Reading from Disk Utility, the 500GB SSD (Apple SSD/Container disk1/Macintosh HD) on my 2020 Intel iMac is showing 25GB available, 470GB used.

In the Macintosh directory below is a volume (or partition?) called 'Macintosh HD - Data' which is showing 500GB capacity, 170GB available, 140GB purgeable, 460GB used.

How do I 'purge' the 140GB?

I've tried restarting, and searching using Finder shows only the files I'd expect over 1GB - apps and video files. The only odd thing in Settings/General/Storage is something called System Data at 135GB, but I don't know what/where that is.

--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

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John Hill <watcombeman@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

On 11 Jan 2025 at 08:06:35 GMT, "RJH" <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:

Reading from Disk Utility, the 500GB SSD (Apple SSD/Container disk1/Macintosh
HD) on my 2020 Intel iMac is showing 25GB available, 470GB used.

In the Macintosh directory below is a volume (or partition?) called 'Macintosh
HD - Data' which is showing 500GB capacity, 170GB available, 140GB purgeable,
460GB used.

How do I 'purge' the 140GB?

I've tried restarting, and searching using Finder shows only the files I'd >> expect over 1GB - apps and video files. The only odd thing in
Settings/General/Storage is something called System Data at 135GB, but I don't
know what/where that is.

According to Disk Utility/Help,
"Amount of space available, which can include both free space and “purgeable
space” — or space that macOS can free up when needed by removing files from
your computer (you can’t manually remove the files that are designated purgeable, but macOS removes them as space is required)".

So the answer would seem to be, you don't. It's down to MacOS to attend to.

Indeed. Don’t use any of the well publicised macOS cleaning apps as rather than clean they can brick your Mac.

--
Cheers, Alan

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On 11 Jan 2025 at 08:06:35 GMT, "RJH" <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:

Reading from Disk Utility, the 500GB SSD (Apple SSD/Container disk1/Macintosh HD) on my 2020 Intel iMac is showing 25GB available, 470GB used.

In the Macintosh directory below is a volume (or partition?) called 'Macintosh
HD - Data' which is showing 500GB capacity, 170GB available, 140GB purgeable, 460GB used.

How do I 'purge' the 140GB?

I've tried restarting, and searching using Finder shows only the files I'd expect over 1GB - apps and video files. The only odd thing in Settings/General/Storage is something called System Data at 135GB, but I don't
know what/where that is.

According to Disk Utility/Help,
"Amount of space available, which can include both free space and “purgeable space” — or space that macOS can free up when needed by removing files from your computer (you can’t manually remove the files that are designated purgeable, but macOS removes them as space is required)".

So the answer would seem to be, you don't. It's down to MacOS to attend to.

Old John.
--
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11 Jan 2025 at 08:06:35 GMT, "RJH" <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:

Reading from Disk Utility, the 500GB SSD (Apple SSD/Container disk1/Macintosh HD) on my 2020 Intel iMac is showing 25GB available, 470GB used.

In the Macintosh directory below is a volume (or partition?) called 'Macintosh
HD - Data' which is showing 500GB capacity, 170GB available, 140GB purgeable, 460GB used.

How do I 'purge' the 140GB?

I've tried restarting, and searching using Finder shows only the files I'd expect over 1GB - apps and video files. The only odd thing in Settings/General/Storage is something called System Data at 135GB, but I don't
know what/where that is.

As others mention it's macOS managed. As long as it's tagged as
purgeable, which it is, then macOS will ditch it when it's outlived its usefulness - or while you're copying in 300gig of files :)

To see if some of that space is local TM snapshots, if you like you can
clear those dowm at the terminal:

tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999999 4

From the manual page:

tmutil thinlocalsnapshots mount_point [purge_amount] [urgency]
Thin local Time Machine snapshots for the specified volume.
When purge_amount and urgency are specified, tmutil will attempt (with urgency level 1-4) to
reclaim purge_amount in bytes by thinning snapshots.
If urgency is not specified, the default urgency will be used.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
'It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? `I protect the
lives and property of my citizens; you keep the public
safe from an unreasonable and trouble-generating
minority; he maintains a totalitarian regime of
thought control.' -- Bernard, Yes Minister

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 11 Jan 2025 at 08:41:59 GMT, John Hill wrote:

On 11 Jan 2025 at 08:06:35 GMT, "RJH" <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:

Reading from Disk Utility, the 500GB SSD (Apple SSD/Container disk1/Macintosh
HD) on my 2020 Intel iMac is showing 25GB available, 470GB used.

