Hidden files taking up spaces

[thanhhadinh]

Hello,

I have been using my mac for 8 months and currently, I only have about 20GB free to use. I don't keep much files in the computer, mainly just photos and music. I have 15GB of photos and 5GB of songs in my itunes. My mac capacity is 120GB originally and now 55GB have been shown as taken by others. I believe my computer have been saving hidden files, if so, how do I find them and safely delete them?

Best

 

[mrsir2009]

I would be interested to know this too, my MacBook shows up tons of space as "other". Do you have a Time Capsule or any sort of backup system? Because I have a feeling that my Mac might be saving Time Machine backups locally.

 

[Mjcarlin907]

Check to see if your email is being saved.

 

[mrsir2009]

Check to see if your email is being saved.

55GB of emails?

 

[wonderspark]

Click Finder, on top of screen, click Go, then hold Option key and select the Library folder.
- Delete all files in Caches folder, which most people have full of crap.
- Also, emails have attachments that could be large.

What is 'other'?

 

[thanhhadinh]

I would be interested to know this too, my MacBook shows up tons of space as "other". Do you have a Time Capsule or any sort of backup system? Because I have a feeling that my Mac might be saving Time Machine backups locally.

I don't use time saver but I do know email is taking quite a bit of space. Although I did choose to not automatically save email attachment and delete email after certain time. However, it' can not be all email. Please help

 

[thanhhadinh]

Click Finder, on top of screen, click Go, then hold Option key and select the Library folder.
- Delete all files in Caches folder, which most people have full of crap.
- Also, emails have attachments that could be large.

What is 'other'?

I have located my Caches folder. Can I just delete it? The whole folder right into the bin? I'm a little scare of touching the system files as I don't know what they do.

 

[mrsir2009]

Click Finder, on top of screen, click Go, then hold Option key and select the Library folder.
- Delete all files in Caches folder, which most people have full of crap.
- Also, emails have attachments that could be large.

What is 'other'?

Hmm I got rid of the caches and that helped a bit, but there is still a ton of Other space. I have moved all my media to a network drive so I can't figure out what it is...

 

[mrsir2009]

I have located my Caches folder. Can I just delete it? The whole folder right into the bin? I'm a little scare of touching the system files as I don't know what they do.

The worst that can happen with caches (as far as I know) is that they might slow down your system until they refill, if the stuff in there is used by the applications that you use.

 

[thanhhadinh]

The worst that can happen with caches (as far as I know) is that they might slow down your system until they refill, if the stuff in there is used by the applications that you use.

Deleted, but I only have 1.5GB of caches. Do you have any idea what I can do next?

 

[mrsir2009]

Deleted, but I only have 1.5GB of caches. Do you have any idea what I can do next?

Ok bro, so I've figured it out for me. I downloaded this application and found that all the space was being taken up by my Windows VM, my Ubuntu VM and the frikin Bitcoin blockchain. Problem is that when I try to delete the Ubuntu files or the blockchain files Finder comes up with an error message reading "this operation cannot be completed because backup items cannot be modified". Anyone know how I can override this and force the files to delete?

For you I'd download the application I linked to so you can see what the biggest files are on your Mac that are taking up all the space.

EDIT: I've found that I can delete those files using the terminal, but they are actually located in a backup directory. That stuff is on my time capsule so I don't know why it's on my MacBook's hard drive as well, but I'm hoping that if I fill up my drive the backups will automatically delete themselves.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Deleted, but I only have 1.5GB of caches. Do you have any idea what I can do next?

See if this helps:

• Open System Preferences->Time Machine
• Turn off Time Machine
• Turn on Time Machine

Now check if the space has been freed up.