Samsung T5 - deleting files not increasing available space

1

Hi all - this is giving me deja vu so I know it has been discussed before but I can’t remember the reason or solution. I am trying to make space on a Samsung T5 by deleting files. I have deleted the files, emptied trash, disconnected and reconnected the disk to no avail, the amount of free space remains the same. As reported by Mac OS Sonoma and Daisy Disk. I think the files are going into a hidden files category which is normally invisible.

How do I get the disk to actually delete the files and report free space correctly?

2

The disk has a time machine backup. It may be that, because of this, Mac OS hides deleted files rather than deleting them, until the space is needed. But this breaks how storage works. If I delete files it’s to create space; I expect that space to appear.

I deleted also some files from a flash drive and the space appeared immediately.

3

Perhaps you’re not deleting all the copies of those files?

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4

Time Machine being involved, perhaps you are deleting cloned files so the reclaimed space may be very small.

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5

You could copy over the files you want to keep, and reformat the T5.

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6

Restarting the Mac fixed it. Sigh. Should not be necessary.