How the heck do I clean out my brand new machine!!?! HD space dipping already!

seared.ahi · Aug 7, 2012

As you may know, I got the 128 gb 13" model yesterday, which came pre-installed with ML. In my Macintosh HD info, Capacity has always been 120.47 GB. However, when I opened up my brand new computer, I think Available was somewhere around 100-102 (I can't remember exactly until I started watching it closely when I imported my mail). So here's what I did next, and these are the only things I have downloaded so far:

Imported my Mail - 799.4 mb
Imported some of my iTunes - 2.26 gb
Installed Microsoft Office - 1.33 gb and deleted Communicator
Installed Photoshop (came with Adobe Bridge) 666.6 mb and deleted Adobe Bridge
Transferred iPhoto Library (dragged files straight into iPhoto from Ext. HD) ~5.3 gb of space

Somehow, what I'm left with is a whopping 85.14 gb! How did that happen??!?

I feel like I'm constantly losing HD space for no apparent reason. In fact, after I finished transferring my photos, my Available storage was STILL shrinking! How is this possible? Are there secret duplicated files somewhere?

What hidden files can I/should I delete? I hardly did anything to my computer and I'm already down to 85 gb. I don't understand. Please help, thanks!! I want my space back!

It just went down to 85.08. Why?!?!!?

manodoro · Aug 7, 2012

Time Machine is responsible for your lost of space. You need to disable the local snapshot function.

seared.ahi · Aug 7, 2012

manodoro said:
Time Machine is responsible for your lost of space. You need to disable the local snapshot function.

Thanks for the reply. But Time Machine isn't even on, last time I checked. (And I don't use TM)

Ndynslvr · Aug 7, 2012

manodoro said:
Time Machine is responsible for your lost of space. You need to disable the local snapshot function.

Is that on by default?

seared.ahi · Aug 7, 2012

manodoro said:
Time Machine is responsible for your lost of space. You need to disable the local snapshot function.

Thanks for the reply. But Time Machine isn't even on and never has been. I don't use it.

Here's another odd thing - I just checked the Available space on my old Powerbook. A few weeks ago there were 40GB of space, today there's only 22.14 GB, and that's after I restarted.... Obviously within the past couple weeks, I didn't download anything - and even if I did it would certainly not be 18 GB of stuff.

Ndynslvr · Aug 7, 2012

seared.ahi said:
Thanks for the reply. But Time Machine isn't even on, last time I checked. (And I don't use TM)

Now that I think about it there could be secret duplicated files. If you're installing something from the internet make sure the installation file is deleted.

I'm a windows guy though, don't take my word for it, but there has been countless of times when I forgot to delete the installation file for large programs, losing many gigabytes of storage in the long run.

manodoro · Aug 7, 2012

Open Terminal and use this command:
sudo tmutil disablelocal
Power off, start your machine again and have a look at your disk!

seared.ahi · Aug 7, 2012

Ndynslvr said:
Now that I think about it there could be secret duplicated files. If you're installing something from the internet make sure the installation file is deleted.

I'm a windows guy though, don't take my word for it, but there has been countless of times when I forgot to delete the installation file for large programs, losing many gigabytes of storage in the long run.

When I downloaded those applications, the .dmg went to my Downloads folder, which I immediately deleted after installation. That's not part of the sum of GB I listed above.

manodoro said:
Open Terminal and use this command:
sudo tmutil disablelocal
Power off, start your machine again and have a look at your disk!

Will try this on my Powerbook first. Edit, nevermind, PB takes way too long. I'm going to try it now. Will let you know in a minute or two.

----------

85.26 GB. Got a few hundred megabytes back....

Any other suggestions?

manodoro · Aug 7, 2012

Check out the "Storage" tab under "About my Mac" and post a screenshot.

seared.ahi · Aug 7, 2012

I want to show you guys this:

Movies: 626 MB - I have no movies!!
Photos: 7.49 GB - I only imported 5.4 GB worth as I mentioned
Audio: 3.66 GB - I only imported 2.3 GB (and that's what iTunes shows at the bottom too)
Apps: 6.37 GB - It's possible. Though again, I only installed Office 2011 and Photoshop. Nothing even from the App Store (though I started a game and deleted it 1/4 through the download).
Other: I won't even go there yet.

Oh and what's up with this (second pic)??
Total Capacity : 121.33 GB

I thought I bought 128 GB hard drive....

seared.ahi · Aug 7, 2012

So I found a couple short videos that were transferred with my iPhoto. About 200 mb total maybe. Here's the thing: I found them using Spotlight by searching .avi. It's in the folder Picture>iPhoto Library> Masters> 2012> 08>07 etc etc etc to finally > MVI_xxxx.AVI. So I delete it in Finder and Empty Trash.

Then I go to iPhoto and search for .avi. Guess what, that movie was still there. HUH?!? I deleted it again in iPhoto.

