Folder with large size, nothing in it

Discussion in 'macOS' started by davidwes, Sep 2, 2007.

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  1. davidwes, Sep 2, 2007

    davidwes macrumors 6502

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    Dec 28, 2004
    #1
    I have a folder that has nothing in it. The computer says though that the folder is 2Gb of data. I transfered the folder to my external harddrive and it did the whole transfer bar going up to 2gb and it took awhile, yet still I see nothing in the folder.

    What is going on?
     
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  2. Eidorian, Sep 2, 2007

    Eidorian macrumors Penryn

    Eidorian

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    Indianapolis
    #2
    Did you use Terminal to see what was in it? Where was the folder located?
     
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  3. davidwes, Sep 2, 2007

    davidwes thread starter macrumors 6502

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    #3
    How do you do that?
     
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  4. davidwes, Sep 3, 2007

    davidwes thread starter macrumors 6502

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    Dec 28, 2004
    #4
    Okay. I put the folder on my desktop because I could figure out how to get there in terminal. it still says 2 gb.

    In the terminal I have it ~/Desktop/name of folder

    I enter ls and press enter and nothing shows up

    I tried ls on just the desktop and it showed all the files on my desktop
     
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  5. louiek, Sep 3, 2007

    louiek macrumors 6502

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    #5
    You might have deleted a file but it's still being used by an application you haven't closed. The space won't free up till you close the app. Open terminal and type:

    lsof | grep your_folder_name

    that will tell you what files you have open in that folder. A restart would clear it too, assuming this is the case.
     
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  6. Nermal, Sep 3, 2007

    Nermal Moderator

    Nermal

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    New Zealand
    #6
    Open Terminal and type these:

    cd ~/Desktop/folder name
    ls -la (lowercase LS -LA)

    Then copy the result and paste back here.
     
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