iCloud Storage vs Documents Storage?

[Morac]

Looking at the "About this Mac" storage info on my MacBook Air 2020 (M1), I see that it is reporting that iCloud Drive is taking up 24.53 GB and Documents is taking up 28.58 GB. These are being reported separately and each show as decreasing the total available disk space, so together they take up 53.11 GB.

I have optimize documents enabled so my documents are stored in iCloud. Looking in Finder at the Get Info for iCloud Drive, I see it is using 24.57 GB of disk space (29.19 GB in iCloud). Documents, which is in iCloud is using 23.86 GB both on disk and in iCloud, but since Documents is in iCloud, the total amount of disk space being used by both iCloud Drive and Documents should be the amount of space iCloud Drive is using, which is 24.57 GB.

Why is "about this Mac" showing an additional 28.58 GB being used by "Documents"?

 

[frou]

I think the "Documents" category is a catch-all that counts everything in your Home folder (including ~/Library ?) that's not counted under a more specific category.

So it covers more than just the ~/Documents folder.

 

[Morac]

I’m beginning to think the entire Storage screen is just wrong. I’ve seen the Documents fluctuate between 4 GB and 28 GB, with some of the rest showing up in “Other” (which is usually empty).

None of that agrees with the what’s reported by the df command. I’ve always said the storage reported in iOS never made much sense, but I guess that also applies to MacOS as well.

For what it’s worth I picked up DaisyDisk and the reported file sizes for the User folder is much larger.

 

[gilby101]

I’m beginning to think the entire Storage screen is just wrong. I’ve seen the Documents fluctuate between 4 GB and 28 GB, with some of the rest showing up in “Other” (which is usually empty).

None of that agrees with the what’s reported by the df command. I’ve always said the storage reported in iOS never made much sense, but I guess that also applies to MacOS as well.

For what it’s worth I picked up DaisyDisk and the reported file sizes for the User folder is much larger.

The "About This Mac" Storage tab is designed for those who don't (or don't need to) understand the folder concept.

For the rest of us it is a waste of time. As you have discovered Daisy Disk is very helpful.