Folder sizes on external drive dramatically wrong, yet system shows correct aggregate size used.
Get info shows 2.56Tb used on drive (out of 4Tb). Yet, 3 folders show about 2Tb, 2Tb, 50Gb. That would be more than the 4Tb drive can hold. Drive show 1.4Tb free space. At one point, the drive showed folders totally over 6.5Tb but I’ve since deleted folders trying to weed out ‘corrupt’ files.
I have Google’d and read and tried almost every suggestion possible. This has gone on for weeks. I’ve exhausted all found options.
Actions I have taken
- Ran Disk First Aid from recovery mode many times.
- Booted in SafeMode.
- I have run Onyx routines hoping it may help
- Copying the folders to another drive shows the erroneous size in folder sizes in the copied versions!
- I have reset all file permissions using terminal commands (at some point in my past years ago this worked, at least I think I remember that working for similar problem)
- Searched for hidden files, nothing unusual
- Completely rebuilt Spotlight across all volumes (internal and external)
Folders contain media files, Lightroom, Apple Photos, and Aperture libraries. It’s my personal library of all my photos and videos.
Hardware details:
- 4Tb Crucial X9 SSD as an external drive. APFS Formatted, encrypted. Drive connected directly with USB-C (not via a hub).
MacBook M2 Max, Sonoma 14.3 32Gb ram
Any ideas outside of what I’ve listed? I would really appreciate any help.