Removing files doesn't free the space

Dear Arch Community!
I use Arch on my quite old laptop, even though I am not enough advanced user, so please be patient and explicite.
I always try to solve problems searching forums/wiki and spending a lot of time to try to learn, but this time I didn't manage to find any similar problem posted.
Behaviour:
When I delate files/directories (both ways: putting them to trash and then emptying it or 'rm' them form command line) they do disappear from the files tree, but there is no space on the disc freed. It happens most of the time, but not always.
Also I remember that few months ago with some system update suddanly I got about 3G of home directory space back. That time I had no time to investigate.
I have no idea what part of the system may be responsible for such a strange behaviour, what tools to use to detect it.
What information should I provide you?
Thanks in advance,
Mirto

Hi All,
* ncdu ~
(nothing surprising, IMHO)
----------------/home/lena ------------
15.3GiB [##########] /Mus
7.5GiB [#### ] /fil
7.4GiB [#### ] /Pic
2.1GiB [# ] /Books
1.9GiB [# ] /Vid
500.3MiB [ ] /alc
354.7MiB [ ] /stu
328.0MiB [ ] /.scribus
304.5MiB [ ] /.config
261.9MiB [ ] /dwhelper
207.0MiB [ ] /Art
91.6MiB [ ] /A6
77.8MiB [ ] /.mozilla
69.9MiB [ ] /.thunderbird
51.0MiB [ ] /.gimp-2.6
50.8MiB [ ] /Downloads
48.3MiB [ ] /.gimp-2.8
46.8MiB [ ] /.wifi
43.4MiB [ ] /Mko
28.2MiB [ ] /Doc
26.0MiB [ ] /.thumbnails
25.2MiB [ ] /.widelands
17.5MiB [ ] /.claws-mail
14.1MiB [ ] /.cache
13.9MiB [ ] /friki
9.0MiB [ ] /.local
8.0MiB [ ] /.fra
6.4MiB [ ] /.dictionaries
5.7MiB [ ] P.mp3
5.5MiB [ ] /.adobe
5.4MiB [ ] /Ra
3.5MiB [ ] /ba
1.9MiB [ ] /.gnome2
1.2MiB [ ] /.java
1.0MiB [ ] programme-guide-2012_en.pdf
964.0KiB [ ] /.gstreamer-0.10
912.0KiB [ ] /.quodlibet
844.0KiB [ ] /.fontconfig
748.0KiB [ ] /.purple
624.0KiB [ ] /.gconf
576.0KiB [ ] /anaphraseus
H 552.0KiB [ ] Parent Bulletin November 14 2011.pdf
476.0KiB [ ] /.e16
448.0KiB [ ] /.xchat2
332.0KiB [ ] /.omegat
304.0KiB [ ] /.freeciv
H 216.0KiB [ ] .recently-used.xbel.GX7K1U
188.0KiB [ ] /.dvdcss
184.0KiB [ ] es.pdf
168.0KiB [ ] /.kde4
120.0KiB [ ] application_form.pdf
84.0KiB [ ] euaggelion
76.0KiB [ ] I move - part 1.abw
72.0KiB [ ] application_form.doc
68.0KiB [ ] /.nautilus
64.0KiB [ ] /.xine
64.0KiB [ ] /.themes
52.0KiB [ ] /.python-eggs
48.0KiB [ ] /.fluxbox
44.0KiB [ ] I move 2.abw
H 40.0KiB [ ] .recently-used
40.0KiB [ ] /.pulse
40.0KiB [ ] /.gnupg.bck
36.0KiB [ ] FR.doc
36.0KiB [ ] /.macromedia
32.0KiB [ ] ad.doc
32.0KiB [ ] /.gnupg
28.0KiB [ ] /.designer
28.0KiB [ ] /.ssh
28.0KiB [ ] /.zenmap
20.0KiB [ ] /.AbiSuite
20.0KiB [ ] /.emacs.d
20.0KiB [ ] /.mc
16.0KiB [ ] notes.odt
16.0KiB [ ] /.gegl-0.0
16.0KiB [ ] /.lftp
12.0KiB [ ] not.odt
12.0KiB [ ] belg
12.0KiB [ ] /.irssi
H 12.0KiB [ ] .xsession-errors.old
12.0KiB [ ] I move.odt
12.0KiB [ ] /.dbus
12.0KiB [ ] /.icons
12.0KiB [ ] /.wireshark
H 8.0KiB [ ] .bash_history
H 8.0KiB [ ] .freeciv-client-rc-2.2
8.0KiB [ ] /.gconfd
8.0KiB [ ] .viminfo
8.0KiB [ ] /.Esperantilo
8.0KiB [ ] /.links
H 8.0KiB [ ] .ICEauthority
8.0KiB [ ] /.vim
8.0KiB [ ] /.gphoto
8.0KiB [ ] /.mplayer
4.0KiB [ ] /.wicd
e 4.0KiB [ ] /Desktop
e 4.0KiB [ ] /.wapi
e 4.0KiB [ ] /.gnome2_private
H 4.0KiB [ ] .xsession-errors
4.0KiB [ ] ixquick.xml
H 4.0KiB [ ] .lesshst
H 4.0KiB [ ] .civserver_history
H 4.0KiB [ ] convert_wavs.sh
H 4.0KiB [ ] .pulse-cookie
