Why is this file so big, and what does it do?

[crisss1205]

Recently I have been getting the 'Low Space on Startup Disk" error and see that out of 297GB I gave zero KB left!. After downloading Disk Inventory X I saw that there is a folder in my (Macintosh HD > Library > Logs) named Google and it is 128GB!!! What does this folder do and why is it so big?

 

[motulist]

Recently I have been getting the 'Low Space on Startup Disk" error and see that out of 297GB I gave zero KB left!. After downloading Disk Inventory X I saw that there is a folder in my (Macintosh HD > Library > Logs) named Google and it is 128GB!!! What does this folder do and why is it so big?

That's a definite mistake, it shouldn't be more than a few MB at most. I'm almost 100% certain that you can just delete it with no problem - but I won't give you a guarantee. But honestly, I'm almost 100% certain you can just delete it.

 

[r.j.s]

It's a runaway log file and should be fine to delete.

 

[crisss1205]

That's a definite mistake, it shouldn't be more than a few MB at most. I'm almost 100% certain that you can just delete it with no problem - but I won't give you a guarantee. But honestly, I'm almost 100% certain you can just delete it.

I did delete it and everything works fine, but in the finder after deleting it it went form 4.38 GB of free space on my Macintosh HD to 126 GB free! I still don't understand why it was so big.
Is Google using my computer as a server? lol

 

[motulist]

I did delete it and everything works fine, but in the finder after deleting it it went form 4.38 GB of free space on my Macintosh HD to 126 GB free! I still don't understand why it was so big.
Is Google using my computer as a server? lol

Sometimes when a program has a problem it messes up and starts endlessly writing the same thing over and over into a log file. If you cared to see which was the offending program that caused the problem then you could open the log file and see which program was writing all that junk. The log file is human-readable, so it'd be easy to spot.

 

[crisss1205]

Sometimes when a program has a problem it messes up and starts endlessly writing the same thing over and over into a log file. If you cared to see which was the offending program that caused the problem then you could open the log file and see which program was writing all that junk. The log file is human-readable, so it'd be easy to spot.

The file has been recreated and now is 1.2 GB.

 

[JediMeister]

Do you have Google Desktop or Google Earth installed?

 

[crisss1205]

Do you have Google Desktop or Google Earth installed?

Only Google Earth but I haven't used it in a long time on this computer.

 

[surflordca]

Only Google Earth but I haven't used it in a long time on this computer.

It doesn't matter if you used it in a long time or not. First it takes up space just installing it and second everything you looked at with it is still likely on the HDD.

 

[JNB]

I'm not sure Google Earth is the issue. Have you opened any of the logs to see what's referenced? Are you using any other Google services online? Do you have a browser home page using any Google gadgets? Have you checked the Login Items in your user account?

 

[Sambo110]

Thanks guys. Just downloaded that program and found 15 gigs of Steam files, from the one time I used Crossover. Now I nearly have 100 gigs again. Yay.

 

[Tesselator]

It doesn't matter if you used it in a long time or not. First it takes up space just installing it and second everything you looked at with it is still likely on the HDD.

It has a max cache size. You can't set it above 2GB and unless there's a bug or you have no RAM, it will not use more than 2GB of disk space - besides the installation and a few files of settings of course.

 

[Makosuke]

Do you have the latest version of Google Earth? I'm pretty sure it installs a background update process that runs all the time whether Google Earth is running or not.

That would be the most likely source of a runaway log file like that.

If you do have the latest version of Google Earth installed you might try uninstalling it and its updater (not sure how the updater is removed) and see if the runaway log stops growing. If so, that explains it.

One way or the other you're going to have to figure out what's causing it eventually, otherwise it's just going to grow in the background and re-fill your hard drive no matter how many times you delete it.