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What's taking up all the space?
- Thread starter heyyitssusan
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77GB doesn't seem like that much. Also included in that number is probably OS X itself. Mine is about 200GB.
Right, that's what I thought was strange. So do you think the only option is to do a restore? I have deleted a few apps but it didn't make a difference.
Sounds like some allocated space has not been properly de-allocated. Do you have any big files in your trashcan? Not sure how those would be considered/calculated by OSX, but you could empty it just to be sure. Next I would run the filesystem integrity and permission rights validation from Diskutil before doing a complete re-install.
NO! Do NOT restore! The problem is fixable with must a few minutes of work!
The amount of space used in total is less than the amount it says that applications takes up.You need to re-index the hard drive to fix this. This is a common issue and can be fixed easily!
To fix this
Open system preferences
Select 'spotlight'
Select 'privacy'
Click the little plus button then select the physical hard drive (Macintosh HD).
It will say something like 'are you sure blah blah' and click the yes button or what ever it is.
Once it is added to the list, select the little minus sign to remove it.
Your computer will now re-index your hard drive automatically, and after an hour or two it will finish. When finished the numbers will add up correctly, and show you the real amount of space taken up by each category.
You can use your computer normally while it re-indexes. Again, it will take about an hour for the computer to fish re-indexing, and then it will show the correct numbers.
If you watch the window that shows how much data you used and in which categories, I think it will update in real time, but not entirely sure on this fact.
I've done re-indexed about 3 times in the past year or so, and it is the actual process that Apple will tell you to do to fix the issue!
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iA724 is correct above. It's just a corruption in the Spotlight index. Here's the Apple article with the same instructions:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716
Thanks so much guys!! Going to give it a try when I get home from work today. I'm glad it's a simple fix and nothing too major!
Correct. I deleted a few apps I downloaded from the app store. The only "big app" I have is iMovie at 2.4GB.
what's the code you can run that clears ups (index?) what space is actually being used? Would that potentially help?
I think you are referring to this Terminal command that reindexes Spotlight. But that gets you the same end result as the Spotlight reindex procedure iA724 posted above. You are just doing it through Terminal as opposed to the GUI.
Code:
sudo mdutil -E /Didn't even know you could do it through terminal, although my way is easier to remember, and is the way Apple will tell you to do it
If you want to see what's consuming your space, download the free app called "DiskWave":
https://diskwave.barthe.ph
Then, just launch it, and you'll see what to do next.
TIP: Set the prefs so that it shows you "invisible" as well as visible files.
https://diskwave.barthe.ph
Then, just launch it, and you'll see what to do next.
TIP: Set the prefs so that it shows you "invisible" as well as visible files.