H 4.0KiB [ ] .xinitrc
4.0KiB [ ] .gtk-bookmarks
H 4.0KiB [ ] .mysql_history
H 4.0KiB [ ] hostapd.sh~
H 4.0KiB [ ] hostapd.sh
H 4.0KiB [ ] .bashrc
H 4.0KiB [ ] .xsession
H 4.0KiB [ ] .dmrc
4.0KiB [ ] .Xauthority
H 4.0KiB [ ] .esd_auth
H 4.0KiB [ ] .bash_profile
0.0 B [ ] lista FR
0.0 B [ ] fb4.odt
e 0.0 B [ ] /.gvfs
H 0.0 B [ ] .gksu.lock
* lsof
[root@mirto lena]# lsof -n | grep deleted
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/lena/.gvfs
Output information may be incomplete.
lxtermina 817 lena 14u REG 8,3 8 327 /tmp/vteINN7GW (deleted)
lxtermina 817 lena 15u REG 8,3 0 340 /tmp/vte14A7GW (deleted)
lxtermina 817 lena 16u REG 8,3 0 651 /tmp/vteK7A7GW (deleted)
lxtermina 817 lena 17u REG 8,3 10803 753 /tmp/vteGSWCHW (deleted)
lxtermina 817 lena 18u REG 8,3 1120 766 /tmp/vte62WCHW (deleted)
lxtermina 817 lena 19u REG 8,3 1027 813 /tmp/vteZ6TYGW (deleted)
lxtermina 817 lena 20u REG 8,3 128 842 /tmp/vteZDUYGW (deleted)
lxtermina 817 lena 21u REG 8,3 896 1412 /tmp/vteW9UYGW (deleted)
lxtermina 817 lena 24u REG 8,3 378 1785 /tmp/vte4UL7GW (deleted)
lxtermina 817 lena 25u REG 8,3 24 1832 /tmp/vte31L7GW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 14u REG 8,3 8 327 /tmp/vteINN7GW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 15u REG 8,3 0 340 /tmp/vte14A7GW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 16u REG 8,3 0 651 /tmp/vteK7A7GW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 17u REG 8,3 10803 753 /tmp/vteGSWCHW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 18u REG 8,3 1120 766 /tmp/vte62WCHW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 19u REG 8,3 1027 813 /tmp/vteZ6TYGW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 20u REG 8,3 128 842 /tmp/vteZDUYGW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 21u REG 8,3 896 1412 /tmp/vteW9UYGW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 24u REG 8,3 378 1785 /tmp/vte4UL7GW (deleted)
gmain 817 821 lena 25u REG 8,3 24 1832 /tmp/vte31L7GW (deleted)
midori 918 lena 19r REG 8,4 99560 24617 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home (deleted)
midori 918 lena 20r REG 8,4 32768 32869 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home-a2e41f12.log (deleted)
gdbus 918 919 lena 19r REG 8,4 99560 24617 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home (deleted)
gdbus 918 919 lena 20r REG 8,4 32768 32869 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home-a2e41f12.log (deleted)
midori 918 920 lena 19r REG 8,4 99560 24617 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home (deleted)
midori 918 920 lena 20r REG 8,4 32768 32869 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home-a2e41f12.log (deleted)
dconf 918 922 lena 19r REG 8,4 99560 24617 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home (deleted)
dconf 918 922 lena 20r REG 8,4 32768 32869 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home-a2e41f12.log (deleted)
midori 918 923 lena 19r REG 8,4 99560 24617 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home (deleted)
midori 918 923 lena 20r REG 8,4 32768 32869 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home-a2e41f12.log (deleted)
midori 918 932 lena 19r REG 8,4 99560 24617 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home (deleted)
midori 918 932 lena 20r REG 8,4 32768 32869 /home/lena/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/home-a2e41f12.log (deleted)

