the "other" storage is now at 42% of my hard disk space. i've tried removing applications, etc and I just cant seem to get the "other" storage down. if i restore my mac, and then restore the necessary items from my back-up disk, will that clear the "other" storage a bit?
any other suggestions?
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4)
First, empty the Trash if you haven't already done so.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.
First, empty the Trash if you haven't already done so.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.
Before removing anything, peruse Pondiini's The Storage Display and ensure you know what's stored in Other.
thank you both for the replies. i'll look more into the pondini.org site further. so far, ive removed more applications from itunes and that's given back more "other" storage. but, since i've deleted some apps, the "backups" space on my hard disk has increased from: 3.41GB to now 54.88GB. can i safely remove the local backup? i already have an external drive w/ several time machine backups.
Local backups should be removed dynamically as space is demanded for other tasks. You can clear them by disabling Time Machine and then re-enabling it, but they will grow again over time.
You can use a tool like DaisyDisk (http://www.daisydiskapp.com) or GrandPerspective (http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net) to see a graphical representation of the space used on your drive, and hopefully narrow down a file or folder that is taking up the most space.
AFAIK, local backups (snapshots) should be disabled for a desktop machine, such as your iMac. I don't use TM, preferring bootable clones, so I might be mistaken.
Thank you for DaisyDisk. Awesome application, and its nice you can run as admin so you can easily delete and find files. I was able to remove the 80GB of local back-up with ease. now, I'm happy again. 🙂
i'm not sure, but i think its a ML thing when using TM. it automacically creates a local backup if using TM.
Great! These graphical approaches really do make identifying drive use easier.
Started with Lion and is only automatic with portables. See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878 for details.
rion_j wrote:
. . .
I was able to remove the 80GB of local back-up with ease. now, I'm happy again. 🙂
You really should have read the link.
Local Snapshots are "expendable" -- they're deleted automatically after a week, or if your HD gets over 80% full.
All deleting them does is insure if you have a problem with a file, etc., while your external backups aren't available, you won't be able to recover an earlier version.
Thank you for DaisyDisk. Awesome application, and its nice you can run as admin so you can easily delete and find files. I was able to remove the 80GB of local back-up with ease.
The awesome application caused you to destroy a lot of data for no reason at all.
The utility and importance of the backups is entirely up to you, even if they can be managed by other system processes. Should you choose to remove them (for whatever reason) then that's your prerogative, regardless of what others might think.
Hi Linc,
THis is a bit of an aside but since you have made a statement that both attracted my attention and proves to be wrong in my case, I would like to ask you what I should make of the following.
You state: "If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator." which I would normally think is right but....After doing an fresh install of Mt. Lion to 10.8.2 with a migration of user data and other setting from a seperate disk, I am getting the "is not in the sudoers file..." error message for admin users in the terminal. For all sudo commands.... Confused I went and created a new admin user and tried again....same.... I went ahead and software updated to 10.8.4 with all other updates and then back to the terminal. Same things..... I then typed this at the terminal
cat /etc/sudoers
and nothing happened ....odd.... so then
la -lsaG /etc/sudoers
and the sudoers file size is 0 ( zero ) .... odd ....
so then
;a -lsaG /etc/
and I notice lots of critical security related files are empty - 0 bytes - nothing in them....
Thinking *** and have I been hacked and how can a fresh install well protected from the interest be hacked allready.
So, what would you think of a /etc/ that had a lot of empty files - passwd, sudoers, etc.
Thanx for taking a look....
-bash-3.2$ ls -lsaG /Volumes/MtLion_10.8.2/etc/
total 1456
0 drwxr-xr-x 113 root wheel 3842 Jun 15 20:57 .
0 drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root wheel 204 Jun 15 19:35 ..
