OmniDiskSweeper

[mario24601]

My internal seems full, when I go to about this mac, storage: shows majority of data is in "other" about 126GB! Someone told me to use OmniDiskSweeper. Is this a safe program? Safe to remove all these "other" files? Not sure what is causing this.

[GGJstudios]

Originally Posted by mario24601

My internal seems full, when I go to about this mac, storage: shows majority of data is in "other" about 126GB! Someone told me to use OmniDiskSweeper. Is this a safe program? Safe to remove all these "other" files? Not sure what is causing this.

Yes, it's a safe app. No, it's not necessarily safe to remove all the "other" files.

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 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.

  

• 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:

• Encrypted drive
• Time Machine backup files and needed disk repair
• App filling log file
• App or file was 89GB
• Drive needed to be re-indexed
• Time Machine backup file
• Large app cache file
• Garageband files and video podcasts
• Oversized email being duplicated
• Another email issue

[mario24601]

Thanks! I installed ODS and found that almost 90GB are in mobilesync backup...seems its keeping multiple copies of my iPhone and iPad. I thought when back up it would overwrite the old backup...doesnt seem to be the case. How can I determine which one is newer and ok to just delete older one?

[GGJstudios]

Originally Posted by mario24601

Thanks! I installed ODS and found that almost 90GB are in mobilesync backup...seems its keeping multiple copies of my iPhone and iPad. I thought when back up it would overwrite the old backup...doesnt seem to be the case. How can I determine which one is newer and ok to just delete older one?

They're dated, so it's easy to see the newest one.

[milocool]

I have this map called "private" 4.1 gb.
then it's called "var" 4.1 gb.
and then "vm" 2.7 gb and "db" 827 mb etc..

any idea what that is? because i cant find it in spotlight and it's not an encrypted file...

[benwiggy]

Originally Posted by milocool

I have this map called "private" 4.1 gb.
then it's called "var" 4.1 gb.
and then "vm" 2.7 gb and "db" 827 mb etc..

any idea what that is? because i cant find it in spotlight and it's not an encrypted file...

All the hidden folders at the top of your hard drive - private, var, bin, etc, usr (and others) are ESSENTIAL Unix system folders and files.

Do NOT remove any of them, otherwise you'll have to reinstall your OS.

If you don't know what it is, don't delete it. Do some research first to learn what it is, then consider whether it should stay or not.