GeezerVison is showing github.com — Impossibly large file at ~/.orbstack/data/data.img · Issue #29 · orbstack/orbstack
Impossibly large file at ~/.orbstack/data/data.img #29DescriptionUpdate from OrbStack
This is intended behavior that allows us to implement more seamless storage management. More details
Describe the bug
I received a notification from Backblaze that it was unable to backup my machine as my disk is running low on space.
To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Open OrbStack
- Wait...
- Run
ls -hla ~/.orbstack/data/data.img and observe the size.
Expected behavior
There will not be a file larger than the system disk.
Screenshots
Logs
None of the logs seem to reference data.img
System info
- macOS version: 13.0.1 (22A400)
- CPU architecture: Arm
Additional context
ls -hla ~/.orbstack/data/data.img
-rw-r--r--@ 1 wizardfrag staff 8.0T 10 Mar 17:12 /Users/wizardfrag/.orbstack/data/data.img I suspect this is a sparsely allocated image file, and should possibly just be ignored by Backblaze, but I thought it might be worth reporting it! Reacted by Matt Stewart-Ronnisch, Alex Korn, Rudolf Csiba, Sam, ckepper, Kasper, Lindsey DiLoreto, Teofanus Gary, Hélène Martin, Phoenix and 24 more Activityjosegonzalez commented on Mar 17, 2023 I also have an 8TB file in case that matters:
% ls -hla ~/.orbstack/data/data.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 josediazgonzalez staff 8.0T Mar 17 19:51 /Users/josediazgonzalez/.orbstack/data/data.img
kdrag0n commented on Mar 18, 2023 Yes, data.img is a sparse file. This is expected behavior, not a bug. I've added it to the docs, which you can read for more info: https://docs.orbstack.dev/faq#data-img
The 8 TB data.img file in OrbStack's data is a virtual disk image that stores Docker and Linux data. Don't worry about the size; it's a special type of file known as a sparse file, meaning that it only takes as much space as you use, and automatically shrinks when you delete data. It does not take up 8 TB of disk space.
Sparse files are an APFS feature that provides a fast, efficient, and flexible way to store large files with varying usage. Time Machine supports them, so your backups will not be affected. The large 8 TB size allows OrbStack to manage the disk dynamically so you don't have to worry about having too much or too little disk space.
To find the true size of the file, run du -h ~/.orbstack/data/data.img, or look at "size on disk" in Finder's info panel. Sparse files have two sizes: an apparent size (8 TB in this case), and size on disk (actual usage). Many tools show the apparent size, but the size on disk is what matters for disk space.
If you have third-party apps complaining about the file, please see the GitHub issue. Since macOS uses sparse files extensively, we'd like to move the ecosystem forward and fix compatibility issues with them.
I understand that it may be surprising, but several factors went into my decision to ship an 8 TiB image:
- Sparse raw images are the only disk format supported by by Apple's framework
- Using large images is part of what makes OrbStack's seamless and dynamic disk management possible
- Time Machine handles them well
That being said, I was afraid that some third-party apps might have trouble with it. Some ideas for reducing the size:
- Reduce the image size to match the size of your Mac's SSD. I plan to do this in the long term anyway, but it hasn't been a priority so far. (example: 2 TB Mac with 1 TB free = 2 TB image size)
- Reduce it to the amount of free space, plus some %. (example: 2 TB Mac with 1 TB free = 1.2 TB image size)
I'm not sure it's worth the complexity though. No matter what, the image would always be bigger than the free space on your Mac, so apps that choke on it for size reasons would have the same problem either way. Reducing size further would adversely impact the dynamic disk feature.
In the long term, I think the best solution is to advance the macOS ecosystem by weeding out sparse file compatibility issues in apps. We could start by reporting the issue to Backblaze. In the meantime, you can safely exclude the file to work around the issue. It looks like they already exclude .vhd and .sparsebundle by default, so .img should likely just be added to the exclusion list as a quick fix.
If you don't have apps complaining about the file, don't worry — it won't cause any problems or take up any more space than what you're using on the Docker/Linux side. APFS (the current macOS filesystem) is designed to support sparse files, and Apple uses them extensively. In Finder, look at "size on disk" for the true space taken on macOS. Reacted by Jan Kaiser, David White, Matt Stewart-Ronnisch, Adam Lindberg, 45H, Alex Korn, Simon Whitaker, Miraculous Owonubi, Scott Weaver, Lindsey DiLoreto and 20 more jankais3r commented on Mar 18, 2023 Thanks for the explanation. I noticed the file when I scanned my disk with Disk Map, which (mis)reported it as 8TB. I already reached out to the developer to properly handle sparse files.
