Hi, I just don't understand what is going on with my iMac. I will include a photo of what I see to make it clear for you to understand. I do need help with it as you can imagine! thanks for help.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iMac 27″, macOS 11.7
1..12 TB capacity suggests an early 1TB Fusion Drive that combines a 1 TB mechanical hard drive and 128 GB of SSd space. (In later years, Apple got stingy and included much less SSD space.)
I could be wrong, but I think the “purgable” space is space that macOS can and will free up under the right circumstances. If it is being counted towards the “used” figure, that would explain the drive having a lot of space “available” even though nearly all of it is being “used.”
The question would then be why the purgabe data has grown so big. If you use Time Machine but have not connected your backup drive in a while, some of that could be holding snapshots that the Mac intends to move to the backup drive when it has a chance.
You must have installed and/or reinstalled macOS a couple of times on this system. That is the way people get those multiple "Macintosh HD"s. I've never seen them with such different naming schemes though. All of these APFS volumes are within the same APFS Container which is a good thing as it makes fixing the problem much easier.
You should be able to delete "Macintosh HD - Data 2" volume as it contains 65GB of data on it from a previous macOS installation.....as long as you have another copy of that data on your current home user folder or other media.
The rest of those APFS volumes are perfectly normal although their names are just a confusing mess. "Macintosh HD 3 - Data" is the volume containing your current home user folder containing your current data. This volume was probably one of your older macOS installations which contained your old data & home user folder. This volume also contains 930GB of data. I'm guessing you have multiple copies of your data hidden within the "/Users/Shared/Relocated Items" folder(s) from your previous macOS installations. See this Apple article for details:
If a Relocated Items folder appears on your Mac after upgrading macOS - Apple Support
After deleting the "Macintosh HD - Data 2" volume, I would recommend renaming each APFS volumes so they match the macOS defaults. Delete the " 1b" from the name of that one volume so it becomes "Macintosh HD". Then rename the "Data" volume by deleting the " 3" part from the name so that it becomes (there is only one space on either side of the " - ") :
Macintosh HD - Data
I don't think it is possible to rename the currently grayed out volume immediate above the current " 1b" volume. If it needs renamed to match, then it will likely need to be done while booted into Recovery Mode.
Edit: In the future you should expand the left pane of Disk Utility when posting a picture so we can get the full name of all the items on the left pane Disk Utility.
Hi so this is a photo of the hard disc situation after deleting some movies last night. it's freed up a bit of space. and another photo of the Disc utility window. Thanks again for help, I really appreciate it!
OK, thank you for that info, I will check that setting. I like the idea that when I do a back up it will include full size photos and videos on my Mac. I have noticed and it drives me mad that my photos app is slow, and I have to download a video before I can export it somewhere else. I do a lot of video editing in iMovie. Is this the setting you mean re iCloud usage ? Ss I want full size kept on my Mac have I got the setting right by ticking the box?
denise CLARK wrote:
Is this the setting you mean re iCloud usage ? Ss I want full size kept on my Mac have I got the setting right by ticking the box?
I'm not sure if that setting applies to iCloud Photos. The wording refers to iCloud Drive. Stuff in iCloud Photos counts towards your total iCloud storage space, but Photos likes to store photos in a "hidden" area, and not let you directly mess with the individual files.
I'm running Sequoia, and these are the settings from Photos > Settings… (in the Photos application:
Note the choice between "Download Originals to this Mac" and "Optimize Mac Storage" and the descriptions under each of those choices.
Hi SOCats ! thanks for your help. I am deleting movies from my movies folder in the HD1 b hard drive and it’s freed up a lot of space. I have all of those movies backed up in a couple of external drives. I do use Time Machine , but it started to take ages on the backups, I had it set to backup every hour automatically. So I just back up every few days now. I do have a big photos library that’s backed up to iCloud . I am considering not using iCloud, I’m thinking that could be part of my problem, I just don’t know.
It looks like you have two different partitions/Containers since the APFS information differs between the two volumes. This usually means you have two installations of macOS, or you reinstalled macOS incorrectly at some point. As @D.I. Johnson mentions, we really need to see the left pane of Disk Utility to truly understand the drive layout. Just make sure to click "View" within Disk Utility & select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive and hidden Containers appear on the left pane of Disk Utility.
Hi D I Johnson. Thanks for your help. I’ll post the screenshot tomorrow I’m going to bed now. I’ve been busy deleting files from my HD 1 b drive and it’s gone down a lot, I’ve left my Mac on, to be honest I’m afraid to turn it off in case it doesn’t start up again! After reading someone else’s post who has a similar problem to mine.
denise CLARK wrote:
I do have a big photos library that’s backed up to iCloud . I am considering not using iCloud, I’m thinking that could be part of my problem, I just don’t know.
