I’ve configured an external M2 drive to host my entire LocalWP sites directory. However, LocalWP is still creating a large amount of files on my Mac’s internal storage, which is a major issue because my Mac only has a 256GB SSD.
Why is LocalWP only storing the WordPress “Files” externally, but still keeping other site-related files locally on the Mac? This is seriously affecting my workflow, especially when I already have a dedicated 2TB external drive intended for all my Local sites.
Another important issue is that even after deleting a site completely, some residual files and folders remain on the Mac itself. For example, the path shown in the attached screenshot still exists after deletion.
Why are these files being created locally in the first place? And why aren’t they automatically removed when the site is deleted?
What steps can be taken to replicate the issue? Feel free to include screenshots, videos, etc
An alternative way to approach a limited-space internal drive is to boot & run the MacOS from the external drive; instead of the internal drive.
This alternative approach allows many different appplications, like LocalWP, Unity, Google Drive (offline), Steam, Apple Library, etc, etc, etc … all run on the external boot drive which has the greater available space; which then makes the interanl boot drive a backup/emerency MacOS or just a smaller data drive.
Working with Local and an external drive isn’t quite seamless @maurocarreradf, at least at this time. While it is possible to get some stuff moved like your site files, Local is always going to create the infrastructure (NGINX/PHP/MySQL) on the main hard drive unless you try something like @johnlang86 suggested.
If you have many sites in Local, especially large ones, you might try saving the sites you aren’t actively working on using our native Cloud Backups feature instead. You can back them up and then delete them. Or you could simply export them as zips to save to your own storage and then delete them.
As far as anything left behind, when you deleted the site did you get the password prompt for your device admin credentials to allow Local to alter files? If you went through that and then quit/restarted Local do you still see anything lingering?
