"About This Mac" not accurately listing free storage space?

[RolandNights]

Hey everyone,

When I go to "About This Mac" under and check the storage space, the amount of free storage doesn't change. I have about 117.75 GB left on my mid-2010 MBP's 320 GB hard drive, so I got an external hard drive. I dumped about 60 GB of movies onto the external, deleted them from my main HD, deleted about 3 GB of home movies, and yet it still says 117.75 GB left in free storage space. It even gives me the same statistic in iStat Pro!

I already tried Repairing Disk Permissions and restarting my computer. If I Spotlight the old movie files, they show up on my external HD (which, again, is where I put them). Is there any other way to refresh this stat? Are the movies I deleted somehow still on my hard drive despite emptying the trash?

FWIW, as noted below, I upgraded my RAM today. Maxed out at 8GB.

 

[fullojellybeans]

There's a great utility that's shareware called WhatSize that will tell you every file that's taking up space to help you find the culprit. I believe it's $20 USD but totally worth it because it scans internal and external drives for space. Also includes hidden files.

Or you could do the really "fun" way of Command+I on every folder which takes forever.

Best of luck.

 

[RolandNights]

Thanks, I'll look into it. Also, FWIW, I also recently installed new RAM. Maxed out at 8GB.

 

[fullojellybeans]

Thanks, I'll look into it. Also, FWIW, I also recently installed new RAM. Maxed out at 8GB.

RAM upgrade will show you a 8GB sleep image which is stored on the drive.

You may either have some runaway log files or mail recovery files if you use an imap set up in the mail program.

 

[RolandNights]

Well, I ran DaisyDisk (i already had it on my computer) and it says I'm using 200 GB, but all the files it list don't add up to 200 GB.

Also, if I download something, my free storage will whittle down. Basically, my amount of free storage can go down, but never up.

----------

Re-ran Daisy Disk, but this time as a System Administrator. It says all those old movie files are backed up in some hidden folder called "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups".

This was my first time using an external HD with my Mac, setting up Time Machine, etc. What is that?

 

[fullojellybeans]

Re-ran Daisy Disk, but this time as a System Administrator. It says all those old movie files are backed up in some hidden folder called "Macintosh HD/.MobileBackups".

This was my first time using an external HD with my Mac, setting up Time Machine, etc. What is that?

So there's a hidden folder taking up space. At least we know the root cause. Solving it is the next part. Are you running 10.6 or 10.7?

 

[RolandNights]

So there's a hidden folder taking up space. At least we know the root cause. Solving it is the next part. Are you running 10.6 or 10.7?

10.7. I noticed in the file log that whatever I deleted recently (all the original files I copied to my external HD, those old home movies, and even a few other movies after I posted this topic) ended up in that folder.