Forum Discussion
"Free up space" not working MacOS
I have just come across this thread after the 2nd time this has happened to my computer.
So it fills me with a lot of concern!
The last time I fixed this I had to reboot and install OSX. Not a fun process.
DROPBOX NEVER HAD THIS ISSUE!!!!! (Bringing Microsoft's attention to this as I'm hoping they can fix this issue asap!!)
Hmmmmm....
So I ran into this issue this past week and think I have found a solution here in 2024 on MacOS Sonoma. I had to do everything below to get a "Free Up Space" folder to actually free up the space on my Mac hard drive.
- I removed the folder from showing up on my Mac in the OneDrive settings. You can add it back after this process, just make sure you click "Free Up Space" on the folder right away so it doesn't download everything again. This is after you have made sure the space actually was released for use on your hard drive.
- Once I removed the folder, I restarted my computer and it started updating the OneDrive sync app with the changes. It stalled a few times, but after a combo of pausing and quitting OneDrive and restarting my computer enough, it finally worked. It could take quite a while though. It took an hour or two to remove 100GB from my hard drive.
- At the end, make sure to empty your trash, which is necessary to actually removing the items from your drive. This should free up the space in the Mac storage settings menu. If it doesn't show, try restarting your computer.
Hopefully this helps! Switching from Dropbox to OneDrive has been a letdown. Dropbox was pretty rock solid in terms of syncing and folder management. I have had tons of bugs and issues with OneDrive on my Mac. We shall see if I end up keeping OneDrive at the end of this process.