unknown reasons for dangerously low disc space...

[cheekybobcat]

I have a MacBook with 160GB drive and I recently noticed that I only have 1.4GB left.
Now, I know that 42.92GB can be attributed to my iTunes content.
Also, I am currently downloading some TV Shows and Movies which are about 8GB.
So I only used about 51GB yet my Finder is telling me I only have 1.4GB left. Can anyone explain why I have so little space and/or how to clean it up?

 

[xUKHCx]

Use DiskInventoryX to tell you where the disk space is being used or Whatsize

 

[yellow]

Or OmniDiskSweeper

 

[cheekybobcat]

I'm not particularly computer savvy so I really don't know what to make of this

Any help?

 

[Chillijam]

from the screenie you posted, I can see that you have around 120 Gigs of movies and music on your drive. Not a lot, really, but enough to severely congest your system. It might be worth considering an external drive of some kind to take the load of your poor machine.

 

[Killyp]

From what you've said, it sounds as though you've managed to duplicate your entire iTunes library.

You are aware that when you add a song/movie to iTunes, it copies it into it's own folder for safe keeping allowing you to delete the original?

 

[cheekybobcat]

From what you've said, it sounds as though you've managed to duplicate your entire iTunes library.

You are aware that when you add a song/movie to iTunes, it copies it into it's own folder for safe keeping allowing you to delete the original?

Not at all.. I am new to Mac though..
I have successfully freed about 15GB so far but I thought that was about all I could do.
From what you said, I can apparently easily free more space but I don't know what to do...
Advice?

 

[Killyp]

How did you add all your music/movies/content to iTunes?

 

[DaBrain]

Not at all.. I am new to Mac though..
I have successfully freed about 15GB so far but I thought that was about all I could do.
From what you said, I can apparently easily free more space but I don't know what to do...
Advice?

IM just curious if you are a mac rumors demi-god how is it you are new to MACS? Just curious!--)))

 

[cheekybobcat]

Most of my music was copied from an external hard drive.
All of the TV shows I have were purchased from iTunes which include 3 full seasons of scrubs, and about 15 random other shows.
i have alot of DVD ripped videos too, about 17GB worth.
So, I either copied, bought, or ripped my music onto itunes, normally dragged files into itunes.

 

[cheekybobcat]

IM just curious if you are a mac rumors demi-god how is it you are new to MACS? Just curious!--)))

not brand new, ive had mine since january but i dont at all consider myself a genius about macs..

 

[~Shard~]

Here are my suggestions for identifying and freeing up HDD space:

- use OmniDiskSweeper (not free) or my personal favorite WhatSize (free up to 20 GB) to determine what all is taking up room on your HDD and where it is. WhatSize used to be free, apparently it is not anymore, so try to find an older version
- I also recommend Disk Inventory X to view HDD usage - it graphically shows you what is taking up space with a decent presentation and UI
- remove GarageBand and iDVD if you do not need them - that should free up around 6 GB right there
- check out /Library/Printers/ - 2 GB of printer drivers that you may or may not need
- use Monolingual to remove the unnecessary language resources from your Mac. Another option is to use Delocalizer
- lastly, you could always use AppZapper (not free) or App Delete (free) to ensure that when you uninstall any programs that all those pesky sub-folders, etc. are deleted

That should just about do it.

 

[Killyp]

Download & run This

It should tell you which folders all this data is stored in, which will hopefully shed some more light...

IM just curious if you are a mac rumors demi-god how is it you are new to MACS? Just curious!--)))

You become a Demi-God by donating money to MacRumors, not by knowing lots about Macs.

 

[cheekybobcat]

How do I find all the duplicates of the MPEG-4 Videos or any files for that matter? From the picture above, it says 77GB for MPEG Vids however on iTunes I have 24GB of tv and 15 of movies which isn't quite 77...

*when i search them in finder, it doesn't show that there are more than one file*

 

[krye]

I see you have a 4G text file? (Yellow) What's up with that?

 

[yellow]

I see you have a 4G text file? (Yellow) What's up with that?

That's actually the size of all plaintext files [15431 of them] (of which the OS has a load) added up. Not totally unexpected.

 

[xUKHCx]

How do I find all the duplicates of the MPEG-4 Videos or any files for that matter? From the picture above, it says 77GB for MPEG Vids however on iTunes I have 24GB of tv and 15 of movies which isn't quite 77...

*when i search them in finder, it doesn't show that there are more than one file*

You can select the blocks of colour and get them shown in finder ctrl+click "Reveal In Finder"

You can search in finder for movies. Create a search cmd+f but leave the search field blank. Hit the + button and change Kind is any to Kind is movies

I see you have a 4G text file? (Yellow) What's up with that?

Its not one but 15431 txt files that total 4GB

 

[wintercoat]

had a similar problem a while back. I was using quicktime to export files and for some reason it was making a hidden copy on my computer.

Used Onyx to show hidden files and deleted what i didn't need.

 

[cheekybobcat]

are all those 4GB of txt files necessary?

 

[yellow]

Some of them, yes, some of them no. I'm not sure anyone here is willing to wade through 15,000 of them for you to tell you.

Personally, I prefer the layout of OmniDiskSweeper. I think the util you used can be misleading. ODS just tells me how large a directory is, and lets me navigate into it, rinse, repeat.

 

[DaBrain]

Download & run This

It should tell you which folders all this data is stored in, which will hopefully shed some more light...


You become a Demi-God by donating money to MacRumors, not by knowing lots about Macs.

Ahhhh Ok Thanks! Have a good one!

 

[cheekybobcat]

Some of them, yes, some of them no. I'm not sure anyone here is willing to wade through 15,000 of them for you to tell you.

Personally, I prefer the layout of OmniDiskSweeper. I think the util you used can be misleading. ODS just tells me how large a directory is, and lets me navigate into it, rinse, repeat.

Thanks! I used OmniDisk and after a bit of sifting through, I have 44GB free. I have some more to do but 44>1.4 so I'm pretty darn content