I am looking for a file size manager for the Mac. You know in iTunes, how you can see everything on your iDevice, and it shows what is taking up so much memory? I want something like that on the mac, except more intuitive, right down to the files and folders, just as a reference. Just so I can see what is taking up a lot of space. I just want to know because my Mac seemingly lost 500 gb of space in a matter of months. no idea how, but a tool like that would help me clear it up. I need the program to be free, as well.
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File size manager
- Thread starter Supernerd
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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:
How OS X and iOS report storage capacity
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.
- 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
- 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
How OS X and iOS report storage capacity
I think it is either some big, angry "free space" that contains the echoes of long-dead files (or whatever the technical explanation is, i just know that something like that often happens) for which there is a simple disk utility fix or my mom's photos and my dad's music. in her iPhoto library and his iTunes library, they each have well over 4,000 items. I will recommend moving those to the terabyte drive under our desk, and that should help. If there's anything left, i'm sure one of those programs will fix it up.