natty42
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: HELP: should have over 10GB storage left but it all just disappeared

my MacBook Air has been telling me for a couple of days that I have no more storage (disk is full).

So yesterday I deleted a few things and came up with about 4GB of space. This morning my computer told em the same thing:i checked and yup, all the storage i'd cleared was gone and i was back to a couple of hundred megs. So today i set to and deleted / saved elsewhere about 15GB of stuff. and just a few hours later my computer is telling me that ALL my storage space is used up. something is storing onto my computer. how can i find it???

This morning i had about equal parts music and photos, plus a bunch of smaller storage space devoted to "other", movies, aps, etc. Now i look in 'About this Mac' > Storage > 100% is being used by "other" and i have 0 GB left of 120GB.

WHAT CAN I DO????

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Sep 19, 2015 11:54 PM

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natty42

Q: HELP: should have over 10GB storage left but it all just disappeared

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  • by cabakroll,Helpful

    cabakroll cabakroll Sep 20, 2015 3:42 AM in response to natty42
    Level 3 (840 points)
    Sep 20, 2015 3:42 AM in response to natty42

    check what files taking up the space using DaisyDisk.app

  • by OGELTHORPE,Helpful

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Sep 20, 2015 3:43 AM in response to natty42
    Level 9 (52,764 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 20, 2015 3:43 AM in response to natty42

    This is a definition of OTHER:

     

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202867

     

    The entire category is NOT your problem.

     

    Download from the Internet OmniDiskSweeper and Grand Perspective (both free) and open them. They will show all of your files and the respective sizes. Transfer to an external HDD or delete files you no longer want on your MBP. Do not forget to empty trash. Only then is space allocated for new data.

     

    Ciao.

  • by natty42,

    natty42 natty42 Sep 20, 2015 3:44 AM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 20, 2015 3:44 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

    i've been doing that all day. something keeps filling it up. but maybe the RAM is decompressing???? maybe? after being so nearly full for so long???? not sure. I'm using daisy ap. but its not showing me anything i didn't already know. i've been looking today at my big files and taking them off my computer. but the storage keeps being used up after i do this.

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Sep 20, 2015 4:02 AM in response to natty42
    Level 9 (52,764 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 20, 2015 4:02 AM in response to natty42

    If you are looking at the display produced by 'About This Mac', that often is incorrect.  What doe ODS and GP show?  What does it show in Disk Utility?  When you click COMMAND + I in the HDD icon, what does that show?

     

    Ciao.

  • by natty42,

    natty42 natty42 Sep 20, 2015 5:04 AM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 20, 2015 5:04 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

    nice one. i was looking in 'about this mac' but on looking at disk utility and at the info on the HDD i get the same amount of available storage. it seems to have stopped taking my available storage now. i've deleted a lot of stuff and now have 7gb spare. I used the daisy app asa suggested above and saw how much storage was being used and where: music and photos has both nearly half of all available space and the rest was documents, and other small stuff. but that 'about this mac' storage "graph" is still showing a third being used by music, a third by photos and strangely a third being used by "other". I did look at the definition of other: also a helpful link with a reason why i was seeing everything in my storage display categorised as 'other'. but not still not sure what all that 'other' is: will keep searching. thanks heaps for you help!