du Said Chrome Was Using 67 GB on My Mac. APFS Said 2. Here's a Script to Tell the Difference

My MacBook Air was down to 18 GB free, so I went hunting. The biggest folder on the whole disk, according to du, was this:

/private/var/folders/…/X/com.google.Chrome.code_sign_clone   67G

Inside: 48 full copies of Google Chrome. None of them the version I actually have installed.

Then I measured it the way APFS actually stores it, and the 67 GB turned into about 2. Here's the folder, the trap, and a 30-line Swift script that measures any folder the same way.

(Written with help from an AI assistant. Every number and command was run on my own Mac.)

Check yours (read-only)

ls "$(getconf DARWIN_USER_TEMP_DIR)/../X/com.google.Chrome.code_sign_clone" | wc -l
du -sh "$(getconf DARWIN_USER_TEMP_DIR)/../X/"*

Mine printed 48 and 67G.

From what I can tell, Chrome makes one of these each time it launches after an update. The running browser keeps a validly signed copy of itself while the new version is swapped in underneath. They're meant to be temporary. On my Mac they weren't: 3 copies of Chrome 154 and 45 of 155.0.8059.40, while /Applications has 155.0.8059.80.

The trap: du doesn't understand clones

APFS can clone a file. The clone looks like a full copy to every tool, but it shares blocks with the original until one side changes. Chrome makes its copies as clones.

du, Finder's Get Info and most disk-map apps add every clone up at full size. 48 × ~1.4 GB = 67 GB that mostly doesn't exist.

APFS will tell you the truth, you just have to ask through getattrlist:

• ATTR_CMNEXT_CLONEID: which clone family a file belongs to
• ATTR_CMNEXT_EXT_FLAGS: bit 0 means "may share blocks"
• ATTR_CMNEXT_PRIVATESIZE: bytes that belong only to this file

So: for each clone, count its private bytes, and count the shared part once per family.

The script

import Foundation

// Usage: swift realsize.swift <folder>
// Counts APFS clones once: each clone adds only its private bytes,
// and the shared blocks are counted once per clone family.
func attrs(_ path: String, _ bits: UInt32, _ n: Int) -> [UInt64]? {
    var al = attrlist(); al.bitmapcount = u_short(ATTR_BIT_MAP_COUNT); al.forkattr = bits
    var buf = [UInt8](repeating: 0, count: 4 + 8 * n)
    return buf.withUnsafeMutableBytes { b in
        guard getattrlist(path, &al, b.baseAddress, b.count, 0x21) == 0 else { return nil }
        return (0..<n).map { b.loadUnaligned(fromByteOffset: 4 + 8 * $0, as: UInt64.self) }
    }
}
let root = CommandLine.arguments[1]
var naive: Int64 = 0, real: Int64 = 0, families = Set<UInt64>()
let e = FileManager.default.enumerator(atPath: root)!
while let rel = e.nextObject() as? String {
    let p = root + "/" + rel
    var st = stat(); guard lstat(p, &st) == 0, st.st_mode & S_IFMT == S_IFREG else { continue }
    let full = Int64(st.st_blocks) * 512; naive += full
    // ATTR_CMNEXT_CLONEID | ATTR_CMNEXT_EXT_FLAGS; flag 1 = may share blocks
    if let c = attrs(p, 0x100 | 0x200, 2), c[1] & 1 != 0, let priv = attrs(p, 0x8, 1)?[0] {
        real += Int64(priv)
        if families.insert(c[0]).inserted { real += full - Int64(priv) }  // shared part, once
    } else { real += full }
}
let g = 1_073_741_824.0  // GiB, same unit as du -h
print(String(format: "du-style: %.1fG   on disk: %.1fG", Double(naive) / g, Double(real) / g))

0x21 is FSOPT_ATTR_CMN_EXTENDED | FSOPT_NOFOLLOW. You need Xcode's command line tools for swift.

On the Chrome folder:

$ swift realsize.swift "$(getconf DARWIN_USER_TEMP_DIR)/../X/com.google.Chrome.code_sign_clone"
du-style: 67.3G   on disk: 2.1G

67 GB on paper, about 2 GB on disk. Still waste (those clones keep old Chrome versions' blocks alive), but a 30× smaller problem.

It's a simplification: a file's "shared" part can be shared with files outside the folder, so treat the result as "roughly what deleting this folder gives back". (My app's stricter version credits those blocks to whichever file owns them, and lands on 1.8 GB for the same folder.) The honest final check is always df -h / before and after (and empty the Trash).

Should you delete them?

Probably fine, with two rules: quit Chrome completely first (Cmd-Q), and expect them back after the next update. Open the folder with:

open "$(getconf DARWIN_USER_TEMP_DIR)/../X"

…and drag com.google.Chrome.code_sign_clone to the Trash. Expect a GB or two back, not 67.

Why I care

Clones are everywhere now: Finder's Duplicate, pnpm's store, Chrome's copies. Any disk tool that sums file sizes will show you folders bigger than your drive, and you'll delete things expecting space you never get.

I ran into this while building Tidy Mac, a Mac cleaner. Full disclosure: it's mine. It counts clones once like the script above, labels what's safe to clear, and moves everything to the Trash first.

How many copies did your Mac have? Post your ls | wc -l in the comments. I'm curious if anyone beats 48.