HI, I have a 13in macbook pro 2011 (i7) 500gb, 8gb ram.. Ive had it for about a year, i purchased it while deployed in afghanistan. Up until recently i have always only used about 250 gb of my hard drive, while using external hard drives for movie and music files. In the past two weeks I have started to get a message saying my startup disk is full; when i opened up my disk utility it shows roughly 269gb being used up for audio, movies, photos, and apps, while over 228gb of memory is filled labeled under the category of other. I can not account for any of the memory thats labeled under other, while holding down the "option" key and selecting go in my finder i have searched every file that's in my hard drive and still i can only account for 270gb or so being used. I had forgotten that i had mackeeper installed which i have been told is a type of malware so i have uninstalled it but it did not help. Anytime i delete any files to try to free up space it is instantaneously filled up and categorized under the other category. Yesterday the other category was at 201gb and then trying to free up space i deleted 27gb of movies on my hard drive now the memory has been taken up by "other". Somebody please help. Ive tried calling applecare and had no luck. I dont have enough space on an external hard drive and do not want to fork out another 100 dollars so that i can make a time machine backup and reformat my macbook. Thank you for your help. -tim cordial
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
My start up disk is saying that its full
- Thread starter knbr680fan
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
steps ive taken recently
I just downloaded the program applejack. After installing the program, i turned off my computer and rebooted while holding down (command+s), the screen shots from my first post are taken after i had done this. Before i had only a few mb of free memory and now i have around 2gb. I have already verified my permissions and also have tried repairing them. When calling applecare, they had me check a few things, like they made me check to see if time machine was enabled which it wasnt, i have never used time machine. at the end of our conversation i the agent told me to keep looking for the files taking up the space and call back when i had found them. Otherwise he (the agent) said it could be my operating system not running correctly. Thanks for the help. -tim cordial
I just downloaded the program applejack. After installing the program, i turned off my computer and rebooted while holding down (command+s), the screen shots from my first post are taken after i had done this. Before i had only a few mb of free memory and now i have around 2gb. I have already verified my permissions and also have tried repairing them. When calling applecare, they had me check a few things, like they made me check to see if time machine was enabled which it wasnt, i have never used time machine. at the end of our conversation i the agent told me to keep looking for the files taking up the space and call back when i had found them. Otherwise he (the agent) said it could be my operating system not running correctly. Thanks for the help. -tim cordial
another update
So right after running the applejack software while booting up my mac, i ran disk doctor and deleted another 32gb of movie files i checked my hard drive again using disk utility and now the memory is free. So this time the space i free wasn't auto-filled by a rogue operation and categorized under other. Now if i could only find the files that are taking up 227gb of my hard drive so i can delete. Ideas anyone?? thanks..... -tim cordial
So right after running the applejack software while booting up my mac, i ran disk doctor and deleted another 32gb of movie files i checked my hard drive again using disk utility and now the memory is free. So this time the space i free wasn't auto-filled by a rogue operation and categorized under other. Now if i could only find the files that are taking up 227gb of my hard drive so i can delete. Ideas anyone?? thanks..... -tim cordial
I'm not familiar with "Applejack", but there is a great app for scanning your hard disk for the biggest folders etc. It's called "WhatSize" and the trial is free (full version is 12 bucks or something). I use it on a regular basis to clean up free space on my drive.
Download and use OmniDiskSweeper. It will provide a sorted list of what's consuming your space.
That way you can see what exactly is consuming all your space and the determine what can be done to clean it up.
That way you can see what exactly is consuming all your space and the determine what can be done to clean it up.
Most likely local backups. More info here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878
By the way, a big THANK YOU for your service!!!
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878
By the way, a big THANK YOU for your service!!!
Last edited:
Agreed.
Do you have time machine enabled? The local backups will store onto your computer as "other" until it can back it all up to your backup drive. I connected to my TC and it pretty much cleared 100GB of my "other" space. So if you have a backup drive, try connecting to it and back up your system. See if it clears some of the "other"
It does not appear the OP has TM turned on, since there is nothing (zero) shown in the Backups section of his storage screen grab. That is where the space used by local backups is indicated.
I have personal experience with this yesterday as a matter of fact. I freshly started a new TM backup a few days ago for my new macbook, and in the middle of it I cancelled it/stop it where it was, because it was slowing my network speeds and i needed a quick connection for a short time. Forgot to reinitiate the backup, and the next day I realized i had 20GB of free space left (backups taking up about 73kB) I moved some of my large video series (50GB) onto an external drive. And delted them from my Mac and emptied the trash. Go to check my space now thinking I should be somewhere around 70GB, but i only had 20GB of free space. I restarted the mac thinking it just needed a refresh, but still only 20GB free and still only 73kb in backups. So i checked out what omnidisk had to say, and to my suprise, it also revealed only 20GB of free space on the main page, but when I swept my drive, it only totaled about 400GB being used, which seemed about right, but didnt correlate to what it said on the main page. And accorgning to my "about section" I had 480GB used. I kept it like this until yesterday, when i realized I hadnt gotten a complete backup of my system yet, so i started my backup again. Upon its completion, the file transfer window stated it was "cleaning up". Im thinking maybe this was the issue, so I look back into my "about" section and i had 50GB free. Needless to say, once it was done I had all my 70GB of free space as it shouldve been. So for some reason, whatever I deleted from my mac remained in the "other" section until it was backed up.
It's actually a common problem for TM local backups to show up as "Other," so a lack of a "Backups" segment in the screenshots doesn't prove anything with regards to whether or not TM is set up.
I hear you, and there are tons of threads about crap ending up in Other that just mysteriously appears for whatever reason. It often seems to be unusual sequences like yours that bring this on.
My point is the Time Machine local backups space used is shown in that purple Backups section. I just pulled it up on my system and took two screenshots. The first 447.2MB is with TM on and the second is about five seconds later with TM off and the space now at zero. If TM is on that Backups area will be something greater than zero.
----------
I too have seen local backups space showing up in Other, but I have never seen any system (even one with Other all jacked up) that showed Backups at zero with TM turned on. If TM is on there will something shown there even if a small amount.
In post #2 OP says he has never used TM.
I hear you, and there are tons of threads about crap ending up in Other that just mysteriously appears for whatever reason. It often seems to be unusual sequences like yours that bring this on.
My point is the Time Machine local backups space used is shown in that purple Backups section. I just pulled it up on my system and took two screenshots. The first 447.2MB is with TM on and the second is about five seconds later with TM off and the space now at zero.
I understand that too, I have had my backups actually go in the "backups" section before. And it was understandable. Thats what confused me so much about my ordeal this week is that i had practically nothing in "backups", and all my backups in "other". I just think maybe he has whatever glitch I had and his backups are going into the other section. So an attempt to back it up and let it go into that "cleaning up" phase might clear a lot of that "other" out
Give this a shot. Do a command-r boot to recovery and from there start Disk Utility and run a repair disk on your drive. Then restart.
If that does not help, try out OmniDisksweeper mentioned by maflynn.
----------
Whoa... thanks for that. Had not ever seen one with zero there.
uhhhmmm
When trying to use Omnidiskweeper... it would only account for 200gb or so .. it would not account for any of the memory categorized as other... Thank you for the idea-
When trying to use Omnidiskweeper... it would only account for 200gb or so .. it would not account for any of the memory categorized as other... Thank you for the idea-
Last edited: