What is Eating up my Imac's HD space?

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What is Eating up my Imac's HD space?

My Mac desktop computer Version 10.6.8 is somehow going through tons of space and I have no idea what is eating up the Hard drive space. I have very little on my computer, some videos and audio that can't amount to more than 150 GB, the capacity is 499GB and I got a warning that I had only 400 MB left. I deleted a bunch of stuff and freed up 15 GB of space, the next day I opened my computer and I now have around 96 MB left!

I currently run Cubase 6, Kontakt, Halion on my computer. I have a few Imovie events and projects, some itunes songs and that's pretty much it.

What is eating up all my hard drive space? How do I check what is takingup the most space, at the moment all i can do is look at the capacity and availability.

thank you!

Posted on Apr 3, 2015 1:01 PM

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Answer 1

notcloudy

Level 4

1,252 points

Apr 3, 2015 1:05 PM in response to lorab32

Are you using safari have you reset it to empty caches? Those can get filled up by top sites activity.

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Answer 2

lorab32 Author

Level 1

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Apr 3, 2015 1:10 PM in response to notcloudy

I just tried that but it only freed up about 50 MB of space. Is there a way to check what exactly what is using space on my compsuter? I also have my computer hooked up to a terabyte HD as a time machine

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Answer 3

notcloudy

Level 4

1,252 points

Apr 3, 2015 1:26 PM in response to lorab32

The tech types here will ask you to run EtreCheck to see details about your system - don't know where the site is - but it will list what is going on.

You can use the search button next to people to search for others with same problem.

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Answer 4

dominic23

Level 10

83,910 points

Apr 4, 2015 12:55 AM in response to lorab32

Go step by step and test.

1. Start up in Safe Mode.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212

2. Backup your computer.

3. Empty Trash.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13806

4. Disk space / Time Machine ?/ Local Snapshots

Local backups

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878

5. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.

iTunes > Preferences > Devices

Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

6. Re-index Macintosh HD.

This will take a while. Wait until it is finished.

System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

7.Try OmniDiskSweeper. This will show the storage size details of the items.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more

Select Macintosh HD and click “Sweep Selected Drive” at the bottom.

Be careful. Delete only the files that can be safely deleted. If you are not sure about any file, don’t touch it.

8. Move iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie media folders to an external drive.

iTunes

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201562

iPhoto

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506

iMovie

http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2289

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Answer 5

lorab32 Author

Level 1

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Apr 4, 2015 9:40 AM in response to dominic23

Thanks alot for your help ! I've tried all these steps and I'm running into problems I think mainly because my operating system is so old, tried moving itunes and iphoto, problems there to. so I'm going to take it into the apple store. Thanks for trying!!

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Answer 6

notcloudy

Level 4

1,252 points

Apr 4, 2015 12:38 PM in response to lorab32

Found the check site finally - in another post --- if you decide to download and run it -- load the resulting report so responders can see what is going on.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

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