what is classed as 'other' on lion about this mac storage?

[Too late to edit: a while later 'About this Mac' does show the non-Other stuff:

That doesn't change anything substantial, but eliminates a potential distraction.]

IgnacioAzpiazu wrote:

[Too late to edit: a while later 'About this Mac' does show the non-Other stuff:

Most likely, the earlier post was before Spotlight had finished indexing the drive.

That doesn't change anything substantial, but eliminates a potential distraction.

Try the things in Where did my Disk Space go?

Thanks very much. After wasting about a day trying everything I ended purchasing WhatSize, and that showed a 386Gb .DocumentRevisions-V100 folder.

Coming from SnowLeopard I was not aware of this wonderful space-eating feature. I am reading a bit on this and it seems there is no Preference setting or anything of the kind to just disable it or get it to clean up after each session --if there is, please do let me know. Meanwhile I guess I'll just have to delete the whole folder every few days.

Thanks very much again.

There must be something wrong, either with your installation of OSX or an app that uses Auto Save and Versions.

That folder shouldn't get anywhere near that large -- most documents are in the dozens to hundreds of MBs range; and the Versions database contains only the changed "chunks" from previous versions -- not whole duplicate files.

Unfortunately, there's no facility to examine its contents -- such as a list of the files it has changes for, much less the space used by each one. And the way it's structured, it would apparently be very difficult for a 3rd-party developer to write such an app.

Keep an eye on it; see if you can associate exponential growth with a particular app that supports AutoSave and Versions, especially a 3rd-party app (if there were such a problem with the Apple apps that use it, surely that would have surfaced by now).

As you probably know, you can delete all old versions of a particular file via the Versions browser (click the title bar, select Browse all versions..., then hold Alt/Option while clicking the title bar of any version on the right), but that gets rather tedious if you have a lot of documents.

Tony, you're the man!! OmniDiskSweeper gives me the level of detail on my mac that I used to have on my PC. Hurray!

I keep my MBP running Lion pretty clean and lean with only files and programs that I need and use. Having said that, I had a 160 GB HD that had around 100 GB of "Other" that I just couldn't figure out what it was. I tried several different things over months and months and was finally able to figure out how to free up about 90% of that "Other". I went to the disk utility, selected the Macintosh HD and executed the "Verify Disk" function. It only took ~5 minutes to do and it said my disk needed to be repaired by restarting the computer and holding down the command and R key at the same time when the apple logo appears. This brought up a menu which would allow me to access the Disk Utility again and then perform the "Repair Disk" function. This again only took a few minutes and I was able to free up about 90 GB once I restarted the MBP after the Repair disk was complete. This helped me a ton.

I have been deleting a 60 to 100 Gb DocumentRevisions-V100 daily, or twice a day, without any clue about what the problem was. Today I noticed something weird: Time Machine is backing up to an external drive, but as it does its hourly backup (and nothing else is going on) the *internal* drive's available space is shrinking before my eyes too. That is not the way it should be, right?

IgnacioAzpiazu wrote:

I have been deleting a 60 to 100 Gb DocumentRevisions-V100 daily, or twice a day, without any clue about what the problem was.

Something is terribly wrong. 😟 On rare occasions, that folder does get corrupted and has to be deleted, but this is more extreme than anything I've seen posted. All I can think of is, some app has gone completely crazy.

If you haven't yet, Verify your internal HD, per #6 in Using Disk Utility to be sure it isn't some sort of directory problem.

I see by some of your other posts that you use the iBooks Author app -- if it supports AutoSave and Versions, and you're a heavy user, that might be something to investigate. But it could be another Apple or 3rd-party app, or something else entirely. If you're near an AppleStore, you might want to let the Genius Bar have a look.

Today I noticed something weird: Time Machine is backing up to an external drive, but as it does its hourly backup (and nothing else is going on) the *internal* drive's available space is shrinking before my eyes too. That is not the way it should be, right?

Since you have a laptop, Time Machine will make "Local Snapshots" on your internal HD, as long as Time Machine is ON and your internal HD is less than 80% full. Unlike the backups to an external HD, though, they aren't extra copies. Rather, when you delete something, it isn't really deleted immediately, but moved into a hidden folder so you have access to it when your Time Machine drive isn't available. After 24 hours, the snapshots are consolidated into one per day, then deleted after a week (or sooner if the disk gets over 80% full).

Note that the space taken up by the snapshots is not deducted from the available space shown by the Finder (since OSX will delete them as/if needed). See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #30 for the gory details.

Also note that Time Machine does not back up the Versions database.