So it looks like there are copies in iPhoto AND a Master Folder (viewable by iPhoto>Show Package Contents), that takes up DOUBLE the space? If I delete the photos from the Master Folder, do they still get kept in iPhoto? I'm not sure what this master folder is.

SpoekGTi · Aug 7, 2012

seared.ahi said:
I want to show you guys this:

Movies: 626 MB - I have no movies!!
Photos: 7.49 GB - I only imported 5.4 GB worth as I mentioned
Audio: 3.66 GB - I only imported 2.3 GB (and that's what iTunes shows at the bottom too)
Apps: 6.37 GB - It's possible. Though again, I only installed Office 2011 and Photoshop. Nothing even from the App Store (though I started a game and deleted it 1/4 through the download).
Other: I won't even go there yet.

Oh and what's up with this (second pic)??
Total Capacity : 121.33 GB

I thought I bought 128 GB hard drive....

well there is always some loss from 128GB so 121 is about right, bought a 3TB disk yesterday and that told me after partitioning it was 2.73 TB large.....thats a whopping 10% shaved off almost

I cant explain the movies also, i have them also on my MBA but i also dont have any movies ill investigate this weekend (also i went for the 256GB model, which in my case wasnt a bad choice since i have it now for almost a month and already have 100GB in use)

----------

seared.ahi said:
So I found a couple short videos that were transferred with my iPhoto. About 200 mb total maybe. Here's the thing: I found them using Spotlight by searching .avi. It's in the folder Picture>iPhoto Library> Masters> 2012> 08>07 etc etc etc to finally > MVI_xxxx.AVI. So I delete it in Finder and Empty Trash.

Then I go to iPhoto and search for .avi. Guess what, that movie was still there. HUH?!? I deleted it again in iPhoto.

But does this mean there are copies in iPhoto AND some Master file, that takes up DOUBLE the space?

In short yes, iPhoto takes the original and copies it to the library, it works the same with iTunes, i think you can also get the option on in iPhoto that it has to move it there so it won't take the extra space but not sure about that.

I have my Original photo's on my NAS and have a 60GB iPhoto library on my Mac mini, i really wanna keep the originals

seared.ahi · Aug 7, 2012

SpoekGTi said:
well there is always some loss from 128GB so 121 is about right, bought a 3TB disk yesterday and that told me after partitioning it was 2.73 TB large.....thats a whopping 10% shaved off almost

I cant explain the movies also, i have them also on my MBA but i also dont have any movies ill investigate this weekend (also i went for the 256GB model, which in my case wasnt a bad choice since i have it now for almost a month and already have 100GB in use)

----------

In short yes, iPhoto takes the original and copies it to the library, it works the same with iTunes, i think you can also get the option on in iPhoto that it has to move it there so it won't take the extra space but not sure about that.

I have my Original photo's on my NAS and have a 60GB iPhoto library on my Mac mini, i really wanna keep the originals

I experimented and the files in Master Folder and iPhoto are in fact dependent on each other. If I deleted a jpg in the Masters, it shows up as a "!" in iPhoto. And if I deleted in iPhoto it disappears from the Masters folder.

Here is what I think the problem is: A folder called Thumbnails (again under iPhoto > Show Package Contents). I open all the folders and then get thousands and thousands of folders each containing 2-3 files of the same picture, some cropped to...guess what....people's FACES. I think that the Faces feature of iPhoto has stored extra crap (photos) in each of these little folders. Is it safe to delete this Thumbnails folder? I don't use Faces but what if it does more than that.

SpoekGTi · Aug 7, 2012

seared.ahi said:
I experimented and the files in Master Folder and iPhoto are in fact dependent on each other. If I deleted a jpg in the Masters, it shows up as a "!" in iPhoto. And if I deleted in iPhoto it disappears from the Masters folder.

Here is what I think the problem is: A folder called Thumbnails (again under iPhoto > Show Package Contents). I open all the folders and then get thousands and thousands of folders each containing 2-3 files of the same picture, some cropped to...guess what....people's FACES. I think that the Faces feature of iPhoto has stored extra crap (photos) in each of these little folders. Is it safe to delete this Thumbnails folder? I don't use Faces but what if it does more than that.

TO test, i would move that folder first to a different location....then check if all is working accordingly if yes then its safe to delete and deleting a photo won't delete it from my NAS

And technically the thing your describing in iPhoto doesn't work for me, cause my original photo's are on my NAS, and if the connection to the NAS isn't there i can still see and edit all my photo's in iPhoto, without seeing the ! on any of them

seared.ahi · Aug 7, 2012

SpoekGTi said:
TO test, i would move that folder first to a different location....then check if all is working accordingly if yes then its safe to delete and deleting a photo won't delete it from my NAS

And technically the thing your describing in iPhoto doesn't work for me, cause my original photo's are on my NAS, and if the connection to the NAS isn't there i can still see and edit all my photo's in iPhoto, without seeing the ! on any of them

The problem is even if I can delete it, it would be a complete PITA to open up 3500 different folders (thats how many pictures I have) and delete each 125kb jpg of someone's face.

