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80% of my hard drive is being used and I have no idea by what! HELP!

A

Apple!Fre@k

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2006
518
7
Hey guys, my MBA has a 128GB flash drive and apparently I only have 24GB left available so I went to investigate what is using 104GB of space and I can't figure it out. Stuff isn't making sense.

If I individually measure the file sizes of each of the folders in my Home folder, it comes to about 18GB. But, if I ask for the size of the Home folder itself, it say it's 63GB. Huh? Is there some hidden folder in my Home folder that is taking up 43GB?

That said, since there's only one user on this computer, where's the other gig? My Applications folder is only 8GB and that's it. I don't have any files on my computer other than system files that I'm aware of other than what's in my Home folder and my Applications folder.

Is there any kind of app that will show specifically where my storage space is being used? I used a Finder window and searched All Files sort by size, but it uses very wide sizes and I can't pin it down. It also doesn't show me anything larger than a 1GB file so I need something more accurate.

Any ideas?
 
Paulywauly

Paulywauly

macrumors 6502a
Sep 26, 2009
766
0
Durham, UK
Its sounds like you could do with a disk analyser. try Daisy Disk in the App Store, or Grand Perspective. They will both give you a graphical representation of your drive showing you whats using space.
 
A

Apple!Fre@k

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2006
518
7
Paulywauly said:
Its sounds like you could do with a disk analyser. try Daisy Disk in the App Store, or Grand Perspective. They will both give you a graphical representation of your drive showing you whats using space.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much! I just downloaded Daisy Disk! Looks like iCloud is taking up 18GB, my Gmail is taking up 27GB... it all adds up unfortunately. :(
 
J

JonLa

macrumors 6502
Dec 22, 2009
378
28
BeeJee said:
Probably saving the mail to the computer and not just keeping it on the server
Click to expand...

Doesn't Mail do this by default, to enhance searching?

If you want to keep this feature you could go into gmail's settings (online) and set IMAP to only the last 1000 messages or so...
 
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
 
seveej

seveej

macrumors 6502a
Dec 14, 2009
827
51
Helsinki, Finland
Here's a vote for WhatSize - been using it for years.

20+ gigs free is not catastrophic, but if you see that going up in the future, you should take measures...

RGDS,
 
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