Is Inventory X safe from my iMac?

My iMac has been runing slower and slower and slower for the past few months. I have a 500 gig drive and have gonce from using around 360-380Gig (when the slowing began) to about 420 gig currently. I'd like to clean up my hard drive (to see if this helps) but I'm not sure where to begine. I noticed Inverntory X on CNET and wondered if anyone has used it and/or if it is safe.

PS First post here so take it easy on me!

Thanks

Bob

iMac (21.5-inch Late 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Dec 21, 2013 4:43 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 21, 2013 6:50 PM

First, never download anything from CNET.


Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:

iPhoto Empty Trash


Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.

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.


If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.

Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.


Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination 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 to be careful. 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, sorted by size with the largest at the top. It may take a few minutes for ODS to finish scanning your 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.

4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 21, 2013 6:50 PM in response to Trebor Renkluaf

First, never download anything from CNET.


Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:

iPhoto Empty Trash


Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.

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.


If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.

Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.


Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination 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 to be careful. 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, sorted by size with the largest at the top. It may take a few minutes for ODS to finish scanning your 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.

Dec 22, 2013 11:07 AM in response to Trebor Renkluaf

Disk Inventory X works quite well on Macs and I have had it installed on almost every Mac I have owned. It gives you a graphical display of what is taking the space up on your hard drive. On more than one occasion it has helped me track down a large iMovie, iDVD project or other large video files I thought were deleted. If you don't know what the file is, don't delete it till you do.


It is best to go to the devlopers site to download a copy. http://www.derlien.com/index.html

Dec 21, 2013 8:32 PM in response to Trebor Renkluaf

I added memory - went from 4 gig to 16 gig and that helped quite a bit. When I look in activity monitor now I have more free memory than any other type, quite a bitr more actually (that was not the case before) and no page outs or swap file usage. It still doesn't seem quite as fast as when she was new, but it's much much better than it was. I think next will be a hard drive upgrade and/or solid state boot drive.

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Is Inventory X safe from my iMac?

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