MacOS – Disk space not freed after deleting files, unable to save things, unable to delete things, unable to update things

deletingdisk-spacemacosmemoryphotos

Recently my Macbook Air has been saying "The disk you are attempting to use is full. Removing files and emptying the Trash will free up additional space."

I have deleted everything in the trash, many other files, and 52 GB of photos. The only photos I have in my library now are 4.53 GB worth. When I click go to About This Mac it says I have 46 GB which is impossible. My computer is supposed to have a 121 GB Flash Storage with a 4 GB memory.

In the past two days after deleting all my photos the computer isn't letting me save, delete, or update anything. Right now I have OS X 10.9.5.

What can I do to fix this problem?

Best Answer

If you've "upgraded" to the Photo app from iPhoto or Aperture, your photos would have been imported as hard links. Basically this means that each photo is represented by both programmes and deleting from just one has no effect on the actual photo file. You'd need to delete from both.

Check to see if you have another album in your Pictures folder (or other folder if you manually placed it somewhere else) and delete the photos (hard links) there.

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MacOS – Disk space not freed up after deleting files and emptying Trash

The answer relates to changes to Time Machine backups in Lion.

My understanding is that when a TM back up is attempted when the back up disk is not connected, a back up is made in /Volumes/MobileBackups.

These back ups do not go away the next time TM runs with the back up disk connected. I am not sure if the OS will eventually reclaim this space.

You can disable the local back ups by running one of the following commands (depending on your version of Mac OS):

sudo tmutil disable localsnapshot

# for older versions:
sudo tmutil disablelocal

After you run this command /Volumes/MobileBackups is deleted.

I'm sure there is a good reason for the local backups and I don't necessarily recommend disabling them, but they were - in combination with some large deleted folders - the cause of disk space appearing to be still in use.

You can re-enable mobile backups by running:

sudo tmutil enablelocal

More info here - http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/18

MacOS – “Directory not empty” sudo rm -r -i “file name” not working

First, I would be sure no files are locked

sudo chflags -R nouchg Local\ Storage

Then, assuming you are sure about using sudo and rm -rf on your backup drive, you could tell rm to force things.

sudo rm -rf -i Local\ Storage

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