Ever since macOS Catalina was introduced, many Mac users noticed that their disks eventually get full without obvious reason. A quick scan in DaisyDisk typically reveals a big chunk of “hidden space“, which means the system is using more disk space than it’s possible to reveal by scanning, even with elevated permissions (scanning “as Administrator”).

The reason for this problem is that macOS is making temporary backups of the system, so called local snapshots, temporarily locking big amounts of disk space in an area of the disk that is fully opaque to the users. Eventually when the snapshots get transferred to the permanent storage, such as the Time Capsule, or as the snapshots become too old and get replaced by newer ones, macOS releases the disk space. However, the backup process is continuous and therefore there is always a certain amount of disk space that is locked by macOS for the snapshots.

This is how macOS Catalina works and it’s not supposed to even be a problem or require any maintenance from the user. However, in certain cases, you just need to free up the space urgently, and it’s quite confusing that you don’t have control over a big chunk of your disk.

Thankfully, the new version of DaisyDisk (4.10) is making it much easier to reveal the macOS’ hidden space, and for the part that cannot be revealed – understand its internal structure and even provide tools to reclaim it by demand.

In particular, the new DaisyDisk cuts down the amount of hidden space by revealing some obscure system items such as non-linked content of the “firmlinked” Data volume (under /System/Volumes/Data), the virtual memory volume (under /private/var/VM) and some other.

Besides, DaisyDisk now shows a breakdown of the hidden space that includes the following items:

• Purgeable space. (You can also see it in Finder and Disk Utility when you inquire info for a disk). This is an amount of disk space, as calculated by macOS itself, which includes the snapshots too. You can forcedly purge this space by deleting it in DaisyDisk.
• [NEW] Snapshots. This is a list of the temporary snapshots, with their estimated sizes. You can forcedly delete any or all of them in DaisyDisk, with a simple drag-and-drop, as you’d do with regular files.
• Other volumes. This is the remainder of the system volumes that are used internally by macOS.

All in all, the new DaisyDisk is making a huge step to return you understanding and control of your disk on macOS Catalina, and probably provides the most exhaustive and informative view of your disk compared to any other disk utility.

The update is free of charge of the existing users. You can download it here. The full change log is here.

In DaisyDisk 4.9 we have improved discovery of the hidden space on macOS Catalina by including the following items into the scan report:

• Non-firmlinked items of the Data volume in /System/Volumes/Data,
• Virtual Memory volume in /private/var/VM,
• Recovery and Preboot volumes (when they are mounted) in /Volumes/Recovery and /Volumes/Preboot.

Among other additions:

• Updated the safety rules to allow deletion of some non-critical files in /private folder.
• Added support of FUSE-mounted drives.
• Minor improvements and bug fixes.

Full change log is here.

DaisyDisk 4.7.2 both stand-alone and Mac App Store versions are now live.

What’s new:

• Significantly improved robustness of reclaiming the “purgeable space”.
• Added a preference tab to help users add DaisyDisk to the “Full Disk Access” list in System Preferences, when necessary (macOS Mojave or newer).
• Fixed bugs and compliance issues.

To update, use Check for Updates menu command from within the app, or download the new version from here.

Full change log here.

DaisyDisk 4.6 both stand-alone and Mac App Store versions are now live.

Finally, we’ve re-added the Italian language! 🇮🇹

Besides, there’s a bunch of small fixes and tweaks.

Full change log here.

Now it’s official: the long awaited DaisyDisk 4.5 is finally out!

It’s an important update, that took us a long time to research and develop. The main new feature — the extended support of the new Apple File System (APFS) and addressing the top questions about macOS High Sierra and APFS that we have received.

Download the new version

What’s new:

• Extended support of the new Apple File System (APFS) on macOS High Sierra, in particular:
• You can now see the “purgeable space” — the disk space taken by the local snapshots of Time Machine and other caches, which cannot be scanned, but can now be identified inside the “hidden space”.
• And you can now reclaim that “purgeable space”.
• Added display of the “free space” in the right sidebar list, along with the estimation of available space, that is, “free + purgeable”.
• Added display of the space taken by “other volumes” in the same APFS container, inside the “hidden space”.
• Lots of bugs fixed.

Please upgrade by downloading the new version from our website, or by using Check for Updates… menu command from within the app.

The updated user manual can be found here.

DaisyDisk 4.5 beta has been released, please download here.

This update adds full support of APFS and macOS High Sierra.

Full change log here.

Your feedback and bug reports would be appreciated!

DaisyDisk 4.4 both stand-alone and Mac App Store versions are now live.

A minor yet an important update.

We’ve finally addressed a small but annoying issue that has been plaguing the Mac App Store version of DaisyDisk for quite a while. Unlike its stand-alone counterpart, the App Store’s DaisyDisk lacked the display of hidden disk space, so in some cases our App Store customers were confused by the apparent mismatch between the sum of all scanned folders and the disk’s total used space. With the recent introduction of our free license migration service, we are finally able to display the full disk usage information in both DaisyDisk versions, and give all our users a meaningful path to reveal the hidden space, if they need to.

Also in this update we’ve improved the order, in which the disks and volumes are displayed in the overview of disks. Partitions are now sorted alphabetically by their names, grouped by physical disk were they are located. (Previously, all partitions were sorted by their logical names.) Network shares are grouped by their corresponding remote servers.

And finally, we’ve re-added the Japanese language! 🇯🇵

Full change log here.

DaisyDisk 4.3 both stand-alone and Mac App Store versions are now live.

In this update we re-added Spanish and Chinese localizations (both Simplified and Traditional) and fixed a few bugs. Full change log here.

DaisyDisk 4.2 both stand-alone and Mac App Store versions are now live.

In this update we re-added Polish localization and fixed a bug that caused timeouts on network disks. Full change log here.

DaisyDisk 4.1.1 both stand-alone and Mac App Store versions are now live. Update! :)

In this update we re-added French and Swedish localizations. Full change log here.