Where is my disk space going?

[bobtrotter]

Hey, I am pretty new to the Mac world. Just purchased my first macbook air. As of today I suddenly lost about 8GB in hard disk space. Trying to figure out where it went. I have checked the About This Mac / Disk Space and everything is as it seems. I have also noticed that the "Other" section has increased from 8GB to 20GB in the last few weeks. Is this normal? I haven't downloaded any new apps and haven't really been downloading any media files. Just a bit of web browsing and coding in Xcode (also checked these files). Just wondering how I could of suddenly lost 8GB in space! Hope someone can help.

 

[maflynn]

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

Another option which is more comprehensive 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

If you're using Time Machine, then some of the space is taken up by local snapshots, i.e., backups on your drive and not an external drive.

 

[bobtrotter]

Hey, just did that now. Doesn't seem to be anything old but I have just lost another 3/4gb in disk space in the last few minutes! The other folder has also gone from 20gb to 23gb! Seem like my space is being drained.

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Space is definitely being lost to "Other", not sure why though. At this rate I'll be out of space by next week.

 

[chrfr]

Hey, just did that now. Doesn't seem to be anything old but I have just lost another 3/4gb in disk space in the last few minutes! The other folder has also gone from 20gb to 23gb! Seem like my space is being drained.

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Space is definitely being lost to "Other", not sure why though. At this rate I'll be out of space by next week.

What was the output of the command in the post above yours? That will give you the detail to find where your space is going.

 

[bobtrotter]

This was it


1 /.DocumentRevisions-V100
1 /.fseventsd
0 /.PKInstallSandboxManager
1 /.Spotlight-V100
0 /.Trashes
0 /.vol
10 /Applications
1 /bin
0 /cores
1 /dev
1 /home
4 /Library
1 /net
0 /Network
15 /private
1 /sbin
5 /System
14 /Users
1 /usr
1 /Volumes
47 /
47 total

 

[bobtrotter]

Fixed it! It was APP/OSx downloads waiting to be installed. Installed them, rebooted and vollia! 13GB back. Thanks for your help, found the problem with omni disk sweeper.

 

[motrek]

Fixed it! It was APP/OSx downloads waiting to be installed. Installed them, rebooted and vollia! 13GB back. Thanks for your help, found the problem with omni disk sweeper.

I also like a program called "Disk Inventory X". It's shareware and does a good job letting you drill down into what's taking up space.