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Where are my gigabytes?

J

jmschuaquico

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 15, 2014
8
0
I have 500GB SSD in my Macbook Air and I'm running out of free space. But I'm pretty sure that my files are less than 200GB. I'm wondering where all the 300+GB went?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4cuxd2ut2yq7be0/Screenshot%202014-03-15%2011.25.12.png

I tried looking up the size of the folders of Macintosh HD.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7l45inbjpfppk60/Screenshot%202014-03-15%2011.23.58.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/52iwejjo172lvro/Screenshot%202014-03-15%2011.24.35.png

Any idea guys? Thank you so much!
 
You won't see all files that take space in your system unless you do that as a root user.
I suspect that you will find out that most of your space is taken up by Time Machine local backups.
 
DeltaMac said:
You won't see all files that take space in your system unless you do that as a root user.
I suspect that you will find out that most of your space is taken up by Time Machine local backups.
Click to expand...

How do we check and remove those backups?
 
If the space is used by local time machine backups, then you should connect your external drive that you already have setup for time machine backups. The local backups should transfer over, and the space that they take on your hard drive should be released.
 
DeltaMac said:
If the space is used by local time machine backups, then you should connect your external drive that you already have setup for time machine backups. The local backups should transfer over, and the space that they take on your hard drive should be released.
Click to expand...

I checked Time Machine in System Preferences. It is turned off.

----------

I ran OmniDiskSweeper: http://download.cnet.com/OmniDiskSweeper/3000-18512_4-6226.html

and got this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9pooc1kj1ree5ax/Screenshot%202014-03-15%2017.09.38.png

Still can't find the missing ~300GB. :(
 
jmschuaquico said:
I checked Time Machine in System Preferences. It is turned off.
...
I ran OmniDiskSweeper:
and got this:
...
Still can't find the missing ~300GB. :(
Click to expand...

If you have set up time machine, then it probably doesn't matter that it is "turned off"
If you don't use T.M., and you don't ever use it for backups, then you still have the same issue with OmniDiskSweeper: It won't show you files that you don't have access to - permissions don't allow you to see every file on your hard drive.
However you can launch OmniDiskSweeper using sudo, from the terminal - or you can log in to the root user, and then you have access to everything (and all those "missing" files will show up in OmniDiskSweeper, or another file size app.
You can go to your root account, remove the files that are taking up space.
Here's info about enabling the root user: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14281

Come back here if you have any question about what is safe to remove.
Be sure to empty the trash as a last step.
Then, most important, log back in to your normal account, and disable the root user as soon as you are finished with the cleanup tasks.
 
I did enable Root User via System Preferences and ran OmniDiskSweeper (not via terminal).

Gives me the same thing.
 
jmschuaquico said:
No. Haha. Ok, will try that! Thanks!
Click to expand...

Code: 
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

Open Terminal and run the command above and that will give you a list of all the base folders and a number to left in GB showing space used. Post the output of the command here and we can help you out.

Or, if you prefer to use OmniDS, you can enter the command below in Terminal and that will allow OmniDS to run as root and show the hidden files we are after. No need to make a root account.

Code: 
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
 
Use the solutions which Weaselboy posted vs going thru the "login as root" - much simpler and you'll get the answer you're looking for.
 
Yey! I finally found it! I used OmniDS with sudo access and pointed me out to a deleted User's folder. Apparently, the files of that user aren't deleted. So, I deleted them and got my missing disk space! :D

Thank you, guys! You're the best!
 
jmschuaquico said:
Thank you for your replies, guys.

This is what I got:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zgsf9ssm5tb8kkl/Screenshot%202014-03-16%2008.11.14.png
Click to expand...

Okay... you have something odd going on in /Users. Your earlier (post #1) screenshot of /Users from Finder's info screen shows /Users at 162GB and Terminal is showing 410GB.

Is yours the only user account?

Run this command in Terminal, and it will show all your user account folders (like Music and Pictures) along with folder size. Post up the output here.

Code: 
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g ~/

Once you see the biggie in there, if you want you can then run a variation of the Terminal command to drill down a bit further to find the problem.

For example, this one would show you folder sizes in your user Music folder.

Code: 
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g ~/Music

Also, just for good measure here, do a command-r boot to recovery and use Disk Util to run a repair disk and tell us if that shows any errors.

----------
jmschuaquico said:
Yey! I finally found it! I used OmniDS with sudo access and pointed me out to a deleted User's folder. Apparently, the files of that user aren't deleted. So, I deleted them and got my missing disk space! :D

Thank you, guys! You're the best!
Click to expand...

Yay! Glad it worked out. :)
 
jmschuaquico said:
Yey! I finally found it!
Click to expand...

headbanger.gif
 
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