Frankie Grimes

Q: Trouble Cleaning up Hard Drive on MacBookPro

Hello,

  I have a MacBookPro with Yosemite. 320 Gig HD, 4 Gigs of Memory.

  Had only 4 Gigs of Storage left, so I deleted many videos, and moved many other to Dropbox.

  But, now system indicates that I have about 300 MBs left of Storage.

I deleted all the videos from iPhoto after moving them to Dropbox.

  Emptied Trash and Restarted computer. Twice.

 

Help, please,

 

fg

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Oct 1, 2016 10:52 AM

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Q: Trouble Cleaning up Hard Drive on MacBookPro

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Frankie Grimes,

    Frankie Grimes Frankie Grimes Oct 1, 2016 11:24 AM in response to CMCSK
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 1, 2016 11:24 AM in response to CMCSK

    Thanks for the effort, but all of this is way over my head.

  • by Esquared,

    Esquared Esquared Oct 1, 2016 11:30 AM in response to Frankie Grimes
    Level 6 (8,518 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 1, 2016 11:30 AM in response to Frankie Grimes

    Unless you make use of the Selective Sync option in Dropbox, all files will remain on your hard disk.

     

    This is what I mean: https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/175

  • by CMCSK,

    CMCSK CMCSK Oct 1, 2016 11:37 AM in response to Frankie Grimes
    Level 6 (10,870 points)
    Oct 1, 2016 11:37 AM in response to Frankie Grimes

    Check your Downloads folder for movies & videos that you may have overlooked.

     

    Download OmniDiskSweeper or WhatSize from the links I provided.  These utilities will show you where on your hard drive the large files are located.

     

    Manually checking hard drive -

    Open up your application folder & go through all your apps.  Trash all the apps you no longer want and/or use.

    An easier way to do this is to open the Application folder in list view & press the [b]Command+j[/b] keys.

    In the the dialog that appears, click the "This Window Only" button & the "Calculate All Sizes" check box. Wait a bit until your file & folder sizes have all been calculated, then click the "Size"column to sort your apps from the fattest to the most anorexic.

     

    Get rid of all your photo files you don't want and/or need.  Same goes for those pics off the websites you downloaded (gifs, jpegs, etc.).

     

    Get rid of all your music files you no longer listen too.  Especially, if you already have the actual CDs and/or DVDs or you can later redownload from a website.

     

    Use Spotlight to make sure you got rid of everything.  You can even trash directly from Spotlight!

    Drag what you don't want and/or need to the trash.  Better yet, download this neat little shareware app *demo* called AppZapper.  It basically does all the work for you by not only trashing the apps but the apps preference files, caches & all its associated files.

    Another software that does the above is AppDelete.  Best of all this software is *free*!

     

    Burn what you want and/or need onto CDs or DVDs.

    Not everyone has the  luxury of purchasing an external HD to store their "stuff, junk, music & photos".

    You can check with your ISP to see if they offer *free* storage space.  Most if not all do now-a-days.  I store all 5000+ of my music & 500+ music videos in my ISP storage bin. There are thousands if not millions of *free* storage facilities on the web also.  Use your favorite search engine, to search them out as they come in different storage sizes to fit your needs & wants.


    Check for duplicate fonts.

    Applications>Font Book

    Select “All Fonts”

    If you see any “black dots” next to any fonts this mean you have duplicates and/or multiple versions of these fonts.

    To clean this up, select a “black dotted” font or the Apple + *click* to select multiple dotted fonts;

    Edit>Resolve>Duplicates.

    What the above does is turns offthe duplicates & multiple version fonts.  Not delete them.

    More than likely the “extras” were installed by other programs and/or other users.


    Clear out font caches

    Use FontNuke.  It does all the work for you.  And, best of all it’s *FREE*.

    Printer Drivers

    Get rid of all the printer drivers you don’t need & use except the ones for your *current* printer(s)/scanner(s).

    HD>Library>Printers Folder

    If you accidentally threw something out that you needed for your printer/scanner it can be easily obtained from the manufacturer’s website and/or from the CD that came w/the printer/scanner.


    Garage Band

    Has about 1GB of loops stored.  Get rid of some some them.  You surely don’t use, like and/or need them all.

    HD>Library>Audio/Apple Loops>Apple>Apple Loops For GarageBand

    Or just get rid of the Garage Band app altogether if you don’t use it.


    Get rid of extra languages

    Strip your computer down to your “native” tongue. You can do this with a *FREE* utility called Monolingual.  Another app that apparently does all the work for you.  I’ve never used it.  However, a lot of users here swear by & recommend it highly. However, there is a warning for *native English speakers*.  Make sure you keep BOTHEnglish and English (United States).

     

    Credit goes to BabyBoomer for the above.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  • by callaway,

    callaway callaway Oct 1, 2016 11:50 AM in response to Frankie Grimes
    Level 1 (57 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 1, 2016 11:50 AM in response to Frankie Grimes

    Check your Dropbox folder.  If the files are listed there, they are still on your HDD.  Go to your Dropbox settings and uncheck all folders in "Selective Sync".  This will remove the files from your HDD, but they will stay online in Dropbox.

  • by Frankie Grimes,

    Frankie Grimes Frankie Grimes Oct 1, 2016 12:23 PM in response to Esquared
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 1, 2016 12:23 PM in response to Esquared

    Thanks for simplifying. I must learn to use Dropbox properly. I do not understand why after deleting so many video clips from iPhoto I did not clear space from the HD, though. What helped was going to iTunes and deleting a bunch of videos from there, which got me 22 Gigs of space, so I am good to take this old machine on the road for work (TV Producer).

        I only had 7.7 gig of material in Dropbox, so I just moved it to an external HD, and deleted the files from my MacBookPro.

      Thanks again for your patience. Now I will get to that Dropbox link you sent.

     

        Best to you.