Similar Messages

Deleting files doesn't free up space on external drive

Hi all,
I've actually found the answer to my initial query, I would imagine its a common issue. But I have a couple of questions.
When you delete files from an external HD the amount of space available doesn't change and according to what I have found, you need to empty your trash in order for free space to be recognised.
Basically I'd like to know...
1. Why this is the case. I like the fact that external files are added to the local trash in case you mistakenly deleted anything but considering it's been moved to another file system why would it not free up space?
2. Is there a way to delete certain files from the trash? In a case where I wanted to free up space on an external drive but didn't want to empty my trash.
Many thanks
Mikee

Expaning a bit on #1 -
Every volume (volume = a drive/disk or a partition on a partitoned drive) has its own Trash, which is actually an invisible, specialized folder.
For user interface convenience, the Trash folders for all mounted volumes are displayed as a common item, the visible Trash.
One way to see this is to place something on a removoable, writeable volume such as an external drive into the Trash. When you open the Trash you will see the item in there. Then dismount the external drive, and look in the Trash again - the item will be gone. Remount the external drive, and look in the Trash again - the item will be back.
If you have things in the Trash from different volumes, you can also do a Get Info on one from each volume; the pathname for the item (shown in the Where info line in Get Info) will reveal that the items are actually on separate volumes.

Does storing files on icloud free pc space

Does storing files on icloud free pc space?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
If you save music on iCloud, your iPhone will have to be connected to Internet in order to listen to the songs, so they won't be stored in your device

I want to delete approx 100,000 million records and free the space

Hi,
i want to delete approx 100,000 million records and free the space.
I also want to free the space.How do i do it?
Can somebody suggest an optimized way of archiving data.

user8731258 wrote:
Hi,
i want to delete approx 100,000 million records and free the space.
I also want to free the space.How do i do it?
Can somebody suggest an optimized way of archiving data.To archive, backup the database.
To delete and free up the space, truncate the table/partitions and then shrink the datafile(s) associated with the tablespace.

Deleting files doesn't free up storage space

I'm a long-time Mac user with a 2010 MacBook Pro (320GB) now running Mavericks. About a week ago I screwed up my iTunes and tried to restore from Time Machine. But I can't because I only have 38GB free and the TM backup is about 40. So I moved big files over to my attached drive to free up space. But no matter how much I move (and it's been tens of GB) I still only have 35-38GB free (It varies across this range for no apparent reason). The storage allocated to Movies and Pictures decreases, but rather than free space increasing, the mysterious category Backups does. I now have 124GB allocated to Backups. Yes, I delete the files and empty trash after moving all these files from my system. And I restart and even wait overnight hoping that the system cleanup routines that run in the dark of night will do their magic. I have tried several times doing the TM restore of iTunes and each time I get the message that I don't have enough free space. Can anyone tell me how to break free of this. I would sure be greatful. Thanks.

Hello friends !
I just found out the way to easily fix the ' actual free space not showing ' problem in Mac OS X 10.9.2.
1. Turn off your macbook ( i used a macbook ) and remove all external storage devices ( portable hard drive, usb drive, flash drive etc )
2. Turn on your macbook and wait for ' WELCOME SCREEN SOUND ', and soon after you heard it press and hold ' SHIFT ' key on your keyboard. You must not press the key before welcome screen sound. It should be pressed just after the sound.
3. It will take you to a white color window with some progress bar at bottom. This may take few minutes.
4. Macbook will take you to the login page where you need to type your password to enter. Top right corner you will see a text ' Safe Boot Mode ' in RED. If you see so you're doing it right, if no please follow the procedure again.
5. Then computer will take you to desktop but you will notice that the computer performs very slowly. Then click and open ' TRASH BIN '. You will see all your deleted files are still in your Trash Bin. So click ' EMPTY ' button on top right corner of the window.
6. You are done ! Right click on the Hard Drive Icon on desktop and then GET INFO. You will be happy to see your empty space back.
Hope this will help you guys !
Thanks,
Dileesha Amarasena.

*_debug and *_profile files - delete to free some space

Hi, I have found that I have a lot of *_debug and *_profile files taking a lot of space.
From
/Users/angr/USBHDOS10.2/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Fr ameworks/HIToolbox.framework/Versions/A/HIToolbox_debug
to a collection of
/usr/lib/libobjc.A_profile.dylib
/usr/lib/libobjc_profile.A.dylib
/usr/lib/libobjc_profile.dylib
/usr/libexec/gdb/symfiles/libobjc_profile.A.dylib.syms
Is it safe to delete all that? I do build some unix tools sometimes, but never profile... at max I try to add extra -O flag and compare performance. Debugging is more sensitive stuff as one never knows...

