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Moving files to external drive decreases space on Mac HD

I just off-loaded around 125GB of files onto an external drive, then put the files from my Mac into the trash and emptied the trash. I now have LESS space indicated on my HD than before. How is this possible?


I did the same a few days ago, but uploaded 25GB to iCloud rather than to an external drive, and that also did not increase my available space on my HD but decreased it by a few GB.


What's going on here?


27" iMac late 2015

OS Catalina 10.15.2

iMac 27", macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 28, 2020 1:50 PM

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Posted on Jan 29, 2020 1:20 PM

Under Catalina storage space information is dynamic, so, yes, it's normal for available disk space to increase and/or decrease during use. Also, there is a lot happening behind the scenes.


As for your iCloud Drive, when you save a file on it, that file is stored on the computer in the /Home/Mobile Documents/ folder. Over time the data are moved to your online iCloud account. Of course, your iCloud storage must be adequate to hold all the documents stored on iCloud Drive. Do not use iCloud Drive as a place to store all your files. It is not an online cloud backup. It's only intended for data created and used by iCloud-enabled apps such as Pages.

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Jan 29, 2020 1:20 PM in response to FH678

Under Catalina storage space information is dynamic, so, yes, it's normal for available disk space to increase and/or decrease during use. Also, there is a lot happening behind the scenes.


As for your iCloud Drive, when you save a file on it, that file is stored on the computer in the /Home/Mobile Documents/ folder. Over time the data are moved to your online iCloud account. Of course, your iCloud storage must be adequate to hold all the documents stored on iCloud Drive. Do not use iCloud Drive as a place to store all your files. It is not an online cloud backup. It's only intended for data created and used by iCloud-enabled apps such as Pages.

Jan 29, 2020 5:39 AM in response to Kappy

Thanks Kappy. I was not looking at the About This Mac info, I was looking at the readout at the bottom of a Finder window. I expected it to update as I emptied the trash, but it didn't. So I then did as you suggested: I looked at the Get Info window, and it also had not updated. I did ultimately restart—without waiting 30 seconds; just restarted—and both the Get Info window and the bottom of the Finder window then updated, showing my available space had increased by roughly the amount of data I had moved off to the external drive. But are you saying that we have to restart our computers to know the actual storage capacity?


The other curious aspect of this is that the readout at the bottom of the Finder window keeps decreasing as I'm writing this. It has gone down by 3GB in the past few minutes since I woke the iMac and saw your message. Is that normal? Seems to have stabilized now; is it just from opening a couple of applications?


And as I stated in my post above, I had put about 25GB on iCloud drive. That shows as part of the used space in the About This Mac info. I get it that the About This Mac breakdown is illustrative only, but does that mean that the 25GB of files that I put on iCloud drive is actually still on my computer's HD? What is cloud storage for if not to free up space on one's hard drive? (I know it's so you can access files from other devices anywhere in the known universe, but I put the 25GB of files in the trash and emptied it; did it not leave my hard drive?) As you can see, I'm confused about where things really are. Thanks for any explanation you might have.



Jan 28, 2020 8:36 PM in response to FH678

Try shutting down the computer, wait 30 seconds, then restart.


Get Correct Storage Information


Do not use the information from the Storage section of the About This Mac dialog. Ignore the Storage information as it is typically wrong. To find out the correct information for any disk: Select a Desktop disk icon. Press Command-I to open the Get Info window and look at the topmost panel displayed. You will find the disk information displayed for Capacity, Available, and Used. If you have more than one disk/partition then repeat for each one on your Desktop.


The categories found in the Storage section of About This Mac is simply an arbitrary way of displaying files on your drive. There are no such categories actually on the drive.



Moving files to external drive decreases space on Mac HD

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