What's NAS? Sorry.

SpoekGTi · Aug 8, 2012

seared.ahi said:
The problem is even if I can delete it, it would be a complete PITA to open up 3500 different folders (thats how many pictures I have) and delete each 125kb jpg of someone's face.

What's NAS? Sorry.

NAS = Network Attached Storage, so basically my original photo's are stored on a network drive and my iPhoto library is on my Mac Mini (but even if the Mini isn't connected to the network drive iPhoto doesn't show the ! what you mentioned.

Well i can see that that would be a annoying bit to do, there must be a way to select them through Finder based on file size?

snowman1 · Aug 8, 2012

You can consider messing around with the "sleep mode" of your laptop. If you turn off the Safe Sleep feature and delete the sleep image, you can recover on your SSD however much RAM you have in your laptop (ex: if you have 8GB of RAM in your computer, you will recover 8GB of SSD space). The only "disadvantage" to doing this is that if you put your laptop to sleep and let its battery run out (pretty hard to do, since the MBA is rated at 30 days of standby time), the computer session will simply die and your work will not be saved.

A good guide can be found here: http://www.macworld.com/article/1053471/sleepmode.html

Basically, set the sleep mode to 0 (following the instructions in the guide) and then delete the sleep image and hopefully you can recover a few GBs that way!

seared.ahi · Aug 8, 2012

SpoekGTi said:
NAS = Network Attached Storage, so basically my original photo's are stored on a network drive and my iPhoto library is on my Mac Mini (but even if the Mini isn't connected to the network drive iPhoto doesn't show the ! what you mentioned.

Well i can see that that would be a annoying bit to do, there must be a way to select them through Finder based on file size?

Interesting. Are you sure you don't have another Master file even though you have a NAS?

I've asked my ever-evolving question in the Mountain Lion forum. Maybe someone there knows. Basically my question is the same: what are the hidden files in iPhoto, iTunes, etc, how do you delete them, and are they safe to delete?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1419823/

SpoekGTi · Aug 8, 2012

seared.ahi said:
Interesting. Are you sure you don't have another Master file even though you have a NAS?

I've asked my ever-evolving question in the Mountain Lion forum. Maybe someone there knows. Basically my question is the same: what are the hidden files in iPhoto, iTunes, etc, how do you delete them, and are they safe to delete?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1419823/

I'm 100% sure, cause i've imported the photo's from the NAS into iPhoto. And my iPhoto library is roughly as large as all the original files (60~ GB)

macneubie · Aug 8, 2012

get rid of GarageBand, iMovie, Alex voice and use monolingual to remove unwanted language packs. should recover a sizeable amount of SSD space.

seared.ahi · Aug 8, 2012

This morning my HD space is 84.23. I lost a whole GB of space overnight...HOW?!?!?!

GGJstudios · Aug 8, 2012

If you're wondering what "Other" category in the Lion storage tab is about, this may help explain:

What is this "Other" in the storage tab? What is eating my space

For space issues not explained by the above, there are a few things you can try, some of which may or may not apply:

Begin by restarting your computer as a first step. This sometimes resolves issues.
For Time Machine users on notebooks running Lion, space may being consumed by Time Machine local snapshots, which can be disabled.
OS X: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs
Check to see if some of the space is being used by your sleepimage file.
Search with Finder to see if the space is being consumed by a very large file or several large files. Adjust the 50GB in the illustration to whatever size you deem appropriate.
Use OmniDiskSweeper, JDisk Report, Disk Inventory X, DaisyDisk or GrandPerspective to see how space is being used on your drive. Some of these apps may show more detail than others, so try several.
Check your drive with Disk Utility: Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks
Try re-indexing your drive: Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes

Here are a few resolutions found by others with the same question:

Freeing up space in Mac OS X

seared.ahi · Aug 8, 2012

The increased data today is in Other. If you recall from my picture from last night, I had 17.0GB in Other, right now it's 18.3.

At this rate im gonna run out of HD space in less than 100 days..doing nothing!!!

GGJstudios · Aug 8, 2012

seared.ahi said:
The increased data today is in Other. If you recall from my picture from last night, I had 17.0GB in Other, right now it's 18.3.

At this rate im gonna run out of HD space in less than 100 days..doing nothing!!!

Read my post.

seared.ahi · Aug 8, 2012

Help!!! HD space mysteriously disappearing!!!

Last night I started a thread asking how to clean my new mac but today it appears i have a much bigger problem. It seems like without installing or downloading anything, my hard drive space shrinks by itself...Gigs at a time! Last night i had 85 gb of available space. Today i have 84. Again i did nothing in between that time. In fact when i stare at the Get Info from my HD I can actually see the Available space go down by the nearest tenth decimal. 1. Why is my Hd space disappearing riight before my eyes? 2. How do I stop the bleeding? How do I recover the space I lost? At this rate Im not going to have any space left by Labor Day.

How the heck do I clean out my brand new machine!!?! HD space dipping already!

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