Hello, I have a file called “1 TB Test” on my Mac OS operating system. We tried to delete it, but it disappeared. However, it still occupies 1 TB of space. We can't find the file now. The file was created on November 8th and appears to have updated itself on November 9th. The file definitely won't delete. What do you recommend?
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: File delete
How are you determining that the deleted file is still taking up space?
Did you empty the Trash?
If you are using the APFS file system, then items you delete & even empty from the Trash will remain hidden with backup APFS snapshots for about 24-48 hours after the backup snapshot has been transferred to external media. Plus if you ever copied this file to another location within the same APFS volume, then only one physical copy of the data exists with two links to it. Deleting one of those two links will only delete the link to the single physical copy of the data. To remove the physical data, all links to that data must be deleted. Storage on an APFS volume is complicated.
@dialabrain has also asked some very critical questions. You may also want to review the following article to learn what information should be provided when asking for assistance online so that you are more likely to get a relevant answer more quickly:
Writing an effective Apple Support Communities Question - Apple Community
I think you need to add some details such as what kind of file, what Mac you have running which version of macOS, etc.
How do I recover a 1 TB file that won't delete on macOS?