Thinking about the issue a bit more, I am almost inclined to say that 8TB is better than the proposed solutions of matching either the disk size or the free space, because when you see 8TB file on a 2TB machine it's obvious that the file can't be taking 8TBs... Reacted by David Phillips and Johan Ohly wizardfrag commented on Mar 18, 2023 Thanks for the reply @kdrag0n. I admit I reported it as more of a documentation issue than a bug, but I figured it would make sense to report it as a bug. It seems like it might be a bug in Backblaze then in that case! I've added the folder to my Backblaze ignore list so it shouldn't report it again.
Thanks for adding it as documentation, I did check the docs beforehand but couldn't find anything, so I figured it was worth a report! 😄
Thanks again, Orbstack is so SO much better than docker desktop! kasper9n commented on May 1, 2023
Using large images is part of what makes OrbStack's seamless and dynamic disk management possible
If there was an option to set a custom sparse file size, how much of an impact would it have? Let's say I set it to 10GB and the size-on-disk is 3GB. kdrag0n commented on May 3, 2023
Using large images is part of what makes OrbStack's seamless and dynamic disk management possible
If there was an option to set a custom sparse file size, how much of an impact would it have? Let's say I set it to 10GB and the size-on-disk is 3GB.
@probablykasper The total Docker and machine storage would be limited to the max file size. It's possible to allow setting a limit like this, but we're interested in avoiding it if at all possible. kasper9n commented on May 3, 2023 If there's no big performance issue with it, I'd for sure like the option to limit the size. I don't want my Docker taking up that much space, so if it goes above my limit, I should clean stuff up Reacted by Rudolf Csiba and Ayush Mishra kdrag0n commented on May 4, 2023
If there's no big performance issue with it, I'd for sure like the option to limit the size. I don't want my Docker taking up that much space, so if it goes above my limit, I should clean stuff up
@probablykasper If you just want to limit the max disk size, there are better ways. Feel free to open a new feature request for that. kdrag0n commented on May 10, 2023
Describe the bug After installing orbstack on my macOS monterey, I created two guest virtual machines for testing, they were all very small. Later, when I make a Timemachine backup for my MBP, a few day later, I can't restore from the backup, I investigated the issue then I found that the Users/Myuser/.orbstack folder was a whopping 8TB in size(1.45GB on disk), which means I can't restore the user data from Time Machine because no MacBook Pro comes with an 8TB disk.
To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Insert my Time machine drive,
- Open the folder of backup,then go to Users/Myname/
- Right click .orgstack directory, then click 'Get info'
- See the size '8.1TB'
Expected behavior Applications on macOS should handle hard links properly so that they do not abnormally inflate disk usage.
Screenshots 
@wdde I see what you mean:
This is just an issue with Finder's free disk space check when copying files across volumes. You should be able to restore it by using tar (which is aware of sparse files) to copy the file:
tar cf - path/to/backup/data.img | tar -C dest/ xf - More details in #29 (comment). kenn commented on Jul 1, 2023 EDIT 2024-07-12:
OK, here's the correct way to exclude .orbstack from Backblaze backup:
Go to Exclusions tab, click "+", then press Command + Shift+ . (period) to show dotfiles, and now you can select .orbstack from the dialog.
EDIT: The following is wrong answer, but leave it for posterity
For those who want to workaround the issue with Backblaze — you can add .orbstack to the exclusion list.
@kdrag0n I'm curious if changing the file extension from data.img to data.sparseimage could change the behavior of Finder. Reacted by Philip, Lindsey DiLoreto, weakish, Niels Bom, claw3119 and H bukacdan commented on Jun 10, 2025 what's a normal, expected size for the sparse image? I've got 70gigs and that feels like a lot Fil commented on Jun 13, 2025 I'm getting this error from backblaze. The answer provided by the official docs is not actionable for me, because the sparse file is in Library, which is already to exclude the sparse file from backups in my backblaze configuration.
delfuego commented on Jun 13, 2025 Backblaze definitely doesn’t exclude user-level (`/Users/username/Library`) folders by default, so if you’re implying that that’s the case, it’s not; it doesn’t back up the top-level **system** `/Library` folder but definitely includes the user ones unless you’ve manually excluded them. So step one would be to verify that you’ve added your Orbstack data directory manually to your exclude list. (And I’d argue that step two should be to put a support ticket in with Backblaze to support the `com.apple.metadata:com_apple_backup_excludeItem` extended attribute in some way so it’s not up to their users to do this.)JasonOn Jun 13, 2025, at 6:20 AM, Philippe Rivière ***@***.***> wrote:Fil left a comment ( orbstack/orbstack#29)
I'm getting this error from backblaze. The answer provided by the official docs is not actionable for me, because the sparse file is in Library, which is already excluded from backups.
