Hard drive filled up after High Sierra upgrade on MacPro

[vignesh90]

I had about 450GB of free space on my primary drive on Sierra. After the High Sierra upgrade it dropped to 150GB.

I used OmniDiskSweeper and the files sum upto about 520GB. I have a 1TB SSD! Can't figure out what's eating the rest of the space.

About the mac shows system files as 400GB. That's insane!

So far I've tried rebuilding spotlight index and removing Caches from Library folder.

Any help on resolving this will be great! Thanks!

 

[Winterfibre]

You need to backup and do a fresh install

 

[Kris Kelvin]

Other people seem to have the same problem: High Sierra disk space over 120Gb

The item "System" contains everything that couldn't be assigned to any other category.

OmniDiskSweeper only displays files that your user has read permissions for, so it won't properly size some folders like /System or /private or /.Spotlight-V100 or /.DocumentRevisions-V100.

Here's a trick to run OmniDisk Sweeper as root to let it see all files: OmniDiskSweeper as Root
This might help you track down where the disk space went.

 

[Weaselboy]

About the mac shows system files as 400GB. That's insane!

See this thread and my post #2.

 

[Dr. Stealth]

Another great app for checking where all your disk space has gone is WhatSize.

I use it quite a bit and it does show hidden and protected system files.

 

[vignesh90]

See this thread and my post #2.

Tried this and there were 4 local snapshots. Deleted them but the "System" is still at 400GB!
[doublepost=1507665422][/doublepost]I ran OmniDiskSweeper as root and found a .MobileBackups taking 340GB of space. It looks like a time machine backup. How do I go about deleting this folder on Finder? There's also .Spotlight-V100 and .DocumentRevisions folders. Can they be deleted as well?

 

[Kris Kelvin]

The folder /.MobileBackups contains "local snapshots" from Time Machine. More info: About Time Machine local snapshots
In short, they are Time Machine restore points on the internal drive (because there was no external backup drive available for a while).

Do you backup to an external drive? If you do, connecting it and starting the backup might be enough to solve your problem, as the local snapshots should then be transferred to the external drive (which might take a while).

In theory, you should be able to just delete the .MobileBackups folder, but letting Time Machine run its course would be the safer option.

As for .Spotlight-V100, I suggest you don't remove it, as it is required by Spotlight.
Finally, .DocumentRevisions contains previous versions of certain documents (e.g. Pages or Numbers documents). If you're sure you won't need them again, I believe it's safe to delete this folder.

 

[vignesh90]

The folder /.MobileBackups contains "local snapshots" from Time Machine. More info: About Time Machine local snapshots
In short, they are Time Machine restore points on the internal drive (because there was no external backup drive available for a while).

Do you backup to an external drive? If you do, connecting it and starting the backup might be enough to solve your problem, as the local snapshots should then be transferred to the external drive (which might take a while).

In theory, you should be able to just delete the .MobileBackups folder, but letting Time Machine run its course would be the safer option.

As for .Spotlight-V100, I suggest you don't remove it, as it is required by Spotlight.
Finally, .DocumentRevisions contains previous versions of certain documents (e.g. Pages or Numbers documents). If you're sure you won't need them again, I believe it's safe to delete this folder.

Hi Kris, yes I do the Time Machine backup on an external drive. There was an issue with firmware upgrade on my MacPro (check this post: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-sierra-for-cmp.2060505/page-13#post-25152919) and hence I removed the external drive during the high sierra upgrade.

I connected it back right after the upgrade and let Time Machine run. The last backup to the external drive was just a few minutes ago. The local snapshots didn't get transferred. Is there a way to do this manually?

Thanks for the info on Spotlight and Document Revisions folders. I'll leave them as it is for now.

 

[Kris Kelvin]

As far as I know, there's no way to manually start the transfer.
I'd advise against manually deleting the .MobileBackups folder.
Apple writes here:

Important: Don’t use Terminal or any other app other than the Finder to move, copy, or remove items from the Backups.backupdb folder. Also, never modify or delete any items in the /.MobileBackups directory. Time Machine uses this directory to maintain local snapshots, which are deleted automatically by Time Machine when more space is required.

So the backups might be deleted automatically when additional space is needed.

Here's some information on how to manually delete specific snapshots: How to delete old Time Machine backups

It's worth a shot to delete the backup from 2017-09-28 this way.

 

[William Payne]

Thats weird. I have high sierra on a spinner drive with a few apps and am barely using 30GB

 

[Weaselboy]

I ran OmniDiskSweeper as root and found a .MobileBackups taking 340GB of space.

It is , but that folder is no longer used under High Sierra and the install should have killed it off. Local snapshots under APFS now use that new system shown in the Terminal commands in the other thread.

Under Sierra and earlier, if you just turned TM off then back on it would delete that folder.

Was there something odd about your HS upgrade that may have caused it to not remove this folder?

 

[Kris Kelvin]

that folder is no longer used under High Sierra and the install should have killed it off.

I think the drive in question might be a hard disk, so no APFS and no new snapshot functionality.

 

[Weaselboy]

I think the drive in question might be a hard disk, so no APFS and no new snapshot functionality.

Post #1 says it is a 1TB SSD though. He is seeing the new snapshots from that Terminal command also, so I dunno what is up?

OP > Just to confirm, you are seeing the new snapshots like in my example here?

