All my space has vanished!

[CTech]

So I have been having an issue where I have had little space on my MacBook Air 120GB. I have been deleting files and games, and still my total amount of space is 9GB. Going into Macintosh HD and selecting all the folders there, I added it up to 90GB. I found that Time Machine was making local backups, so I disabled those, and gained 2 GB of space. Where has my other 22GB of space gone. I have tried looking for a doppelgänger of Macintosh HD, nothing. Could you please help me to find where all this space has gone as I would quite like it back. Disk Utility says my partition is 120GB, so there is no reason for me to be out of space.
Thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

This small, free app will help you out:
DiskWave:
http://diskwave.barthe.ph

Just launch it.
You'll see what to do next.

 

[Weaselboy]

Run the command below in Terminal and it will show space used in the based folders in GB. Post the results here and we can help you out. This command will show hidden and system files that many of the GUI disk usage tools will not.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

 

[CTech]

This small, free app will help you out:
DiskWave:
http://diskwave.barthe.ph

Just launch it.
You'll see what to do next.

Ok, thanks. I added everything up in Macintosh HD and it totals to 86GB, yet it says I have 8GB free.

 

[CTech]

Run the command below in Terminal and it will show space used in the based folders in GB. Post the results here and we can help you out. This command will show hidden and system files that many of the GUI disk usage tools will not.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

Okay, ran that. Here are my results:

2 /.DocumentRevisions-V100

1 /.fseventsd

0 /.PKInstallSandboxManager

1 /.Spotlight-V100

0 /.Trashes

0 /.vol

19 /Applications

1 /bin

0 /cores

1 /dev

1 /home

22 /Library

1 /net

1 /Network

1 /opt

10 /private

1 /sbin

18 /System

32 /Users

1 /usr

1 /Volumes

103 /

 

[Weaselboy]

Nothing looks way out of whack there. Library, Private, and System have a little more than usual depending on what you have installed. Run the commands below and see what is in each of those.

Does /Users at 32GB sounds about right for your personal data?

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /Library

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /System

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /private

Another idea, hold the shift key at boot once to do a safe mode boot. Then restart again normally afterwards. A safe boot will clear all temporary cache files that might be using up space.

 

[CTech]

Nothing looks way out of whack there. Library, Private, and System have a little more than usual depending on what you have installed. Run the commands below and see what is in each of those.

Does /Users at 32GB sounds about right for your personal data?

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /Library

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /System

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /private

Another idea, hold the shift key at boot once to do a safe mode boot. Then restart again normally afterwards. A safe boot will clear all temporary cache files that might be using up space.

Users at 32GB is definitely way too much. This isn't only something taking up space though, I am also losing space. I booted my mac yesterday, logged in and made sure nothing was open. I opened up about this mac and clicked on storage. I saw that I had 4GB free. I had a piece of toast, then came back. I had gone down to 2GB! I took this mac to an IT guy and they went through my entire computer with disk inventory. They thought that I probably had a virus duplicating itself. When I got it back, I saw that I had 17GB free. I closed the mac lid and put it in my bag. 3 hours later I watched 2 hours of YouTube. At the end of the YouTube session I had 15GB free. The IT guy said I had a few out of control log files. He showed me where they were and said he deleted them. Well I check again and they're still there.

Here are the new results after the IT guy "cleaned" my mac.

2 /.DocumentRevisions-V100

1 /.fseventsd

0 /.PKInstallSandboxManager

1 /.Spotlight-V100

0 /.Trashes

0 /.vol

19 /Applications

1 /bin

0 /cores

1 /dev

1 /home

21 /Library

1 /net

1 /Network

1 /opt

8 /private

1 /sbin

19 /System

27 /Users

1 /usr

1 /Volumes

95 /

95 total

My Library Folder:

12 /Library/Application Support

2 /Library/Audio

1 /Library/Automator

1 /Library/Caches

0 /Library/ColorPickers

1 /Library/ColorSync

0 /Library/Components

0 /Library/Compositions

0 /Library/Contextual Menu Items

1 /Library/CoreMediaIO

1 /Library/Desktop Pictures

1 /Library/Developer

1 /Library/Dictionaries

0 /Library/DirectoryServices

1 /Library/Documentation

1 /Library/DropboxHelperTools

1 /Library/Extensions

0 /Library/Filesystems

2 /Library/Fonts

0 /Library/Fonts Disabled

2 /Library/Frameworks

1 /Library/Google

0 /Library/Graphics

1 /Library/Image Capture

0 /Library/Input Methods

1 /Library/Internet Plug-Ins

1 /Library/iTunes

1 /Library/Java

0 /Library/Keyboard Layouts

1 /Library/Keychains

1 /Library/LaunchAgents

1 /Library/LaunchDaemons

1 /Library/Logs

1 /Library/Managed Preferences

1 /Library/Messages

1 /Library/Modem Scripts

0 /Library/OpenDirectory

1 /Library/PDF Services

1 /Library/Pearson

1 /Library/Perl

1 /Library/PreferencePanes

1 /Library/Preferences

1 /Library/Printers

1 /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools

1 /Library/Python

1 /Library/QuickLook

1 /Library/QuickTime

1 /Library/Receipts

0 /Library/Ruby

0 /Library/Sandbox

1 /Library/Screen Savers

1 /Library/ScriptingAdditions

1 /Library/Scripts

1 /Library/Security

1 /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus

0 /Library/Speech

0 /Library/Spelling

1 /Library/Spotlight

1 /Library/StartupItems

0 /Library/SystemProfiler

1 /Library/Updates

1 /Library/User Pictures

1 /Library/Video

1 /Library/WebServer

1 /Library/Widgets

21 /Library

21 total

System:

19 /System/Library

19 /System

19 total

Private:

1 /Private/etc

0 /Private/tftpboot

1 /Private/tmp

8 /Private/var

8 /Private

8 total

While writing this, I lost 1GB of space!
Taking a look in activity monitor, I could see several unusual things. My CPU has random spikes caused by the process "tccd".
The process "systemstatsd" has written 4GB in the time my mac has been on (30 minutes).
And the process "kernal_task" has written 3GB.

Any ideas as to what might be eating my space and what is already consuming it?
At the moment, about this mac gives me 17GB free, when terminal says I am using 95GB total. Any idea why this could be?
Thanks for all the help

EDIT: systemstatsd has written another Gigabyte since I posted this. So 1GB in 2 minutes.

 

[CoastalOR]

Here is MacRumors thread on systemstatsd:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/systemstatsd-and-disk-io.1841350/

Also look at the linked article in the thread.

 

[Weaselboy]

Part of what you are seeing is normal after logs and cache/swap files have been deleted (assuming that is what your friend did). Those files will be recreated once you restart.

There are no Mac viruses that would do anything like this.

Try to drill down into /System/Library a little and see what you find there.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /System/Library

You can see the syntax of that command now and adjust it to drill down further.

Try this one to show what is in the Users space.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g ~/

Did you try the safe mode boot I mentioned.