Program that searches volume and tells you what should be compressed

[poiihy]

Is there a program out there that can search a volume, and then tell you what files/folders in that volume would compress very well?
Some files, like text files, aren't compressed and when they are compressed, the compressed file would be a lot smaller. Other files, like music and video files, are already compressed and compressing them would barely make a difference.
It would be nice if there was a program that would do that. It would be helpful to open some space on one's storage drive.
If nothing like this exists, then it should! If you're a developer or you know a developer, take this as an idea!

P.S. Do iMovie project folders compress well?

 

[cycledance]

i think compressing stuff is a thing of the past. big stuff can´t be compressed and storage space is huge.

 

[poiihy]

i think compressing stuff is a thing of the past. big stuff can´t be compressed and storage space is huge.

What do you mean "big stuff can't be compressed"? You can compress any sized item. And who's storage space are you talking about?​

 

[cycledance]

What do you mean "big stuff can't be compressed"? You can compress any sized item. And who's storage space are you talking about?​

big stuff like media files. read your post again...you said it yourself.
storage space of people alive.

 

[poiihy]

big stuff like media files. read your post again...you said it yourself.
storage space of people alive.

Yes media files are already compressed which is why you can't compress them
But uncompressed stuff like text files, games, etc, or that folder with whatever the heck was in it that I just compressed from ~300mb to ~70mb. They could be big or they could be small.

Are you saying that every alive person's storage space is huge? That's certainly not true; many people don't have any storage space at all.
I have a 1TB partition for storage and it is full already.

 

[cycledance]

Yes media files are already compressed which is why you can't compress them
But uncompressed stuff like text files, games, etc, or that folder with whatever the heck was in it that I just compressed from ~300mb to ~70mb. They could be big or they could be small.

Are you saying that every alive person's storage space is huge? That's certainly not true; many people don't have any storage space at all.
I have a 1TB partition for storage and it is full already.

good luck.

 

[maflynn]

Download and use OmniDiskSweeper. It will provide a sorted list of what's consuming your space.

If you run it with sudo (As shown below), it will include some system files that it woud not normally have access to scan. That is a more accurate representation of what's consuming your drive.

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

Another option is to use this terminal command
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

I prefer to redirect it to a text file (this puts it in your Documents folder
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g / > ~/Documents/du.txt

Like the sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper command, it will scan all directories, but produce a text file as opposed to showing the results in a window

It won't tell you what ought to be compressed but you will have a sorted list of files that are consuming the most space and you can then make a determination on what to do with them