System bloat--over 310GB!!

[mavots]

I decided to go with a smaller Mac Mini internal drive-500GB SSD.

I would think this 500GB plenty as I have relocated all docs (video, audio, photo library, iTunes, etc) to an external drive.
This is new to me as I usually have a 1TB drive and never pay much attention to its size. It was suggeted to NOT relocate the entire users/ folder but just trim it of fat. Which I did.

The drive just seemed to be almost full with only approx. 100GB space available.

One culprit has been MobileSync for my iPad and iPhone. This alone was about 100GB of saved space.
I created a symlink and the backup folder is now on an external drive.

I then cloned the system drive to another APFS 500GB SSD. See results below.

What am I missing? Are there some kind of "phantom" files that are filling all my space? I recall seeing something about "useable" space eating huge junks of a drive, but that is not showing up in the Shared Info box for the system SSD. I have seen that phenomenon in other situations.

MAIN INTERNAL SYSTEM DRIVE:
500GB SSD with 400.23GB Used (According to Get Info)
-Applications-53.18GB
-Library-28.73GB
-System-11.03GB
-Users-105.74 for a total of only 198.68GB Where or what is the other 201.55GB???

CLONED EXTERNAL SYSTEM (BOOTABLE) DRIVE:
500GB SSD with 201.35GB Used (According to Get Info)
-Applications-53.18GB
-Library-28.77GB
-System-11.03GB
-Users-105.74 for a total of 198.72GB Pretty much spot on!

Help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[allan.nyholm]

You have an application installed with macOS Mojave that's called Storage Management - use Spotlight to find it.
That application help you with narrowing down the files - hopefully - that clutters your drive.

No better answer from me than that.

 

[S.B.G]

Another nice graphical app to help locate where storage is being consumed is DaisyDisk.

 

[Weaselboy]

Run this in Terminal and tell us the result. It will show the size of all the base folders, including system and hidden files some of the GUI apps don't show.

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

 

[mavots]

You have an application installed with macOS Mojave that's called Storage Management - use Spotlight to find it.
That application help you with narrowing down the files - hopefully - that clutters your drive.

No better answer from me than that.

Thanks-tried that but it was not helpful. I had already taken care of most everything it suggested.
[doublepost=1566159792][/doublepost]

Run this in Terminal and tell us the result. It will show the size of all the base folders, including system and hidden files some of the GUI apps don't show.

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

RESULTS:

MacMini:~ maris$ sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

Password:

1 /home

1 /usr

0 /temp

1 /.abackblaze

1 /.bzvol

du: /.Spotlight-V100: Operation not permitted

1 /net

0 /.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware

1 /bin

1 /.adobeTemp

1 /Resources

1 /sbin

du: /Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC: Operation not permitted

27 /Library

0 /.Trashes

10 /System

1 /.fseventsd

du: /private/var/db/fpsd/dvp: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/db/dslocal/nodes: Operation not permitted

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

du: /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000sm00006d/0: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000sm00006d/C: Operation not permitted

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

du: /private/var/folders/x5/6zg8bcx08xl83w006s6l9bq80000gn/0/com.apple.progressd/ClassKit: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/x5/6zg8bcx08xl83w006s6l9bq80000gn/0/com.apple.Safari/SafariFamily: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/x5/6zg8bcx08xl83w006s6l9bq80000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServices.dv: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/x5/6zg8bcx08xl83w006s6l9bq80000gn/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/x5/6zg8bcx08xl83w006s6l9bq80000gn/0/com.apple.routined/dv: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/x5/6zg8bcx08xl83w006s6l9bq80000gn/C/com.apple.WebKit.WebContent.Sandbox: Operation not permitted

du: /private/var/folders/x5/6zg8bcx08xl83w006s6l9bq80000gn/C/com.apple.WebKit.Networking.Sandbox: Operation not permitted

5 /private

1 /.DocumentRevisions-V100

0 /.vol

du: /Users/maris/Library/Application Support/MobileSync: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Application Support/CallHistoryTransactions: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Application Support/CallHistoryDB: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/IdentityServices: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Messages: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/HomeKit: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Mail: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Safari: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Suggestions: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Containers/com.apple.VoiceMemos: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Containers/com.apple.Home: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Containers/com.apple.news: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Containers/com.apple.stocks: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/PersonalizationPortrait: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Metadata/com.apple.IntelligentSuggestions: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Cookies: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Caches/com.apple.safaridavclient: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Caches/CloudKit/com.apple.Safari: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari: Operation not permitted

du: /Users/maris/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing: Operation not permitted

90 /Users

49 /Applications

1 /dev

0 /Volumes

1 /CreativeCloud

180 /

180 total

MacMini:~ maris$

 

[mavots]

Another nice graphical app to help locate where storage is being consumed is DaisyDisk.

SNAPSHOTS!!

Thanks for the DaisyDisk idea.

I ran the app and discovered the extra invisible 200GB are backup files. Most likely Snapshots from Carbon Copy Cloner and Time Machine.
I think the only way to lose the Time Machine snapshots is to remove the boot drive from the TM backup list (actually ADD it to the exclusion list!).
For some reason CCC snapshots are turned off but there are still many from mid July-Early August. And I can't seem to be able to delete them. I've emailed Bombich about why this is so.
In any event, from what I understand, the snapshots will only fill up the drive enough to keep 20% free, which is pretty close to where it is (200GB System files, etc + 200GB Snapshots = 400GB = 80% of 500GB SSD drive)

 

[Honza1]

SNAPSHOTS!!

Thanks for the DaisyDisk idea.

I ran the app and discovered the extra invisible 200GB are backup files. Most likely Snapshots from Carbon Copy Cloner and Time Machine.
I think the only way to lose the Time Machine snapshots is to remove the boot drive from the TM backup list (actually ADD it to the exclusion list!).
For some reason CCC snapshots are turned off but there are still many from mid July-Early August. And I can't seem to be able to delete them. I've emailed Bombich about why this is so.
In any event, from what I understand, the snapshots will only fill up the drive enough to keep 20% free, which is pretty close to where it is (200GB System files, etc + 200GB Snapshots = 400GB = 80% of 500GB SSD drive)

You can control snapshots created by TM using command line tmutil. Google it or read the macOS manual (type man tmutil on command line). It will let you thin any or all snapshots from TM. Now, that TM keeps forgetting about some of its snapshots sometimes is really annoying.

CCC provides interface to handle snapshots in its application. Select your Volume you want to manage and you have lower right corner button "Show volume snapshots". It allows you to manage snapshots and switch CCC snapshots on or off. See here: https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/leveraging-snapshots-on-apfs-volumes for more details.

 

[Weaselboy]

I don't see anything amiss with your sudo du output. But yeah... Time Machine local snapshots can use up a lot of space. They should automatically delete in 24 hours, so you might just wait and see if they do.

If you don't want to wait, run this Terminal command and it will kill them off.

tmutil  listlocalsnapshotdates / |grep 20|while read f; do tmutil deletelocalsnapshots $f; done

 

[Fishrrman]

Download DiskWave from here:
https://diskwave.barthe.ph
It's small in size and free.

Open DiskWave and go to the preferences.
Put a checkmark in "show invisible files".
Close preferences.

The DiskWave window shows you all your drives in plain English (no ridiculous graphical formats).
Click on any folder.
Now, you'll see what's there, listed in order of "largest to smallest".
You can easily locate what's eating up your space.