Where are all those purgeable files? Two updated utilities to help you find them: Precize and Sparsity, which will crawl folders checking which files are purgeable, sparse or clones.
sparse file
When you updated your iPhone or iPad to iOS 10.3 six years ago, you were among the first to use Apple File System, although you didn’t know it at the time.
How APFS can trim free space in a read/write disk image and transform it into a sparse file, so it uses storage more efficiently.
Plain read/write (UDRW), sparse image (UDSP), and sparse bundle (UDSB) compared for storage efficiency, performance, and convenience.
All you need to know about the sparse RAW disk images used inside lightweight VMs on Apple silicon Macs.
In Monterey and Ventura, regular read-write UDRW disk images can now be APFS sparse files, and work more efficiently than sparse images or sparse bundles.
Virtual Machines for lightweight virtualisation on Apple silicon Macs rely on sparse files. Here are tips to ensure they stay small and don’t explode to full size.
How APFS containers and volumes work. What hard links, clones and sparse files are, and when they break down.
You’re in control of a traditional file system, but with snapshots, clones, sparse files and other volumes sharing free space, APFS isn’t as simple.
Dragging a file to copy/move it from one location to another used to be simple. Now it’s complicated by iCloud, dropbox behaviour in AirDrop and Universal Control, and more.
The Eclectic Light Company 