In the Macintosh directory below is a volume (or partition?) called 'Macintosh
HD - Data' which is showing 500GB capacity, 170GB available, 140GB purgeable,
460GB used.

How do I 'purge' the 140GB?

I've tried restarting, and searching using Finder shows only the files I'd >> expect over 1GB - apps and video files. The only odd thing in
Settings/General/Storage is something called System Data at 135GB, but I don't
know what/where that is.

According to Disk Utility/Help,
"Amount of space available, which can include both free space and “purgeable
space” — or space that macOS can free up when needed by removing files from
your computer (you can’t manually remove the files that are designated purgeable, but macOS removes them as space is required)".

So the answer would seem to be, you don't. It's down to MacOS to attend to.

Thanks, yes, I'd read that.

Just struck me that leaving 5% free disk space sailing pretty close to the wind. Also, what are these files that might need to be called upon? I have the occasional 1GB video file which I offload and delete immediately, but that aside use the Mac for documents. Odd.

Anyway, if that's the way it is . . .


--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

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On 11 Jan 2025 at 10:15:04 GMT, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:

On 11 Jan 2025 at 08:06:35 GMT, "RJH" <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:

Reading from Disk Utility, the 500GB SSD (Apple SSD/Container disk1/Macintosh
HD) on my 2020 Intel iMac is showing 25GB available, 470GB used.

In the Macintosh directory below is a volume (or partition?) called 'Macintosh
HD - Data' which is showing 500GB capacity, 170GB available, 140GB purgeable,
460GB used.

How do I 'purge' the 140GB?

I've tried restarting, and searching using Finder shows only the files I'd >> expect over 1GB - apps and video files. The only odd thing in
Settings/General/Storage is something called System Data at 135GB, but I don't
know what/where that is.

As others mention it's macOS managed. As long as it's tagged as
purgeable, which it is, then macOS will ditch it when it's outlived its usefulness - or while you're copying in 300gig of files :)

To see if some of that space is local TM snapshots, if you like you can
clear those dowm at the terminal:

tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 9999999999999 4

From the manual page:

tmutil thinlocalsnapshots mount_point [purge_amount] [urgency]
Thin local Time Machine snapshots for the specified volume.
When purge_amount and urgency are specified, tmutil will attempt (with urgency level 1-4) to
reclaim purge_amount in bytes by thinning snapshots.
If urgency is not specified, the default urgency will be used.

Cheers - Jaimie

Thanks - I'd checked that and there was a zero kb remnant from when I used to use TM.
--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11 Jan 2025 at 08:06:35 GMT, RJH wrote:

Reading from Disk Utility, the 500GB SSD (Apple SSD/Container disk1/Macintosh HD) on my 2020 Intel iMac is showing 25GB available, 470GB used.

In the Macintosh directory below is a volume (or partition?) called 'Macintosh
HD - Data' which is showing 500GB capacity, 170GB available, 140GB purgeable, 460GB used.

How do I 'purge' the 140GB?

I've tried restarting, and searching using Finder shows only the files I'd expect over 1GB - apps and video files. The only odd thing in Settings/General/Storage is something called System Data at 135GB, but I don't
know what/where that is.

Update: the Purgeable Space has changed to System Data, as reported in Disk Utility - currently 160GB. This happened sometime between my original post,
and warnings yesterday about running out of disk space, <10GB.

60GB of this space is in a folder called 'Metadata', but I've still no idea where the other 100GB is hiding. Disk Inventory X gives no clue. Tried rebuilding Spotlight but no significant change.

Something seems to be broken. I'll see if the system will limp on for the next couple of weeks, when I'll start the transition to a new Mini.

--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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