Hard Drive nearly full, but can't see why.

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Level 2

153 points

Hard Drive nearly full, but can't see why.

Hi there,

I've got a 2009 iMac (4Gb RAM, 500Gb HDD) running 10.8.5. I got a Finder warning about the Hard drive space this morning saying I only had 400Mb left. Which is very strange, because most working files are kept on my machine, but copied back to a file server, and trashed from my mac.

After some trashing of bits and bobs, I managed to get to about 60Gb free (so at least the mac could function properly whilst i was doing some investigative work.

I did a "get info" on each of the folders in my user account (including the hidden 'Library' folder). Counted up to about 85Gb. I then did the same for the system folder - Apps, System, and Library - which came to 34Gb. That's a total of 119Gb (which is about what I would have guessed).

So there's about 320Gb of hard drive space that's being eaten up, but I can't see where. I have been doing some heavy work in iBooks Author, so I opened up the iBA files and deleted the previous versions. Won back a bit of space, but not a dent really. I think the local snapshot versions are actually pretty small.

Thinking that it had to be an issue with some bloated hidden file, I used Terminal to show hidden files, and tried to use the 'Find' facility to search for files over 1Gb; there were a few, but none hidden, and none i didn't already know about.

I don have TIme Machine, but that's set up for an external HDD, so that's not the issue.

Any ideas what I can try next?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), 2.5 Ghz Intel i5, 4Gb RAM (work)

Posted on Sep 25, 2014 5:52 AM

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Answer 1

Mac_fool Author

Level 2

153 points

Sep 25, 2014 5:57 AM in response to Mac_fool

And I should also note, that Disk Utiltity reports the drive as healthy and permissions have been repaired. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,729 points

Sep 25, 2014 9:22 AM in response to Mac_fool

 menu/About this Mac and click the bottom button, then select storage.

Disk Space - Free Up

Disk Space – Free Up (2)

Disk Space Filling Up – OmniDiskSweeper

Disk Space Filling Up - WhatSize

Disk Space - Other

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Answer 3

Mac_fool Author

Level 2

153 points

Sep 26, 2014 12:31 AM in response to Eric Root

Hi Eric – Thanks for the reply. Forgot to mention that I checked out the storage in 'About this mac'. Here's the shot.

As you can see, backups are pretty much at zero, so assuming that the 'backups' section comprises previous 'versions' of files, (local snapshots), then theoretically these are ruled out too.

I've downloaded OmniDiskSweeper (thanks for the link), and ran it, which is where things get really wonky. I left it for ages. I presume it had finished scanning, as it gives no progression bar or 'finished' dialogue box. Check out the screenshot.

Check out OmniDiskSweeper's data. The 'User' folder is the largest (unsurprisingly) at 75Gb, but that is only what I thought it would be. Check out the total amount scanned (at the top of the window). 102Gb. 102. Yet, there's there 'Get info' box on the left, saying I've got 418 Gb used on the hard drive.

The system thinks that there's more data on the HDD than OmniDiskSweeper. I'm suspecting that there's a corruption somewhere. I tried a 'light' clean of my system cache (using MountainLionCacheCleaner), and did a safe boot to clear some caches, but no result.

Next, I'm going to create a new User to see if the issue is within the User account or system-specific. Then I'm going to start up CarbonCopyCloner to see what that reports. Back in touch soon.

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Answer 4

Mac_fool Author

Level 2

153 points

Sep 26, 2014 1:27 AM in response to Mac_fool

Hi again,

The disk usage in the new user account was the same - 418Gb. So I downloaded GrandPerspective, which gives a visual representation of HDD usage.

Check this out:

The black area is the 80 gig of free space that I've managed to reclaim by ditching data. The coloured blocks at the top is various data - the 102Gb that i expected to be used - the largest of which being photos. I'll empty those out if need be, but I'd rather avoid it.

The HUGE grey area (apt), is 288 Gb of' Miscellaneous used space'. Whatever that is, it's the culprit. Going to do some fsck and ONYX cleaning to see what happens...

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Answer 5

Mac_fool Author

Level 2

153 points

Sep 26, 2014 2:19 AM in response to Mac_fool

Hi again,

Sorted. Ran OnyX, and selected 'cleaning'. Ensured that it was set to remove 'previous versions of documents'. Now have 386Gb free.

I feel sure that this was caused by iBooks Author, as that is the only program that I have been using that utilises 'versions'. Will drop a bug report to Apple. That software needs some attention.

Thanks anyway

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