Anton Grigoriev wrote:
But these are not exactly languages that affect, rather architectures.
Quite. You asked about the problems with Monolingual which I had referred to and I raised the Rosetta issue in that context. Indeed, had Monolingual stuck to language-removal many of the problems would have been avoided. It did not, however, and many users were caught out by this.
I am a proud PPC user and I do not delete Intel part in case I ever get a newer Mac.
BTW the trick with find and remove lproj folders was initially revealed by Bombich in DeLocalizer (the line was formed in GUI placed in the buffer for possible inspection).
I know. Trimmit uses it, too. I came across Trimmit before DeLocalizer, though.
I wonder If the same easy trick is known for architectures part - would be nice to know how much Intel stuff takes on PPC.
It is not quite as easy in this case because you can't tell just from the names. Generally, a single binary will support multiple architectures so to "slim" an application in this way you have to alter the binary. Apple supplies a tool you can use to do this (and that's what Trimmit and, presumably, Monolingual and XSlimmer) use to remove support for (hopefully) unwanted/unneeded architectures. I do use Trimmit on applications, though not Apple ones. I figure if I ever move to intel, most of the apps I now have will have released new versions anyway so it wouldn't make sense (for the most part) to transfer existing applications. What I like about Trimmit is that, by default, it creates a backup so you can test the "trimmed" version before committing yourself by deleting the original!
- cfr

Hi, can I move my iTunes library to an external hardrive without having to consolidate it as my prehistoric computer just doesn't have the space even though I have deleted everything possible to make room? Please help :(

Hi, can I move my iTunes library to an external drive without having to consolidate it as my prehistoric computer just doesn't have enough space even though I have deleted everything possible to make room? Please help

Hi, do you know if this works if I then want to move my library to a new computer as that is my main intention bacause my old computer hasn't got enough space for me to add new albums so I want to ditch the computer (its got to be about 100 years old and doesn't seem to cope well with modern technology!!) and start using my laptop for my iTunes. I am at the point now where i'm ready to throw both my computer and iPod out the window!!!! I might point out as well that in trying to clear space on my computer I accidently deleted the Bonjour programme which is aparently needed to use the home share option, oops!!!!
Thanks, Kerry

File doesn't sound the same when I return to it

I worked hard on a mix of a tune back in December. I have a bounce from that session that I listen to as a reference, but when I open the Logic File, some regions don't play, automation is off and all sorts of things are not the same. It's like the whole file has reverted to some old version with an old mix. The date of the last save matches the date of the bounce, so I cannot figure out why the file doesn't play down the way that I left it, even though I left it months ago.
Any thoughts?
Much appreciated...

Hi Eriksimon,
Firstly, thanks for your message.
What I meant by "hi pass mid pass shrinking in" is EXACTLY what you menat, I got a heavy bass and muffed high and mid content. Apologised for my poor English.
I haven't checked the setting of the playback device yet but instead I tested it with some professional produced tracks. I know the sound tends to vary a little bit when playing from computer and CD player such as the CDJ 900 that I am using. The differences were not as significant as my own track. They tend to get a rather good balance. My track is well balanced and mixed (I guess) in Logic but it turns out completely different when using the CD player.
I bounced my work to MP3 with highest BIte Rate.

If I buy a Blue iPod Touch 5g at BestBuy, can I switch it with a Space Grey iPod Touch at the Apple Store since BestBuy doesn't carry the space grey iPod Touch?

I just wanted to know if I can switch my iPod Touch at the Apple Store, I still don't know if BestBuy carries the Space Grey iPod Touch yet.

No, you have had to purchase it directly from Apple
Returns & Refunds - Apple Store (U.S.)

Time Machine doesn't manage the space on my external drive- no space left

I have a 500GB internal drive and have a 500Gb external firewire drive. I have around 200Gb of music and video files but had been happily letting TM get on with things. Today i started to get an error screen saying that the external drive was out of space and the backup had failed. Does TM not manage the backups and automatically delete the oldest to make space for the newest one?
I'm a little confused and the logic used in the help options seems to point to me either excluding items going forward (which seems counter productive) or buying a new external drive to fill up each month. Can someone please shed some light for me.

