Disk space slowly disappearing

[troy barnes]

I've been having this issue for quite some time now (close to a year), wherein every so often, for reasons I can't identify, roughly 1-1.5 GB would just vanish from my available space, but it would stop there. Upon resetting, I would get the space back, but that's hardly a permanent solution.

Now, however, the space is just slowly draining, at like 10MB every few seconds. So far I'm down about almost 6 GB in about 5-10 minutes. And this is happening with no apps open (except Safari right, now, obviously, but this was happening before I got on here).

Weirdly, though, I'm not noticing any performance issues.

Anyone have any idea what the problem is?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Sorry for the delayed response.

• Which model Mac?
• Which version of macOS?
• How much free space is left?

C

 

[troy barnes]

Hello and welcome.

Sorry for the delayed response.

• Which model Mac?
• Which version of macOS?
• How much free space is left?

C

• 2017, 21.5 inch. It's fresh out of the box, though, and I was having the issue outlined in the first paragraph on the old one (from which I did a data migration) as well. Which leads me to believe it's something in my settings or something somewhere and not a hardware issue.

• Big Sur

• ~120GB

It is worth mentioning the other problem outlined has resolved itself, insofar as I'm no long actively losing disk space. Don't know what made it stop, or what started it initially, but whatever the case, it stopped. The other problem, though, persists.

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK, thanks.

The 1-1.5 GB of space that is reclaimed after a restart may just be temporary files such as browser cache, local Time Machine snapshots, logs, etc. How often do you restart or clear browsing history/cache?

Also, do you use:

• iCloud Drive > Desktop & Documents
• iCloud Photo Library
• Google Drive
• Dropbox

Glad to hear part of the issue has resolved itself.

C

 

[troy barnes]

OK, thanks.

The 1-1.5 GB of space that is reclaimed after a restart may just be temporary files such as browser cache, local Time Machine snapshots, logs, etc. How often do you restart or clear browsing history/cache?

Also, do you use:

• iCloud Drive > Desktop & Documents
• iCloud Photo Library
• Google Drive
• Dropbox

Glad to hear part of the issue has resolved itself.

C

Basically never, re clearing history/cache.

• Don't use iCloud at all
• Don't use Google drive
• Use Dropbox, but I was having this issue before I officially linked my Dropbox account to my Mac, and even still I've only got about 500mb worth of stuff on it.

 

[troy barnes]

Update: all the space that disappeared a month ago suddenly and inexplicably returned, and then immediately started depleting again, and then stopped roughly around where it was before (at least for now).

I had DiskWave and DaisyDisk open throughout this, and while DiskWave didn't reveal anything useful, DaisyDisk showed all this space was coming and going via some hidden space that I obviously can't precisely locate (and that's even after having bought the upgraded version of DaisyDisk).

Does this information help shed any light on what's happened? 'cause I'm still at a loss.

 

[troy barnes]

Another update: once again watching disk space disappear, this time without recovering the lost space initially. Currently have lost a bit over 10GB and still counting in the last ~10 minutes. DiskWave doesn't show anything, and DaisyDisk shows I've now got 20GB (again, and counting) of hidden space.

Edit: It stopped after about 12GB.

 

[Lufbrarunner]

How much RAM is on your machine?

 

[troy barnes]

8GB

 

[Zephar77]

I've been having this issue for quite some time now (close to a year), wherein every so often, for reasons I can't identify, roughly 1-1.5 GB would just vanish from my available space, but it would stop there. Upon resetting, I would get the space back, but that's hardly a permanent solution.

Now, however, the space is just slowly draining, at like 10MB every few seconds. So far I'm down about almost 6 GB in about 5-10 minutes. And this is happening with no apps open (except Safari right, now, obviously, but this was happening before I got on here).

Weirdly, though, I'm not noticing any performance issues.

Anyone have any idea what the problem is?

I had this problem and Senior Advisor from Apple walked me through clearing up space for something I was doing miss hi did not have enough room on the 256 GB SSD on my 2014 iMac 27 inch. What happens is if you’re using time machine it take screenshots of your backups and this takes up memory on your SSD. He walked me through how to eliminate the screenshot and free up almost 100 GB going through a few steps. If you really need to clear out space for some reason then have a Senior Advisor walk you through on how to do this, it’s a bit tricky and not something you want to do unless you absolutely need that space. Otherwise, don’t worry about it is it is just the screenshots taken of your current state of your SSD and the information that is there. If you delete the screenshot you will lose the time machine information that is not retrievable after you clear up the space. Best, Seth

 

[Zephar77]

I had this problem and Senior Advisor from Apple walked me through clearing up space for something I was doing miss hi did not have enough room on the 256 GB SSD on my 2014 iMac 27 inch. What happens is if you’re using time machine it take screenshots of your backups and this takes up memory on your SSD. He walked me through how to eliminate the screenshot and free up almost 100 GB going through a few steps. If you really need to clear out space for some reason then have a Senior Advisor walk you through on how to do this, it’s a bit tricky and not something you want to do unless you absolutely need that space. Otherwise, don’t worry about it is it is just the screenshots taken of your current state of your SSD and the information that is ther