Why is TextEdit.app so huge?!

Question

Level 1

44 points

Why is TextEdit.app so huge?!

I'm using something called Disk Inventory X and it's showing that TextEdit.app is taking up 36.9 GB of space, and with over 200,000 files. When I look in the Applications folder, it only weighs in at 6.4 MB, which seem about right for such a simple app. Disk Inventory correctly showed that Chrome was taking almost 12 GB of space (yikes!) so I dumped it. Does anyone know why TextEdit.app may be taking up so much space?

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

Posted on Oct 5, 2015 6:22 PM

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Answer 1

leroydouglas

Level 10

200,334 points

Oct 5, 2015 6:34 PM in response to Lloyd Deane

You're correct TextEdit.app ver1.1.1 itself is only 6.4MB

May Diskinventory is miss reading? You can do a SpotLight search for ".txt" file and ".rtf" files and see what comes up.

Also you can search in Finder by size.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,882 points

Oct 5, 2015 7:09 PM in response to Lloyd Deane

What does Disk Inventory say about other Apple Apps? Perhaps it is confused by something.

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Answer 3

Lloyd Deane Author

Level 1

44 points

Oct 6, 2015 7:44 AM in response to Barney-15E

It turns out that I was the confused party. Disk Inventory correctly reported that TextEdit.app created the 36.9 GB of files in my /Users/Username/Library/Application Support/MobileSync folder. Turns out it was old iPhone backups that were taking up the space. Removed them by launching iTunes with iPhone connected, then in preferences selecting Devices, and deleting the backups.

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