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Is there anyway to tell what is taking up space on my computer?

G

GKDAIR

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 4, 2011
230
4
So I have 42 gigs worth of apps and I honestly have NO idea where it's all coming from.


I have no apps from itunes, and I don't have any games installed on my computer, except for Sims 3.


I can't tell what exactly is causing so much space to be taken up. The only other apps I have are simple apps that only take a few megabytes, nothing that takes up gigs. Even total there's no way it's 42 gigs, I'd be surprised if it's even over 3-4 gigs.
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
If you're wondering what "Other" category in the Lion storage tab is about, this may help explain: 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 Lion: 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.
    attachment.php
  • 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:
 
O

opinio

macrumors 65816
Mar 23, 2013
1,171
7
GKDAIR said:
So I have 42 gigs worth of apps and I honestly have NO idea where it's all coming from.


I have no apps from itunes, and I don't have any games installed on my computer, except for Sims 3.


I can't tell what exactly is causing so much space to be taken up. The only other apps I have are simple apps that only take a few megabytes, nothing that takes up gigs. Even total there's no way it's 42 gigs, I'd be surprised if it's even over 3-4 gigs.
Click to expand...

You could run Onyx (app) to do a clean?
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,136
15,598
California
GKDAIR said:
So I have 42 gigs worth of apps and I honestly have NO idea where it's all coming from.


I have no apps from itunes, and I don't have any games installed on my computer, except for Sims 3.


I can't tell what exactly is causing so much space to be taken up. The only other apps I have are simple apps that only take a few megabytes, nothing that takes up gigs. Even total there's no way it's 42 gigs, I'd be surprised if it's even over 3-4 gigs.
Click to expand...

That info comes from the Spotlight index and sometimes it gets corrupted and causes wrong info to show. Try a Spotlight reindex by running the command below in Terminal, then check the reading again.

Code: 
sudo mdutil -E /
 
G

GKDAIR

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 4, 2011
230
4
Yeah I had DasiyDisk as well, I ran it and it only showed about 20+ gigs worth of stuff,


The "Other" section is fine, it was "Apps" that was taking up so much space.


I ran that command and right now I am waiting for it to finish.


Ok, the command worked. It cleared up a good 20 gigs and now everything looks in order. Thanks! I gotta remember that command.
 
Last edited:
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