losing space for no reason

[campuscop2003]

I have a puzzling problem with my 2011 mac mini. I have been gradually losing hard disk space slowly since installing my SSD a month or so ago I have a 120GB sandisk extreme and it started at 83GB after everything was installed. Its down to 78GB and I havent installed a thing since. I have cleared out browser cache's and everything I could think of. I have an external 1.5TB drive that I store everything including pictures, itunes library and iphoto pictures on. Everything but the programs are on external. First thing I notice is when I go into about my mac its showing 7GB pictures, all my pictures are on external so that confuses me.

I am new to MAC, only had one since Feb of this year. I can't for the life of me figure out why I am steadily losing space. Any help will be greatly appriciated. Thanks!

 

[stridemat]

Is the space recovered after a restart?

 

[tecknik1]

In my case it was emails that were eating up my space, try deleting any unnessesary emails and see if you don't regain some space.

 

[campuscop2003]

Is the space recovered after a restart?

No, space is lost no matter what I do. restarting doesn't fix. I just cleaned out my email but will revisit that when I get home.

 

[Branskins]

This sounds like automatic local Time Machine backups. If you have space available, Time Machine will create local backups. Backup to an external drive to reclaim the space or go into Time Machine preferences to tune automatic local backups.

The backups appear as "Other" in your hard drive information.

 

[campuscop2003]

This sounds like automatic local Time Machine backups. If you have space available, Time Machine will create local backups. Backup to an external drive to reclaim the space or go into Time Machine preferences to tune automatic local backups.

The backups appear as "Other" in your hard drive information.

Time Machine is set to only backup to the external.

 

[Branskins]

Where is this space appearing in?

Click on the Apple -> About This Mac -> More Information -> Storage

Try to monitor where the space is appearing.

I am going to guess its in Other, but we can at least try to eliminate something

EDIT:
How do you set Time Machine to external only?

 

[Weaselboy]

This sounds like automatic local Time Machine backups. If you have space available, Time Machine will create local backups. Backup to an external drive to reclaim the space or go into Time Machine preferences to tune automatic local backups.

The backups appear as "Other" in your hard drive information.

Those local backups are only enabled on portable Macs, so I don't think it would be on with the OP's Mini.