MacOS – Space isn’t increasing after deleting files on external hdd mac os trash is empty

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I deleted files from external hard drive, they are no longer there, trash is empty but space hasn't increased, what do I do?

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Launch the terminal / command line, and replacing 'VolumeName' with the name of your drive type:

sudo rm -R /Volumes/volumeName/.Trashes

Each drive has its own hidden .Trash folder, and each user has a folder in that folder. The above will delete all trash folders on that specific drive.

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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

Mac – Less space after moving files

The last few times I had issues like you describe, I emptied trash and rebooted. I found that certain video apps left a cache that was gone after rebooting.

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