What are hidden files and their space consumption on MacBook Pro?

Use OmniDiskSweeper instead which gives you a list view of the files & folders so you can easily see which folders have the largest files/folders. I find this app to be the easiest one to use. I never understood the need for those graphical representations.....always seemed awkward & cumbersome to me.

You can also try to look at the macOS Storage Management. While the information in the macOS Storage Management is not always accurate, perhaps it will allow you to see some of the larger items within the various categories.

Free up storage space on Mac - Apple Support

FYI, the largest files & folders should be stored within your home user folder (or if you multiple macOS user accounts on the Mac, in one of them). The majority of items should be in the Desktop, Documents, Downloads folders, or in the Photos Library, Video Library, iTunes/Music Library.......those Libraries can be relocated to an external USB3 SSD if needed if they are the source of your data (Apple has articles with the necessary instructions). The Mail app may also contains a large amount of data depending how you have it configured.

The hidden Library folder within each macOS user account may hide some large amounts of data as well, especially if you backup your iPhone or iPads to the computer. I also believe some iCloud data may be stored in the hidden Library as well. Once in a while some third party apps may store data in the hidden Library as well.

APFS snapshots associated with Time Machine backups and even some third party backup software may also retain data you have already deleted. These hidden APFS backup snapshots will automatically be deleted at some time in the future depending on the backup app and its configuration. Time Machine will retain backup TM snapshots for about 24 hours or so.

View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

Make sure you always have at least 20GB+ of Free storage space for the normal operation of macOS. The general rule is having at least 20% Free space, but 20GB is the absolute minimum just for basic macOS functionality. That 20GB can quickly disappear while performing simple tasks.....many workloads require much more Free storage space.

Also, ignore the "Available" storage space value shown everywhere within macOS since it is very misleading. You only want to look at the Free storage space value which unfortunately is only shown within Disk Utility or the System Profiler. On macOS when using the APFS file system (the default since macOS 10.13 High Sierra) "Available" is not synonymous with Free.

It looks like you are using DaisyDisk. You can click on any & all of the segments of the display to see what files are contained on each, including the hidden folders.

As for "what are hidden files" there are many and they are mostly in your user Library folder, which is hidden by default. They are mostly files used by the various applications on your Mac. For most people the only ones that are manageable are your email database and iOS backups. But you manage them through your email app (Mail, Outlook, etc.) or through iOS backup manager in the Finder ... don't ever try to dig down into these places manually, or you risk corrupting your system.

What app are you using?

You will have hidden files on your computer and can view them with a key combination. They are not meant to be messed with, which is why they are hidden. Removing them will usually require an OS install to recover. Also files from one user will be hidden from another user, so that may be possibly what that app is showing you. Hard to tell with the information that has been provided.

You can view if you have other users set up on your Mac at  > System Settings > Users & Groups, and will also show the type of access that user has.

There is also Purgeable data on your hard drive that remains in a limbo state until it has been freed. When viewing your hard drive, you will see a large portion of it marked as Purgeable that is not counted as free space and I don't see where on the graph the purgeable data is shown.

peppemigliara wrote:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/6f293ecf-7749-4f6e-8ec3-30dc8a44053a

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: What are hidden files, what are they for, and why do they take up so much space?

I might guess encrypted iPhone backups(?)