No Freedom of Disk Space Despite Deletion

Question

Created Jun ’19

Replies 23

Boosts 0

Views 27k

Participants 24

I successfully installed the 10.15 beta today and went to also grab Xcode11. Ambitious I know but I was enticed by the mousetrap that is SwiftUI.

I cleared out some old files to make space for the new Xcode image to decompress. However none of that disk space actually showed up as free in the Disk Utility. Much to the contrary actually. After several rounds of this, I have now managed to literally fill my whole disk with LORD KNOWS WHAT!

I suppose these are some sort of ghost/shadow images somewhere. I turned off "Optimize Mac Storage" On my iCloud settings. That didn't seem to fix anything.

The problem simply progressed until my disk filled. Disk is now full so I suppose that will stop the progression. Lol.

Note the install didn't fill the whole drive. I had about 10 gigs left at the end. But downloading the xcode zip brought me down to about 3 and then deleting files apparently brought me down to the megs. Now the only file space I have left to my name is on my icloud account.

I know this issue has been reported before on multiple releases. I don't know of a solve that works. I've tried a few. If anyone has a hunch let me know. Thanks.

-Colin

Answered by xkn in 362436022

Try the following commands:

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
tmutil listlocalsnapshots /System/Volumes/Data

It seems like those hidden Time Machine snapshots are stored in different locations due to the system partition change.

CAUTION: delete them using

tmutil deletelocalsnapshots <snapshot_date>

Boost

Answer 1

aw1231 OP

Jun ’19

No, that is the partition with all your data on it.

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Answer 2

gl14916 OP

Jun ’19

In addition to Time Machine's problem taking up too much space for local backup, I have also noticed that it is backing up too frequently during working period on Catalina (far more than once per hour.) Why is it backing up as frequently as every few minutes?

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Answer 3

JuhaFIN OP

Jun ’19

tmutil deletelocalsnapshots <snapshot_date>

what is this "<snapshot_date>" i mean what to put there?

Thanks already

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Answer 4

annanen OP

Jul ’19

Hi,

I have the same problem but it is getting worse. I was stuck with the error of “not enough space” and i tried your solution, but in terminal when i write the code you told, it is saying “tmutil not found”. Right now, i can not see my MacintoshHD partition as well.

I have already tried opening in Safe mode but it is not working either. Is there anyone who stucked like me?

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Answer 5

Vladislav Filatyev OP

Jul ’19

Thank you!!!

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Answer 6

Batshua OP

Oct ’19

I'm getting a error of

Failed to delete all Time Machine local snapshots for volume group containing disk (snapshot name).

Sudo doesn't help. Suggestions?

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Answer 7

rdizzle OP

May ’20

you type in the full name so e.g. to delete my first one

tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2020-05-25-204347

repeat for all 6 by changing the numbers

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Answer 8

Prhayes OP

Aug ’20

Thanks so much for this info, really helped me to delete a snapshot to free up used data showing incorrectly on my mac. This freed up about 60GB, enough to allow me to install the Big Sur beta. The very last comment from rdizzle detailing the syntax for the terminal command was the clincher for me as I was entering the snapshot date inside brackets which you dont need to do!!

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