Clean up macintosh hd-data?

mikesway79 wrote:

I was trying to install software, but it was telling me that I only had around 15GB available. I looked at my system information and it said I had over 250GB. Since I wanted to move a project off my iMac anyways I went ahead and did that and restarted. Now I have 460GB available and I'm still getting that same message. Did some more digging and it looks like my Macintosh HD-Data (partition?) is the issue.

Its telling me that I have 969+GB used up, even though I've moved files off my iMac. The funny thing is that even the data for the HD-Data says "Available: 461.02 GB (445.75 GB purgeable)." How do I go about cleaning this up and getting my iMac storage and my HD-Data to agree with each other?

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/0391bf58-db2b-416c-b7a2-5ef00f92bd9b

The difference between 461.02 GB - 445.75 GB is 15.27 this seems to be the issue.

Have you rebooted more than once, have you run Time Machine backup to clear local snapshots...

https://support.apple.com/guide/system-information/see-https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Optimize storage space on your Mac - Apple Support

How to free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support

You can always do a Safe boot to clear cache files and see if this rights the situation.

SafeBoot https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Takes noticeable longer to get to the login screen, does a 5-15 minute disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, including dynamic loader cache, etc. — not necessary to log-in. Reboot as normal.