Deleted VMware virtual machine, storage still occupied

[m-miller]

Hey guys,

I downloaded VMware Fusion and installed Windows 11 with no problems, then realized I didn't need it. I followed the uninstalling guide, and deleted the Windows 11 stuff. The issue is, my Mac still says the 400GB I pre-allocated to the disk is still being used. 

I used the GrandPerspective application to analyze my Mac disk so I could see where all this "used" storage was, but it says only 105GB is being used (image attached), whereas "About This Mac" says 567GB is being used (image attached). 

This isn't super urgent, but I would like to figure out a solution at some point. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know! Thanks :))

[Technogeezer]

Is the disk you stored your VM on being backed up by Time Machine? If so, there may be local TM snapshots that still contain your VMs disk space. Excluding a VM from a TM backup does not keep the VM from being contained in a snapshot of the disk volume being backed up. All excluding a VM from a volume being backed up by TM  does is prevent the VM from being copied to the Time Machine backup disk.

If this is the case, the snapshot should be released and the disk space returned in about 24 hours as long as you are backing up to a Time Machine disk. Otherwise you are going to have to manually delete the local TM snapshots on your local disk using Disk Utility.