Levo help · Problems

Free space looks different in Finder

It’s normal for two apps to show different free space on the same disk. They’re counting different things. Nothing is wrong with your Mac or with Levo.

Why the numbers differ

• Purgeable space. macOS counts some files as space it can take back when it needs it: caches, iCloud files kept on your Mac, and local snapshots. Finder and Levo include that in available. Disk Utility and some command line tools don’t, so they show less.
• Local Time Machine snapshots. They hold space until macOS thins them. A cleanup may free less than you expect while a snapshot still points to the deleted files.
• The Trash. Files in it still use space. Space comes back when it’s emptied.
• Clones. On APFS, a copy of a file can share its data with the original. Deleting one copy frees less than its size, so Levo shows sizes as “about”.
• Decimal and binary. A “500 GB” drive is 500 billion bytes, which some apps show as 465 GB.

Which number Levo uses

Levo uses the same “available” figure macOS shows in Finder’s Get Info, because it’s the space your Mac can really give to a new file. Your limits are checked against that figure.

After a cleanup

Levo measures what was really freed and tells you, rather than adding up the ticked sizes. If the number is lower than the list said, one of the reasons above is why. Space held by snapshots or the Trash can take a little while to show, or needs the Trash emptied.

If space doesn’t come back

1. Empty the Trash, including the Trash on any external drive you cleaned.
2. Wait a few minutes. macOS updates the free space after the files go.
3. Check Settings › Agent › Move to Trash. With it on, what you clean goes to the Trash first, and the space isn’t free until you empty it.
4. Restart your Mac if the figure still looks stale.