When you use iCloud Photos, the photos and videos in your main ("system") Photos Library are stored both on one of your local drives, and in iCloud. But this doesn't make full-size photos and videos take up more room on your Mac than they would, if you were storing them there without using iCloud.
If you are using iCloud Photos, you can even give your Mac permission to free up local storage, by substituting lower-quality, space-saving copies of photos and videos for full-size ones as it sees fit. (The idea is that since iCloud Photos always keeps full-size copies in iCloud, the Mac can grab full-size photos from iCloud later on an as-needed basis.). I keep that option turned off, so that my Mac is forced to store full-size local copies of all the photos and videos. This way, when I make local backups, they include full-size copies of the photos and videos.
denise CLARK wrote:
is Mac HD 3 Data my iCloud stuff?
"Macintosh HD 3 – Data" is part of your Fusion Drive. Disk Utility doesn't show network-attached volumes such as iCloud Drive or Google Drive. It only shows locally-attached drives.
I notice that you're running Big Sur. Recent versions of macOS have a rather complex internal structure for what the Finder presents as a single drive: "Macintosh HD". The main purpose seems to be to harden some parts of the system against malware attack. That said, I don't understand why the entries for your Fusion Drive have the names that they do. Why "Macintosh HD 1b" or "Macintosh HD 3 – Data"?!?
Hi, OK thank you I have just checked and had it set to 'Optimise Mac storage' so I've changed it now, hopefully photos will be more responsive! there are so many setting we need to get right. My trouble is I just want to get on and do things! I probably changed that setting at some point thinking I needed to save space because of my discs getting filled up. thanks for your help.
As HWTech mentioned 'It looks like you have two different partitions/Containers since the APFS information differs between the two volumes. This usually means you have two installations of macOS, or you reinstalled macOS incorrectly at some point', now I think he may well be right. About 5 years ago I had a problem and asked Apple to help me with my Mac. They suggested I should update the running system as it would then be more secure. So I did with their 'help' over the phone. After the update the next day I couldn't get my computer turned on! It was off for about 3 days until I got it running with much help from Apple, at the end of about 3 days it was running ok and was advised to call them again when I was certain all was ok and they would finalise my computer. I was happy it was running ok so I did not call them and they didn't follow up so I thought it would be fine. It was OK until about a year ago, I had been making a lot of 4K video and of course the space on my HD data drive was getting fuller. I took it to Apple store and they thought it looked rather odd. I explained what had happened .They didn't do anything to it apart from looking at it and advised me not to update the running system and just use external drives to keep my hard disc as free as possible. But it's been getting worse and slower over the last couple of weeks now.
I'm thinking if it does have 2 installations of macOS then Apple should have spotted that surely? If it does have to installations is it a simple matter of just deleting the old system? who knows.
Yes I have just mentioned your previous comment in a reply to 'Servant of cats' that I think you are right re my Mac. Please read that reply it explains what happened on my last and only update to my Mac. 5 years ago it was not a good experience and have never updated the running system since! The reinstalling of macOS sounds correct as I couldn't get my Mac to start easily after the update, (I did not do it alone, Apple did it with me over the phone,) I wish I had never done it! Apple assured me it would be fine and great it was anything but, My Mac was not right for 3 days! I'm wondering why Apple didn't spot this issue cause a year ago when I took my Mac into Apple Genius Bar for this same problem. My Mac is painfully slow and the drives look weird, my Time machine hates it's work by the look of things and takes hours just preparing for a backup.
Hi everyone! thanks all again for all your help. Just wanted to give you an update as you were so kind to give your time to help me.
We took my iMac into the Genius Bar yesterday, they did a diagnostic test on the hardware of my Mac, all was ok so they felt happy about wiping the drive and reinstalling the next running system up, which I think is high Sierra.
They thought it had 2 versions of Mac OS installed on it taking up all the space and making it look weird.
We went to pick it up, they had it all packed up and ready to take home.
Because I've been having such trouble we got it out of it's box and turned it on. I was unable to sign in after inserting my iCloud username and password, they did something on their system that enabled me to take the step of agreeing to the user agreement.
We quickly realised they had installed 'Catalina', which is a step back from Big Sur which I had gone in with. Basically he said they had made mistake and would take that off and install 'Big Sur', which they did while we watched it load on, took about half an hour. Anyway It seems ok, just a few teething problems but 100% better than it was, quite a relief! thanks again! Best wishes,
Denise.
I see a discrepancy here.
Please show us a screen shot of what you see in Disk Utility.
In DU click View > Show All Devices and then select the container disk and screenshot that info.
Why is my iMac’s hard drive full when I don’t know what’s using the space?