So the shrinking space is probably due to whatever's wrong with your Versions database, not Time Machine.

I just used Chris CA's advice (https://discussions.apple.com///thread/3686893?start=0&tstart=0) to move all my movie files in iTunes from my internal drive to an external hard drive, My hard disk used to have 90GB of movie files. I have deleted the oroginal files from the internal drive and emptied trash, and now ther is ~90GBs of "other" instead... I guess Im gonna try repairing the disk to see if I can free up this space.

If that doesn't help, see Where did my Disk Space go?

I have looked through this thread, as well as a few others and am still at a bit of a loss. I have just purchased (2 days ago) a new MB Air and used Setup Assistant to migrate from my older MB Pro:

Both systems are running Mountain Lion and everything seems fine excpet the available disk space on the Air. I realize that this thread is for OS X 10.7, but the collection of knowledge here seems like I might find help.

Specifically, both systems have 500 GB HDs (SATA on the MB Pro and SSD on the MB Air). The MB Pro shows 257.93 GB of avaialble storage using 'Finder', 'Get Info' and 'About this Mac -> Storage' while the Air shows only 162.69 GB free. In addition, the 'Other' category on the MB Pro shows 105.15 GB while the Air shows 258.05 GB. Also, prior to migration (using Setup Assistant) I created a disk image of my old MB Pro system which is 210.23 GB in total.

Using Omni Disk Sweeper as well as 'Get Info' on the major folders in my system imply that there are some hidden files accounting for space on the HD, likely making up a good chunk of the Other category.

I have turned TM off, restarted, verified the disk, looked at the local backups (~6 GB), etc but can't wrap my head around where the additional ~100 GB of space is located. Not sure if this has something to do with the SSD vs SATA drive. Any insight into this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Best,

Adam

scinergistic wrote:

. . .

Using Omni Disk Sweeper as well as 'Get Info' on the major folders in my system imply that there are some hidden files accounting for space on the HD, likely making up a good chunk of the Other category.

As noted in the link above, those normally don't show hidden items, or items you're not authorized to see.

Also note that the categories are assigned by Spotlight; if OSX isn't done indexing your internal HD, or it's excluded, the total will be correct but some (or many) things may be in the wrong category.

I have turned TM off, restarted, verified the disk, looked at the local backups (~6 GB),

Your screenshot shows no local backups.

can't wrap my head around where the additional ~100 GB of space is located. Not sure if this has something to do with the SSD vs SATA drive. Any insight into this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Work your way throught the items in Where did my Disk Space go? If you don't find it, see the green box there -- that will show how to see any large hidden items.

Thanks. WhatSize revealed 127 GB in .DocumentRevisions-v100. They are mostly KeyNote and Adobe CS auto-saves. Can these be removed safely and is this a common occurrence? I know that post-Lion the auto-save functions are running in the bkgd and I do work with large Keynote files using embedded video etc. Any info is apprecitated as this seems to be the culprit. Either way, thanks!

scinergistic wrote:

. . .

WhatSize revealed 127 GB in .DocumentRevisions-v100.

That's enormous!

They are mostly KeyNote and Adobe CS auto-saves.

Apple claims that auto-saved versions are "pruned" down to one per day, then one per week, then one per month, but that doesn't apply to versions you saved yourself, including when closing a document. And I'm not sure the autosaves are really getting pruned anyway.

Can these be removed safely

Yes. All you'll lose are the old Versions -- the actual file contains the current version of the document. The Versions database contains the previous version of changes -- not a whole previous copy, but only the changed "chunks" of the file.

But it's either all (delete the entire folder) or document-by-document (and there's no list of what documents are involved or how much space their versions are using).

Call the document up for editing, click the name in the title bar and choose Browse All Versions. Then option-click in the title bar of a version on the right side of the browser and choose Delete Old Versions. (If you just click, you get an option to delete that particular version.)

and is this a common occurrence?

For the database to be that large, yes. It may very well be damaged; if so, the only known way to fix it is to delete the entire folder.

I do work with large Keynote files using embedded video etc.

That might explain why so much space is used, if you've edited the videos via Keynote after placing them in the document. Normally, the changed "chunks" aren't large, but with image or video files, that might get big, as there's no real info on just how it actually works.

If you know of a few such files, you might want to delete those old versions and see how much space you regain. If it isn't much, you may want to delete the whole folder (OSX will re-create it the next time you save a version, or when one is autosaved).

Thanks a lot. I decided to simply get rid of the folder as I have sufficient backups, disk images, etc on external storage. Everything seems to be fine after restart, the folder was re-created and I recovered over 100 GB of space.