Main User Folder Contains Radically More Data Than Sub-folders Inside It

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Main User Folder Contains Radically More Data Than Sub-folders Inside It

I am running OS 11.7.10 (Big Sur) on a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), w/a 1Tb internal hard drive. Despite a great effort at back-ups and keeping at least 100 Gb of storage clear at all times, I recently got warnings about insufficient HD space. I found that my internal drive was down to 12GB even though I hadn't saved or downloaded (intentionally) any large files since my last cleanup.

In doing a "Get Info" review of all my top-level folders, my main user folder shows 875 GB of data on disk. All the sub-folders within it add-up to (at most) 350 GB of data. Where is the other 525 GB? How can I access that to see what can be removed?

I was able to un-hide a large number of folders w/in the main user folder using Command/Shift/Period, and found that a hidden "Library" folder accounted for another 708GB. The inability to smartly and directly manage file data on this drive is maddening, especially when 75+ GB seems to suddenly disappear and cause my apps to crash. Please provide any advice on how to manage what's in this crazy big library folder, that is filling 70% of my hard drive. Thanks! - Joseph

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Sep 30, 2023 7:58 PM

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Answer 1

Joseph_DC Author

Level 1

16 points

Sep 30, 2023 9:06 PM in response to Joseph_DC

Update: One folder titled "Application Support" in this hidden library folder contains 218.76GB of data, with dozens & dozens of folders and almost 22,000 items within them. Many of these folders are empty, but a folder like "Adobe" has 2.96GB of data spread across 68 sub-folders, including 'support' data for old versions or obsolete software long since deleted from the Applications folder. Obviously I'm now suffering from multiple transfers to new Macs with these useless remnants of data building up over time. The notion of parsing all of it item-by-item seems insane and fraught with the potential to delete a critical file. How do I retrieve this huge % of lost data capacity with some kind of precision & efficiency? Thanks for any recommendations!!

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Answer 2

Apr 13, 2024 11:02 AM in response to Joseph_DC

I am in the same boat now. In my case, the User folder has about 5 GB in it, but Get Info on it reveals a whopping 700GB is being consumed. Did you ever figure out a way out of this mess?

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Main User Folder Contains Radically More Data Than Sub-folders Inside It

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