My understanding of how this works is that hourly & daily backups "expire" & are automatically removed after 24 hours & one month respectively, but weekly backups never expire -- they are kept, as the preference panel says, until your backup disk is full.
Thus, if your backup drive fills up, TM will try to create space by removing older, unexpired hourly or daily backups (& optionally warn you about this) to make room for new ones, but it will not remove older weekly backups to make room for new hourly or daily ones.
If you think about it, this makes sense: a weekly backup is most likely much larger (in terms of actual file space) & contains many more files than a daily or hourly one, so it would be undesirable to delete a lot of files to make room for relatively few others.
IOW, the drive will eventually fill up with weekly backups & at that point, it is full, period.
Related comments:
I believe there is no danger in using the Leopard Finder to 'delete a file' in the time-stamped folders it exposes. Because of the changes made in the file system to support TM, what happens is only the link in that folder is deleted. Links in any other folders remain unaffected. Only when you remove the last link to the actual file does the file system mark its space unused in the directory, effectively the same as a normal file delete.
This is why just deleting an instance of a TM backed up file won't gain you more than a few bytes of drive space -- only by deleting all instances is the file space of the actual file freed up.
For similar reasons, Disk Utility's 'erase free space' function should be safe to use on a Time Machine volume for security reasons. Just don't use any disk utilities on this or any other Leopard-formatted drive that aren't rated for use with Leopard -- they don't know about the changes in the file system & could really mess things up if (for instance) they try to rebuild the directory structure from scratch.

My ipod touch 4G won't sync with itunes. when i click sync, a little message comes up and basically says "itunes won't sync because it can't start". also, say i delete "pocket god" which is about 50mb, it will delete the app but won't free the space.Help?

Help me?? Please?!
I don't use wi-fi sync. i use the cord...

it doesn't matter anymore. for some bizzare reason, it just synced properly!!!!!!!! I swear, there is something weird. anyways, I can update my ipod like i came on the computer to do!! honestly, this is weird. i doesn't matter, if it breaks tonight, i have everything backed up finally and i can get my dad to take me to get a replacement tomorrow. THANKS for replying. Sorry for wasting your time...

Safari could not download file not enough free disk space message

When I try to download anything on my MacBook I am getting a disk space full message but that's really not the case. This problem started occurring since the update to mountain Lion. Any idea how I can solve the problem?

Triple-click the line below to select it:
~/Downloads
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Show Info
from the contextual menu. An Info dialog should open.
Does the dialog show "You can read and write" in the Sharing & Permissions section?
In the General section, is the box labeled Locked checked?

How can I safely transfer my 125GB of itunes music files to free up space, but still keep itunes on my MBP, and access the music with the cloud and match?

I have already backed up all the itunes files on two different external drives. And I have already set up icloud and itunes match. I am still paranoid about deleting the files from my MBP, but I need to free the space. What steps should I take to delete the files. And can I still keep itunes (w/o all the music files) on my laptop and access the music from the cloud? I know I can run them with the external drive plugged in, but looking for a way to do it w/o pluggin in.

I have tried that as well. The purchased songs are not in my playlists and they are still there. I manually deleted them on the phone but the sync puts them right back on there.
I only sync playlists and they aren't on there.

How do I find and free the hidden files on external drive?

I cannot see , or free, space on my external drive.
It is a Seagate Freeagent 500 GB disk. I am using 100GB for photos and music. Only 38 MB are reported free. How can I reclaim the rest of the space?
I had used in the past as Time machine backup. To create space I moved to trash the file Backups.backupd (as I now have another disk for Time Machine). I can't see this file in the Trash, and I can't see the space in Finder. How do I find / free the space?
The disk format is MAC OS Extended journaled. Disk utility reports no errors. I have run verify and fix, and also erase free space, with no result.
Thank you for your help.

Erase free space only wipes clean the 38 MBs that are already free. Click here to see hidden files.
However, I'd just make a copy of the 100 GBs in use, and then complely wipe the disk.
Don't try to delete the Backups.backupd folder by Finder. It's not a good idea to mix Finder and TM.

Removing file system from meta devices in solaris 10

hi,
I have created a file system on meta device in solaris 10 using below command
newfs /dev/md/rdsk/d110
now i want to remove file system to make the meta device free, required command to remove file system ?
Regards
Zeeshan

Thanks for your response , actually i have performed the below steps to release the space from mount point /u05 which i want to make the space as raw device so that i can use it for ASM , so my question is that how can i unformat the file system so that it can be a raw device.
umount /u05
metaclear d110
(Now i have the below two metadevices 500gb each which i want to use as raw device so that i can allocate it to ASM (Automatic Storage management). So how can we make it as raw device ??
/dev/dsk/emcpower17a
/dev/dsk/emcpower17a

Removing files doesn't free the space

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for