My-Macbook:~ xxx$ sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
Password:
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-10-103809
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-10-124750
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-10-143551
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-10-154708
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-10-174045
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-10-184057
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-10-203250
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-10-223230
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-10-233303
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-11-013400
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-11-023228
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-11-033254
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-11-043305
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-11-053316
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-11-063327
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-11-073712
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-10-11-083221

 

[Kris Kelvin]

Post #1 says it is a 1TB SSD though.

You're right; I missed that.

@vignesh90: Could you also tell us if the drive has been converted to APFS? You may use Disk Utility to find out.

 

[vignesh90]

You're right; I missed that.

@vignesh90: Could you also tell us if the drive has been converted to APFS? You may use Disk Utility to find out.

@Kris Kelvin yes, the drive has been converted to APFS.

@Weaselboy I had an issue with firmware upgrade on the MacPro. I tried what's mentioned in this post https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-sierra-for-cmp.2060505/page-13#post-25152919 . Removed all external drives, removed the SSD, did a boot from another drive and after the firmware upgrade was through, upgraded Sierra to High Sierra on the primary drive (the 1TB SSD).

As soon as the upgrade was done, I connected back the external drive for Time Machine backup. I do see the new snapshots in Terminal like your example. OmniDiskSweeper shows that there are 28-09-2017, 03-10-2017 and 04-10-2017 snapshots in .MobileBackups that's around 340GB.

 

[Weaselboy]

/.MobileBackups is not used under High Sierra, and from the Oct. 4 timing of the last local snapshot there, it looks like for some reason the HS install did not erase the folder as it should. Can you just delete it in OmniDiskSweeper?

If not try this in Terminal. That will move the folder to a folder called temp on the Desktop. Then drag the temp folder to the trash and empty the trash.

sudo mv /.MobileBackups ~/Desktop/temp/

 

[vignesh90]

/.MobileBackups is not used under High Sierra, and from the Oct. 4 timing of the last local snapshot there, it looks like for some reason the HS install did not erase the folder as it should. Can you just delete it in OmniDiskSweeper?

If not try this in Terminal. That will move the folder to a folder called temp on the Desktop. Then drag the temp folder to the trash and empty the trash.

sudo mv /.MobileBackups ~/Desktop/temp/

This worked. Finally got the space back! Thanks!

 

[webbix]

You need to backup and do a fresh install

Go to App Store and select the High Sierra and do install? I upgraded and have run not the problem I deleted Xcode to gain space as I only have MacBook Air (2013). I am running OS X Server as well but don't really use any services. I had 18GB free and now down to 3GB again. I am not doing Time Machine back ups and using terminal I find no files.

Any direction on what is eating up dis space? Looking at folders in System by size and modify date I can't see anything. So I assume files not visible. I does appear to be in System as it was previously about 70+GB and is now at 80+GB again.

Deleted everything I can and turned off any services or logging I could.

 

[Weaselboy]

Did you look at the thread I linked up in post #4?

 

[webbix]

Did you look at the thread I linked up in post #4?

Yes I checked that one also. Was out all day Saturday so wasn’t able to work on it. This morning I only had a few MB free and System (in storage management view) was increased by another 10GB.

So I deleted a few movies, approx 4GB with the intention of doing another install of High Sierra as previously trying I didn’t have enough disk space. Oddly, deleting those files netted 40GB of free disk space and the Storage Management showed System as 50GB. The math doesn’t add up and no explanation. Also, Applications showed 0 previous and when checking the wheel was spinning and then Applications was omitted ultimately. I did download and reinstall High Sierra. I have no ideas. Searched, including system files for recent creation or modification. Used the terminal to check tmp and contents of system folder.

 

[Weaselboy]

Oddly, deleting those files netted 40GB of free disk space and the Storage Management showed System as 50GB.

This sounds like the local snapshots I mentioned. When you delete files and empty trash, the files go into that local snapshots area and show in System. Did you try the Terminal commands in that post I linked?

 

[webbix]

This sounds like the local snapshots I mentioned. When you delete files and empty trash, the files go into that local snapshots area and show in System. Did you try the Terminal commands in that post I linked?

Yes, TM is not active, nothing in that directory at all. Have never activated. MacBook Air only has 125GB static drive. So no room for anything else. Have a compact USB drive same size for my iTunes.

 

[Weaselboy]

Yes, TM is not active, nothing in that directory at all. Have never activated. MacBook Air only has 125GB static drive. So no room for anything else. Have a compact USB drive same size for my iTunes.

Run this command in Terminal and paste up the output. It will show all base folders size, including system and hidden folders.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

 

[webbix]

This is result...

0    /.HFS+ Private Directory Data

1    /home

1    /usr

1    /.Spotlight-V100

1    /net

0    /.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware

1    /bin

1    /Network

1    /sbin

26    /Library

0    /.Trashes


9    /System

1    /vm

1    /.fseventsd

du: /private/var/db/ConfigurationProfiles/Store: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/6n/7b_096bd6h38cjb38kvq67xm0000gn/0/SafariFamily: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/6n/7b_096bd6h38cjb38kvq67xm0000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServices.dv: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/6n/7b_096bd6h38cjb38kvq67xm0000gn/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/6n/7b_096bd6h38cjb38kvq67xm0000gn/0/com.apple.routined: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000y800007k/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond: Operation not permitted

4    /private

1    /.DocumentRevisions-V100

0    /.vol

19    /Users

5    /Applications

1    /dev

1    /Volumes

0    /cores

62    /

62    total

 

[Weaselboy]

Depending on what you have installed, that /Library folder may be a little large.

Try this to drill down into that folder a little.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /Library