My iMac is full - any good solutions?

Here are some general tips to keep your Mac's hard drive trim and slim as possible

You should never, EVER let a computer hard drive get completely full, EVER!

With Macs and OS X, you shouldn't let the hard drive get below 15 GBs or less of free data space.

If it does, it's time for some hard drive housecleaning.

Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.

Have you emptied your Mac's Trash icon in the Dock?

If you use iPhoto or Aperture, both have its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.

If you store images in other locations other than iPhoto, then you will have to weed through these to determine what to archive and what to delete.

If you are an iMovie/ Final Cut user, both apps have their own individual Trash location that needs to be emptied, too!

If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!

Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.

Look through your other Mailboxes and other Mail categories to see If there is other mail you can archive and/or delete.

STAY AWAY FROM DELETING ANY FILES FROM OS X SYSTEM FOLDER!

Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.

Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.

Look in your Applications folder, if you have applications you haven't used in a long time, if the app doesn't have a dedicated uninstaller, then you can simply drag it into the OS X Trash icon. IF the application has an uninstaller app, then use it to completely delete the app from your Mac.

To find other large files, download an app called Omni Disk Sweeper.

http://www.omnigroup.com/more

Also, Find Any File

http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.

move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.

If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.

Moving iTunes library

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

Moving iPhoto library

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

Moving iMovie projects folder

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

A disclaimer,

Things to consider before moving your iPhoto Library Folder to a new or external location like an external hard drive.

If you make movies on any iDevices using iMovie for iOS,, then transfer the video footage, the IOS version of iMovie saves the footage as a movie file in IPhoto for IOS and will automatically get transferred to iPhoto for the Mac when you upload the video from your iDevice.

Newer versions of iMovie will work and link those video files found in your iPhoto Library on your Mac, but those links can be lost if you move your iPhoto library and you will not be able to relink that video afterwards as the current versions of iMovie seem to not have a relink option for the video portion of the files (ironically, current versions of iMovie HAVE the ability to re-link the audio files from the video footage, though (The inability to re-link the video files could be a possible bug or oversight in current versions iMovie).

The lost video links show up as "blacked-out" video blocks with no content.

Before moving the iPhoto Library

If you make movies with iMovie using iPad or iPhone video then 'Consolidate' the files before you finish. This will gather (albeit by duplicating) all the relevant files in the project in one place. After consolidating/duplicating all of the audio and video footage to a seperate, independent location,it should be safe to move your iPhoto library.

The potential way to circumvent this issues maybe to try and import iPad and iPhoto video directly into iMovie which would be another solution.

Good Luck!

I gave you all the proper links to step by step move all your iTunes and iPhoto libraries to an external hard drive.

FYI, harddisk/hard disk= hard drive.

If there is no more room on your iMac's internal drive for everything in iTunes and iPhoto, you have NO choice other than to relocate these to an external storage medium and re link the libraries.

The links I provided explain how to this step by step.

You need to offload this data to another location.

If you are not capable or comfortable of doing this yourself, you should bring your Mac into an Apple Store, purchase a good external hard drive from what they have available and pay Apple move your data off your Mac and onto a purchased external hard drive for you.

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.

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

iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash

In Photos:

File ▹ Show Recently Deleted ▹ Delete All

Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then restart the computer. That will temporarily free up some space.

According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation—not the mythical 10%, 15%, or any other percentage. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.

See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.

You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the 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. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.

Deleting files inside a photo or iTunes library will corrupt the library. Changes to such a 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 or GP 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 the app in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.

Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding 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.

For ODS:

security execute-with-privileges /A*/OmniDiskSweeper.app/*/M*/* 2>&-

For GP:

security execute-with-privileges /A*/GrandPerspective.app/*/M*/* 2>&-

Launch the built-in 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 and start typing the name.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. You'll be prompted for your login password.

The application window will open behind other open windows. When you scan a volume, the window will eventually show all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.

I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything 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 the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Definitely do as advised already and I will add one additional thought as you look at all your options…...

A few months ago our iMac (17" late 2006 1.8ghz intel core 2 duo) which I had purchased new was full like yours. Yes, bad thing to do! Luckily nothing failed or broke, which was fortunate for us. However, I didn't want to just give up this 9 year old computer because it was still a Great Computer! So I installed a 500gb Samsung 840 evo SSD because I wanted this old iMac to be the "Storage Computer" for my family of six and all their iPods, iPhones, & iPads. This way they can share music, etc. Now I can hear people cringing at the thought of throwing $180 dollars at this old thing relic, but I could not be happier and would recommend you look into doing the same if you have not already done so and you can so on you iMac.

Here is why: Not only did I jump from 160gb to 500gb but the speed of this 9 year old, yes, this 9 year old computer's speed is shocking. Startup time use to be 1 minute & 25 seconds, now it is right at 20 seconds. Shut down was at least 45 seconds, now its maybe 2-3 seconds. Applications open and close faster, and across the board its much quicker. Plus, you can take the SSD forward to the next computer (if not internally then externally) if you desire. All of this on a 9 year old first generation intel based iMac. (which btw I am actually using right now as I type.) Finally, 6 months ago I bought my wife a new Macbook Pro to replace her old "late 2007 Macbook". I was surprised to see the old iMac was 3 times faster on start up and shut down than my wife's new Macbook pro. The old 2007 Macbook was also given new life with a Samsung 840 Evo SSD and just two days ago I bought a 500gb Samsung 850 Evo SSD for my wife's new Macbook pro for $149.00 & free shipping. So, look into this and see if it is an option for you mac, in my opinion, it is without question the best upgrade one could do. If not, I'd be glad to take your iMac off your hands. LOL