Hard disk space gone

Hi jbjs,

"Other" refers to files stored in the Trash, along with files and caches that are stored inside your apps.

To reduce space taken up by "Other", try these steps:

1. Verify that all local snapshots have indeed been cleared from your Mac. Open Terminal (located in Applications -> Utilities), then run "tmutil deletelocalsnapshots /" (without the quotes) and hit Enter (Return).
2. Empty the Trash for all user accounts.
3. Follow the guidelines in this User Tip: What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how… - Apple Community

Also, quick question: In About This Mac, does a category named "Other Volumes" appear?

jbjs wrote:

Hi Encryptor 5000,

I performed already step 1 and 2, and followed the user tip. That is why I discovered that the 'other' in my case cannot be recovered, as Disk Inventory X only sees 332GB of files of the 500GB. So 168 GB are invisible. I don't see a a category named "Other Volumes"

I found OmniDiskSweeper —easier to use for a GUI to get a good look at itemized file size and location:

OmniDiskSweeper http://www.omnigroup.com/more

Empty your Trash — Delete files and folders on Mac - Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/delete-files-and-folders-on-mac-mchlp1093/mac

How to free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206996

See used and available storage space on your Mac

https://support.apple.com/guide/system-information/see-available-storage-space-syspf9b375b9/10.14/mac/10.15

User tip: "Other and What Can I Do About It ?"

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-5142

Suggest purchasing external drive or drives - very cheap these days and move the unneeded Books, Podcasts, Documents, Music iOS, Photos files off the drive. Then inventory outdated or unused Applications and remove them too.

jbjs wrote:

These tools all only report files summing up to less than 325 GB. I am looking where the other 170Gb space went.

For itemized details you can use the Terminal.app

File size— list the items in the home folder with the sizes, including invisible items, copy & paste:

sudo du -h -d 1 ~/

File size—will list the items in root with the sizes, including invisible items, copy & paste:

sudo du -h -d 1 /

To get the big picture, to verify you have installed, updated, or re-installed correctly:

diskutil list internal

(you can copy & paste the list here if in doubt about this whole disks and the partition.)

jbjs wrote:

Thank you for this suggestion. These operations results frequently in an "Operation not permitted". For instance the first lines of output:

614M /usr

2.4M /bin

1012K /sbin

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

7.6G /Library

  0B /com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots

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

du: /System/Volumes/Data/.Spotlight-V100: Operation not permitted

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

du: /System/Volumes/Data/private/var/db/fpsd/dvp: Operation not permitted

Does this give you any info on what might be wrong?

No.

That all looks normal, you can ignore all the " Operation not permitted"

What I was asking for you to share was the < diskutil list internal >

jbjs wrote:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.3 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 314.6 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk1 500.0 GB disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +500.0 GB disk1

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD - Data 473.5 GB disk1s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 83.5 MB disk1s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 528.9 MB disk1s3

4: APFS Volume VM 10.7 GB disk1s4

5: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 11.4 GB disk1s5

That looks normal, it does appear by the layout this was a reinstall of some sort, but I see no issue here with the structure

I can see you are low on drive space your User totaling 473.5/500 GB— this is your issue as stated

From the above output you listed ie < sudo du -h -d 1 / >

*let's see the last 9 or 10 lines of that output