8 -rw------- 1 root wheel 24 Jun 15 15:56 AFP.conf
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 7 May 31 2012 RemoteManagement.launchd
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:28 afpovertcp.cfg
8 lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 15 Jul 7 17:54 aliases -> postfix/aliases
0 -rw-r----- 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 aliases.db
0 drwxr-xr-x 10 root wheel 340 Jun 15 19:41 apache2
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 asl.conf
744 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 379235 Jun 15 19:44 authorization
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:56 authorization.merge
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 auto_home
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Feb 26 2010 auto_master
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 auto_master~orig
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 autofs.conf
0 -r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 bashrc
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 bind.keys
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1033 Feb 1 2010 com.apple.named.conf.proxy
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:51 com.apple.screensharing.agent.launchd
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 csh.cshrc
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 csh.login
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 csh.logout
0 drwxr-xr-x 10 root _lp 340 Jun 15 19:45 cups
0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 20 2012 defaults
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 dnsextd.conf
0 -rw-rw-r-- 1 root operator 0 Mar 3 2008 dumpdates
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 efax.rc
0 drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Jun 20 2012 emond.d
0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Aug 16 2012 find.codes
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 fstab.hd
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 ftpd.conf
0 -r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 ftpd.conf.default
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:28 ftpusers
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 gettytab
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 group
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Apr 12 2012 group~previous
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 202 Sep 22 2009 hostconfig
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 hostconfig~orig
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 hosts
0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Aug 16 2012 hosts.equiv
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 ip6addrctl.conf
0 -r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 irbrc
0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Aug 16 2012 kern_loader.conf
8 -rw------- 1 root wheel 1319 Feb 27 2008 krb5.keytab
8 lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 39 Jul 7 17:54 localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Los_Angeles
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 locate.rc
0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 68 Aug 16 2012 mach_init.d
0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 68 Aug 16 2012 mach_init_per_login_session.d
0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 68 Aug 16 2012 mach_init_per_user.d
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 mail.rc
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 man.conf
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 manpaths
0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 68 Aug 16 2012 manpaths.d
0 -rw------- 1 root wheel 0 Apr 12 2012 master.passwd
0 -rw------- 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 master.passwd~orig
16 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 moduli
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:28 named.conf
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 nanorc
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 networks
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 newsyslog.conf
0 drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jun 15 19:31 newsyslog.d
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 nfs.conf
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:24 notify.conf
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 ntp-restrict.conf
8 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 23 Dec 18 2012 ntp.conf
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 ntp_opendirectory.conf
0 drwxr-xr-x 10 root wheel 340 Jun 15 19:30 openldap
0 drwxr-xr-x 17 root wheel 578 Jun 15 19:29 pam.d
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Apr 12 2012 passwd
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 passwd~orig
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 paths
0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 68 Aug 16 2012 paths.d
0 drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 Jun 20 2012 periodic
0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 20 2012 pf.anchors
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 pf.conf
24 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 pf.os
16 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 php-fpm.conf.default
48 -r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 php.ini.default
48 -r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Apr 12 2012 php.ini.default-5.2-previous
48 -r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Dec 15 2010 php.ini.default-5.2-previous~orig
0 drwxr-xr-x 24 root wheel 816 Jun 15 19:41 postfix
0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 68 Aug 25 2012 ppp
0 -r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:30 profile
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 protocols
0 drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Jun 15 19:31 racoon
0 drwxr-xr-x 30 root wheel 1020 Jun 20 2012 raddb
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 rc.common
0 -r-xr-xr-x@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 rc.imaging
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:29 rc.netboot
8 lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 22 Jul 7 17:54 resolv.conf -> ../var/run/resolv.conf
0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Aug 16 2012 rmtab
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 rpc
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 rtadvd.conf
0 drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 238 Jun 20 2012 security
376 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 services
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 shells
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 2974 Apr 29 2011 smb.conf
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 2954 Apr 29 2011 smb.conf.old
0 drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 136 Jun 20 2012 snmp
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 ssh_config
8 -rw------- 1 root wheel 668 May 22 2008 ssh_host_dsa_key
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 590 May 22 2008 ssh_host_dsa_key.pub
8 -rw------- 1 root wheel 963 May 22 2008 ssh_host_key
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 627 May 22 2008 ssh_host_key.pub
8 -rw------- 1 root wheel 1675 May 22 2008 ssh_host_rsa_key
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 382 May 22 2008 ssh_host_rsa_key.pub
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Apr 12 2012 sshd_config
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 sshd_config~orig
0 -r--r----- 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 sudoers
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 syslog.conf
0 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:15 ttys
0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Aug 16 2012 xtab
0 -r--r--r--@ 1 root wheel 0 Jun 15 19:31 zshenv
-bash-3.2$
Do you recommend a restore?
