Can’t compact thumbnails and long time exiting

[Larry56]

I’m working on a secondary Mac Sonoma computer with PSU 2024.1.1.6461. macOS reports 217 gb free but when I attempt to compact the thumbnail catalog I get an error message that there isn’t enough space. Required free space is 84.9 gb and database file 42 gb. Available disk space is 81.2 gb.

I’ve lowered the preview size to 1200 and compared the catalog db without problems.

How can I fix this problem?

Also it now takes about a minute to shut down.

This is on a MacBook Pro 16 gb ram and M1 chip.

[Hert]

What macOS reports as free diskspace in Finder is not the physical free space. macOS writes cache files which can eat a lot of diskspace. In the DiskUtility app you can see the read free disk space.

I recommend that you search online how to clear the cache in macOS.

[Larry56]

Thank you, Hert. I figured out it wasn’t so much caches as 207gb of Time Machine snapshots. I deleted the whole file and recovered the 207gb. PSU went through the compact without problems and shut down quickly.

[Larry56]

Hert,
Yesterday when I quit PSU right after compacting it shut down right away. Today when I shut down it takes a minute to do so. I tried twice and the same things. I also compacted again but that didn’t affect anything.

Is it now normal for PSU to to take 1 minute to shut down or is there something else going on?

Edit. I've found that the 1 minute shut down only happens on computer with Sonoma. My computer with Ventura shuts down a lot faster. Perhaps an issue with Sonoma?