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App to Show Me Difference in Disk Usage From a Week Ago?

J

jason.siegel

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 15, 2011
448
48
Is there some app that can show me, based on my Time Machine backups or something, how my disk space is being used in comparison to a week ago? A week ago, I was using 150 gigs or so. Today, I'm using about 90. I have no idea where those 60 gigs of files disappeared to. Although I did install iTunes 11, which moved some things to the cloud, it wasn't 60 gigs worth.

Thanks.
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
If you're wondering what "Other" category in the Lion/ML 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 or later, space may be consumed by Time Machine local snapshots, which can be disabled.

  • Check to see if some of the space is being used by your sleepimage file.

  • Check the System Memory tab in Activity Monitor to check page outs and swap used. If swap used is significant, restart your computer and track that value under your normal workload. If you have significant page outs under normal use, you could benefit from more RAM.

  • 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:
Freeing up space in Mac OS X

How OS X and iOS report storage capacity
 
J

jason.siegel

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 15, 2011
448
48
Thanks. That info seems to be about freeing up space; I almost have the opposite problem. Do you mean to imply that perhaps my Time Machine local snapshots, e.g., have cleaned themselves up?
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
jason.siegel said:
Thanks. That info seems to be about freeing up space; I almost have the opposite problem. Do you mean to imply that perhaps my Time Machine local snapshots, e.g., have cleaned themselves up?
Click to expand...
It's not just about freeing up space, but about accounting for how space is being used. There are many factors that can account for increases or decreases in drive space being used, such as TM backup files, swap files that disappear on restart, trash being emptied, reindexing, etc.
 
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