MacBook Hidden Files

[Shankster]

Using Migration Assistant, I recently transferred hard drive contents from an older MacBook (67.5 GB on a 80 GB drive) to a slightly better MacBook with a 120 GB drive. To my surprise, the new MacBook now has 83.2 GB on it. I suspect that files have been duplicated and are now hidden. Is there a safe way of deleting hidden files that are bloating my hard drive?

 

[kaelwhale]

Using Migration Assistant, I recently transferred hard drive contents from an older MacBook (67.5 GB on a 80 GB drive) to a slightly better MacBook with a 120 GB drive. To my surprise, the new MacBook now has 83.2 GB on it. I suspect that files have been duplicated and are now hidden. Is there a safe way of deleting hidden files that are bloating my hard drive?

I suggest first making sure that the files have, in fact, been duplicated. You can view hidden files by typing the following commands into terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

Could it be that the newer MB has a newer OS or more applications and that is what takes up more space?

to hide the hidden files again, open terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder

 

[Shankster]

Both Macbooks are running Leopard.

I have briefly looked at the Terminal commands but am pretty nervous to play around in there. I suppose what I was getting at is, is there a utility that may scan hidden and visible files and delete duplicates.