backblaze+orbstack.png (view on web)
—Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***> Fil commented on Jun 13, 2025 Ha yes, I was confusing the top level /Library with my local user Library/ . Thanks! jameswald commented on Jul 8, 2025 I'm currently working with SentinelOne support because sentineld_helper pegs at 100% CPU as soon as it tries to scan this disk image and never recovers until the machine is rebooted. I'm trying to find workarounds while they handle my support ticket. Is it possible to manually reduce the size of the image by modifying it after OrbStack is installed? delfuego commented on Jul 8, 2025 jameswald commented on Jul 8, 2025 Fortunately it does and I've asked relevant colleagues to exclude it at least temporarily. Ultimately this is a bug with the SentinelOne agent so that agent needs to be fixed. I'm just looking for a potential way to use OrbStack without triggering that bug while I wait for exclusion approvals which will take a while and may not even get approved. whsasf commented on Aug 11, 2025 This is absolutely a problem because it continue eating empty space until pc only has about or even less 1G space ,then i will get a system warning of low disk space, then i have to remove other files ,then it continue to eat the empty space i just prepared. This is a terrible design indeed! RoyTinker commented on Aug 20, 2025 @jameswald We're having the same problem with SentinelOne. Did you ever find an exclusion rule string that works? We've been back and forth quite a bit... tomelliot commented on Sep 1, 2025 Is there a way to inspect the data.img file - it's sitting at 49G on my drive, and that seems a lot bigger than I'd expect. I'd like to work out what I can purge. nperez0111 commented on Sep 1, 2025 @tomelliot it is likely unused images and volumes, just open up orbstack and switch to images and it will tell you which are in use or not.
That is unrelated to this issue though jameswald commented on Sep 1, 2025
@jameswald We're having the same problem with SentinelOne. Did you ever find an exclusion rule string that works? We've been back and forth quite a bit...
@RoyTinker we were able to resolve this with S1 by adding these two exclusions:
- A file exclusion:
/Users/<user>/Library/Group Containers/HUAQ24HBR6.dev.orbstack/data/data.img
- A process exclusion:
/Applications/OrbStack.app/Contents/Frameworks/OrbStack Helper.app/Contents/MacOS/OrbStack Helper
Reacted by Roy Tinker, Stefan Doorn and astromaier davidkaufman commented on Sep 2, 2025 @nperez0111 wrote:
@tomelliot wrote:
Is there a way to inspect the data.img file - it's sitting at 49G on my drive, and that seems a lot bigger than I'd expect. I'd like to work out what I can purge.
it is likely unused images and volumes, just open up orbstack and switch to images and it will tell you which are in use or not.
That is unrelated to this issue though
This issue (inspecting data.img to figure out why it's so big) should definitely have its own ticket created!
I recently discovered mine had grown to 1.4TB! I was never able to figure out a way to mount or "inspect" the data.img virtual disk, but managed to guess that it was a very noisy RabbitMg console log that Orbstack was saving (somewhere in the virtual disk) that had consumed all that space after running for many months.
the solution, for me, was to:
docker compose down mq
docker system prune -a --volumes
docker volume prune --filter all=true I then had to quit orbstack itself, and restart it, To get back my 1.4TB 😃
So, in my case, it wasn't unused images or volumes, but one that was in use but from inside the container du said the volume was small, while Orbstack was saving all the months and months of console log output associated with it ...somewhere in that vdisk file, and didn't release all that until i downed the container and purged its volumes. Reacted by markvivv, Carlo Zottmann, Brian Belhumeur and Yuri Govorushchenko dangelion commented on Oct 22, 2025 We can exclude this file from Backblaze backup?
/Users/xxxxx/Library/Group Containers/ HUAQ24HBR6.dev.orbstack/data/data.img.raw (9675.70 GB)
Or this file contains part of the projects (like databases, which I have to backup)? Reacted by Justin, astromaier and Andrew D. Bond Reacted by Dangelion, Peter Bronez, b-bot and Andrew D. Bond sfatula commented on Oct 22, 2025 I actually have the opposite problem. 8TB is way too small, so, that means I cannot use Volumes for my media library (as they are > 8TB) which is connected to a Thunderbay 4 drive enclosure. I suppose hostpaths are fine in this case (media storage).
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