Can't clear up space on macOs Catalina. "Other" takes 370GB out of 500GB and other tools show half of this

user_5834189 0
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Recently I had almost full disk space taken on my Macbook Pro running macOs Catalina. I saw that what took most of my space was folder under: /Users/Shared/Relocated Items so I deleted this folder by moving to trash and emptying it. I deleted many other files as well.

I thought I just got 200 GB free disk space. But not at all!:

About screenshot

Screen Shot

Disk-utility Screenshot

Screen Shot

Only my "Other" size increased to 417GB! Which is insane. And what's more when I run sizing in software like OmniDiskSweeper or DiskInventoryX I get 179.5GB taken only!:

OmniDiskSweeper Screenshot

Screen Shot

And the same in DiskInventoryX. And before cleaning it was showing the same size taken as MacOs.

What is going on here? I tried:

  • Running in recovery mode and running first aid on my disk.
  • I have never enabled Time Machine. I ran some commands for delete backups and it appeared I didn't have any

When I delete some file the "Other" area just gets bigger and I can't get rid of it.

macos-catalina recycle-bin disk macos
2 Answers

DiskUtil will only show the your primary volume. To see all volumes on the disk you can try "View" > "Show All Devices" and then click up one level to view the device that hosts your HD volume.

Alternately open a terminal and run diskutil list to show all volumes, it may be your recovery volume spiked with the deletions.

user_828800

According to the question Storage only shows “Other” + Fluctuating storage on AskDifferent, the issue you're experiencing might be related to a corrupted Spotlight index.

You could try rebuilding the Spotlight index using those commands:

sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo mdutil -E /
sudo mdutil -i on /

It might take a while to rebuild.

Also, DaisyDisk has functionality related to finding hidden storage on your Mac. There is a trial available. Alternatively, you could also try the free GrandPerspective to check your disk usage.

user_8410520
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