Why does my HD show 197GB free in one place and only 37GB in another???

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Level 1

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Why does my HD show 197GB free in one place and only 37GB in another???

When i 'get info' about my hard drive it shows 197GB available (left pic). This sounds accurate because i just did a backup and freed over 100GB. But when i check through 'about this mac' i get only 37GB. This is a problem as I'm trying to use final cut pro and I can't do any more due to lack of 'disk space'. Im sure the prob is not FCPX. As can be seen below, my computer says i have over 150GB in 'backups'. How can I get my laptop to realise the true space available???

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Apr 19, 2015 2:31 AM

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Answer 1

Alchroma

Level 7

23,809 points

Apr 19, 2015 3:21 AM in response to dwyerkathryn

Is the trash empty?

I would suggest you get an appropriate external drive for your media.

Even 196 gig is not going to cut it these days.

Al

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Answer 2

Apr 19, 2015 3:50 AM in response to dwyerkathryn

I've no idea but have you emptied the trash . . . though that should not really affect the discrepancy you show?

Sorry Al, just noticed you've already mentioned it.

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Answer 3

dwyerkathryn Author

Level 1

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Apr 19, 2015 8:07 AM in response to dwyerkathryn

Thanks everyone, I got it. The apple support and this communities site seemed to be down for about a day, but got the answer when it was up. So simple, i just needed to turn off my time machine, then turn it back on it. It automatically cleared its own backups as i had low space.

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Answer 4

Apr 19, 2015 10:23 AM in response to dwyerkathryn

You've not got your Time Machine backups on your iMac hard drive have you?

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Answer 5

dwyerkathryn Author

Level 1

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Apr 19, 2015 11:09 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

No I don't, I backup to an external drive, however apparently Time Machine takes a bunch of snapshots and keeps them on your hard drive until you hard drive is low on space, then will delete them itself. Its fixed now though, just had to go into preferences, turn it off, then on again.

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Answer 6

Apr 20, 2015 1:33 AM in response to dwyerkathryn

Probably worth getting yourself a copy of Daisy Disk or Disk Inventory X

Both good tools for drilling down and seeing where the space has gone

You can click on each pie chart section to see what is eating up the space

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