Screen shots below. I discovered this as I began to research why I am essentially out of space. What the two shots below tell me:
From Settings/Storage: Documents = 53.3 GB
From Finder: Documents = 14.55 GB
[Edited by Moderator]
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 14.7
From Settings > Storage... shows you documents - as in items that are documents - within many folders on your Mac.
From Finder... shows you Documents - as in the size of the "Documents" folder.
If you want to see a more accurate accounting of the use of the storage space of your startup drive and the free space that is available to you, use the Disk Utility app.
From Settings > Storage... shows you documents - as in items that are documents - within many folders on your Mac.
From Finder... shows you Documents - as in the size of the "Documents" folder.
If you want to see a more accurate accounting of the use of the storage space of your startup drive and the free space that is available to you, use the Disk Utility app.
Ok, that screenshot of Disk Utility is very informative. It means you have actually filled up your drive with your own data and there is absolutely no significant Purgeable storage to give you more room.
You can use an app such as OmniDiskSweeper to identify the locations of the largest files & folders.
https://www.omnigroup.com/more
If you have a lot of large email attachments from over the years, then that could very well be where a lot of your storage is being used. The other most likely locations are Pictures, Movies & Videos, and even Downloads, or even iPhone/iPad local backups. I believe Mail and some other apps may store items within the hidden Library folder within your home user folder, but I am not certain although I do know iPhone/iPad backups are stored there.
I am concerned that you don't have any Purgeable storage space which would indicate the presence of a backup of some sort by Time Machine or some third party app. You do have frequent & regular backups? I sure hope so since there are a lot more new ways to permanently lose access to the data stored on the internal SSD of the recent Macs due to all of the hardware, software, and security changes.
D.I. Johnson wrote:
If you want to see a more accurate accounting of the use of the storage space of your startup drive and the free space that is available to you, use the Disk Utility app.
FYI, just want to clarify something here for the others reading this......
The Free storage space value reported by Disk Utility as shown in @D.I. Johnson's screenshot is the best way to get this information (it is also available in the Apple System Profiler as well, a bit less convenient). In the screenshot the Available storage value is the same as the Free space value, but many times the Available storage value will be much larger than the actual Free space value.
Ignore the "Available" storage value shown everywhere within macOS since it is very misleading. With macOS Free is not synonymous with Available.
I know if it hard to describe the Free storage without mentioning "available".....I'm constantly correcting myself to make sure to never use "available" when mentioning Free space. I try to say it more like "Free storage space is storage that can be used immediately, while Available storage space is storage that will be released for use at some unknown time in the future." Incidentally I had to correct myself several times just to write that last quoted sentence because I was accidentally slipping in "available" where it did not belong.
FYI, Even the "Used" storage space value can be misleading due to the features provided by the APFS file system. It is possible to see the "Used" space value being larger than the physical drive. This typically occurs if large files have been copied to another folder within the same APFS volume....it is a space saving feature (at least until you copy everything to another drive), and it also helps to reduce wear on the SSD. Storage on macOS has become much more complicated in recent years.
This post is meant to help @D.I. Johnson on their wording, and to expand upon their post. @D.I. Johnson's information is entirely correct & provided great advice. Seemed best to keep it altogether instead of replying individually. Sometimes I do get carried away :-)
The more popular way to address this issue is to Start Over from Scratch
For Apple Silicon computer >> Use Disk Utility to erase a Mac with Apple silicon.
For Apple Intel computers >> Use Disk Utility to erase an Intel-based Mac followed by How to reinstall macOS
Always make a Time Machine Backup before proceeding
It is also suggest to Only Migrating the User Account and nothing more.
Emphasis on User Account Only
Reinstall the Needed, not the Wanted, applications from the Apple Apps Store or Directly from the Developers
Generally when this issue is discovered by the User ( you in this case )
It is because the Internal Drive Capacity of this computer maybe on the small size
Meaning, the computer has a 256 GB Capacity Drive in 2025 is akin to when Apple sold the " Entry Level ' 128 GB drives
Unfortunately in this specific case, your needs for Storage may have grown since the time it was originally purchased
The implications being that on your next purchase.
Spend the Extra Money Up Front on a Custom Order with larger Drive Capacity Drive and add more RAM
This may just Future Proof the computer for your growing needs
System Data takes almost 100 GB. How can … - Apple Community
EDITED, me
I need to be a bit more explanatory as to why this came up. As you can see, I don't have much free storage left.
"249.12 GB of 250.69 GB used" as is verified by Disk Utility, albeit with a difference.
So, where this started was me trying to figure out what is taking up all the storage. Most of it is straightforward and I can figure out what to do. E.g., Through Settings > General > Storage > Documents I can identify big files to delete or offload.
However, what to do about Mail has me stumped. Admittedly, over time I have had the habit of saving a lot of mail. A fair amount of my "life" over the years is documented in emails. I started looking closer at what can be deleted (and then empty Trash), but haven't made a dent. Further, after some probing deeper have the bad feeling that buried in the the Mail file system are "orphan" files taking up some (or a lot) of storage space.
Tom
[Edited by Moderator]
If you use Time Machine regularly look at the local snapshots on your boot drive. You might be able to free up space as I did:
With only 1.3 GB of free space you're getting very, very close to the situation where the Mac will free up and not reboot.
Get an eternal SSD drive and move your Photos and Music libraries to it. Test to make sure they work as intended before deleting from the boot drive.
Settings Storage used does not match Finder
