THAT YOU NEED TO SOLVE. Deleting caches and temp files - without any real reason behind it - will make your mac slower. Because it has to rebuild these temp files and re-download these caches.

Thanks for the reply.
I could simply be one of the worried well. Unless it becomes a bigger issue, I'll leave it as is.