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What to Do Finder and Disk Utility Report Different Usage

Finder says 402GB used of 750GB drive while Disk Utility says 523 GB used. Big difference! I have just done a Time Machine update so assume mobile backups will be pretty empty and I've emptied Trash. I have another 500GB external drive I want to do a full backup/clone copy of my 402GB Macintosh HD, but the Disk Utility says that Mac HD is 523GB so may not fit! I've read about TM local backups, etc, which are dispensed with if space is needed locally, but as my TM is always on an external drive and I've just updated it, how can there be 120GB of local TM backup files? I suspect that is not the culprit. And in any case, I don't want the space when I need it on the Mac HD, I want it now so I can clone it. Any fix?

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Sherry Song

Sherry Song

Answered on Sunday, June 8, 2025

Glad to solve your problems, this case may contribute to the local snapshots of Time Machine, the purgeable space on Mac, System glitches, disk errors, etc.

(1)Restart your Mac.

(2)Try to enter Mac Safe Mode.

(3)Delete purgeable space with effective software. iBoysoft DiskGeeker can do this perfectly.

 Download

iBoysoft DiskGeeker

Rating:4.8

     

  1. Free download, install, and open it. 
  2. Select the target drive from the startup disk and click Clean Junk from the right toolbar.
  3. Select a folder from the left to view the contents.
  4. Select unwanted ones and click Clean > OK.

(4)Erase local snapshots with Terminal.

(5)Reindex Spotlight.

(6)Repair the drive with Disk Utility.

Also read: macOS Shows Wrong Free Space in Disk Utility/Finder.

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