Freeing up space · Where your space went
What happens when I press Release that space?
Short answer: It asks your Mac to release space held in automatic backups, then measures and tells you whether it came back, is on its way, or was kept for now. Nothing you still have is deleted.
Storage Studio asks your Mac to give back space held in its automatic backups, measures what actually came back, and tells you which of three things happened:
- the space is yours again,
- some of it is on its way,
- or your Mac kept hold of it for now — in which case it usually comes back on its own within about a day.
It's a request, not a command: your Mac decides what it can let go of, and Storage Studio doesn't dress up the third outcome as success. Nothing you still have is deleted either way. For more control, use the Local Snapshots manager.