Hidden space is a virtual item that may be displayed in certain cases. It indicates that there is a significant amount of disk space hidden in restricted folders and other unreachable areas of the disk. Inside the hidden space, you may find purgeable space (more here ), other volumes (on APFS) and still hidden virtual items. After the removal, DaisyDisk leaves in the system various leftover files, hidden folders, etc. That clutter up the disk space; After erasing the program, problems arise related to it; Mac users can’t find an effective way to remove the DaisyDisk utility and residual files once and for all. My free space seems to disappear further after doing so. It seems like instead of getting rid of the cache safely, it's tucking them away somewhere but I can't figure out where. Running DaisyDisk as admin, I see there are 302GB in the 'still hidden' category. DD says: 'There is still some hidden space that DaisyDisk was unable to locate.'
- Daisydisk Still Hidden Spaces
- Daisydisk Still Hidden Space Inside
- Daisydisk Still Hidden Space Furniture
- Daisydisk Still Hidden Spacecraft
- Daisydisk Still Hidden Space
The Collector
You can tear off DaisyDisk’s petals and drop them to the special area at the bottom called Collector
:
Daisydisk Still Hidden Spaces
In addition to drag-and-drop, you can put files and folders to the Collector by selecting the Move Selected File
to Collector command from the item’s context menu, or by pressing ⌘⌫ hotkey while pointing to an object.
Don’t worry, the files remain intact until you click the button.
Daisydisk Still Hidden Space Inside
You can expand the Collector by clicking on it to make sure you are not about to accidentally delete some needed files. The expanded Collector works just like the sidebar, so you can preview files and drag them out. Another way to get an item out of the Collector is to point and click the button near its name
What can you delete?
Some folders like /System, /Library or current user’s home folder are not meant to be deleted, so the Collector will not accept them.
Semi-transparent (consolidated) petals also cannot be removed, you’ll have to expand the group and drag individual files and folders.
Clicking the button starts deletion process, but you’ll have 5 seconds to change your mind and press .
DaisyDisk permanently removes files and folders instead of moving them to the system Trash, so that the disk space is actually recovered. These files cannot be undeleted
, but there are other ways.
Daisydisk Still Hidden Space Furniture
Free space not appearing after deletion?
Daisydisk Still Hidden Spacecraft
Contrary to what you may expect, deleting files in macOS may not immediately produce free space. If Time Machine is enabled on your Mac (which should always be recommended), it will regularly back up your entire disk’s content in so called local snapshots. The snapshots are designed in such a way that they don’t consume additional disk space if there is little change compared to the previous backup.
Daisydisk Still Hidden Space
So, when you delete a file, its copy may still be retained in the local snapshots, and still consume the same amount of disk space. In result, the free space will not grow, but the amount of hidden space, and more specifically, the purgeable space, will increase by the corresponding amount. This is normal — macOS will eventually automatically reclaim the purgeable space when the apps request more disk space. Alternatively, you can forcedly purge it with DaisyDisk.