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muflyer

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 14, 2006
35
0
I'm curious as to how I can find out how much space any program takes up on my iMac harddrive or how much room I have left on my drive altogether. I know in Windows you can right click and find this in properties. How do I do this on a Mac. Also what does it mean to "repair permissions?"
 
You can view a pie chart of used/available HDD space in Activity Monitor (located in Applications > Utilities). Plus, on the bottom of every finder window it displays your available HDD space.

In OS X every folder/file has certain permissions allowing only certain users to read and/or write to those folders/files. Over time those permissions can change and repairing permissions restores the right permissions.
 
You can find out the sizes of items by hitting Command-I or choosing "Get Info" from the File menu when you are in Finder with the file highlighted. You can see how much space you have left on your hard drive at the bottom of any Finder window.

Repairing permissions involves making sure that the proper components of your system have access to the proper files and folders. Sometimes application installers and other activities can screw these up...repairing permissions compares their current status to what they're supposed to be and fixes any discrepancies. This sometimes fixes problems that crop up in your day-to-day experience. You can repair permissions using Disk Utility.
 
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