Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
My 500G Mac is suddenly almost full. I checked and it has 250G of other! I don't know what this is or how to find out. I need to delete some stuff but don't know how to go about it, especially since over half of the storage is taken up by something unknown. I ran disk permissions and repairs. I did Clean My Mac. But I am down to only about 14G and it is running very slowly. Suggestions?
iMac Intel, Mac OS X (10.5.7)
So I've talked with three different Apple tech support people. Twice they were supposed to call me back and didn't. So far have only eliminated a little bit of stuff. I did go through the Apps backup and deleted about 20G. But that still leaves over 200 in "other." They keep telling me to do the same things, like repair permissions etc, which I did before even calling. I reinstalled the OS. Then they had me use Disc Utility to put the hard drive into privacy and then take it back out. This evidently starts it indexing, which the guy thought would result in a lot more free space. I actually had a gig or two less. 😐 So now the latest person wants me to erase the free space. This evidently just erases what would be retrievable by someone with special equipment should something get deleted accidentally. Evidently now it is covered with zeros or something. This made me a bit nervous to do and I haven't done it yet. Has anyone here done this? Did it give you a lot of space back? I guess I can try some of the other suggestions made here. I just thought that since I'm still paying for Apple Care I shoudl use it.
Oh, just found the large files as suggested by Linc and got rid of 40G! Getting there!
I Haven't included this because we were trying to deal with a specific idea of where the used space went, but I am going to add this now in case there is places you haven' checked where data can be emptied or deleted.
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Other things you can do to gain space.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive older emails you want to save.
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Uninstall apps that you no longer use. If the app has a dedicated uninstaller, use it to completely uninstall the app. If the app has no uninstaller, then just drag it to the OS X Trash icon and empty the Trash.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its thing initially, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run all of the processes in the tabs. Let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be thinned out or deleted.
Good Luck!
250 G of "other!"
