MacBook HDD Space - is OneDrive complicating things?

[andysdad]

I have a 2015 MacBook Pro with a 2TB HDD.

My OneDrive folder is 780GB (mostly photos).

MBP disk is currently showing 741GB available (450GB purgeable) and 1.7TB used.

My maths says 741 + 1700 = 2441GB. Which is larger than 2TB.

My suspicion is that there is a mirror of the OneDrive folder doubling-up the 780GB to 1560GB.

Can anyone confirm/comment?

Is there a (free) way to visualise where the largest folders are?

Cheers in advance.

 

[DJ123]

I'm assuming you have the onedrive folder shortcut on your desktop? Simply look at file info and see the size of it.

My onedrive folder on my MacBook only shows as 56kb when i check the size of it. And folders within it are the same as they show as linked to the drive - not on my MacBook.

 

[sparkplug]

Slightly confused by the logic there....

So, OneDrive is a Microsoft service and data on OneDrive isn't on your Mac, it's on a computer under Bill Gate's bed or something.

Well, that's not entirely true, it can be stored under Bill's bed, or under your bed, or both - or a mix of either.. Depends how you set it up.

As for the discrepancy between your GB and TB calculation well that can be explained by the fact that a Gigabyte isn't necessarily what you think it is...

We like the whole decimal thing where it's a nice 1,000,000,000 - but... in base 2 (aka binary, which is what computers use) it's actually 1,073,741,824 bytes.

So, yeah. 741 + 1700 can equal 2441 aka (sort of) 2TB ish. Maybe. Depends on what units you're actually adding up and if they're in the same base or not.

I think you can go to the onedrive website and see how much data you're actually using there.

There are a ton of apps on OSX that will do analysis/cleanup but for a quick overview then the built in Apple settings thing isn't bad.

 

[andysdad]

Thanks both for the replies.

Looks like not all my OneDrive folder files are "under my bed" - I thought they all were, with a mirror on the cloud. Just updating the ones that are no longer native on my HDD. I will review sizes after that correction.

But - the "Show Info" for the Mac HD shows 741GB free and "1.7TB" used, so that is way over any 1024/1000MB difference on a 2TB disk.

Thanks for the link to the Apple tools, Fil. Sadly I am still on Monterey and the menus are different.

 

[sparkplug]

Ah! no worries.

I'd start with emptying the trash and purging the purgeable and seeing what that leaves you with.

I'd guess a more accurate representation of free/used