Why Does Brand New Macbook Pro say I am using almost 5 gigs of photos and 2 gigs of audio when I have none??

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Why Does Brand New Macbook Pro say I am using almost 5 gigs of photos and 2 gigs of audio when I have none??

Just bought the laptop today and I already only have 67 gigs free of 120, with the majority being in Apps, Pictures, and Videos...of which I have installed nothing. How can that be? And how can I fix it?

I tried the reindexing through Spotlight trick I found on the forums - that didn't work.

I tried a terminal command I found on the forums - that didn't work.

There's no way I've used half my 120 gig storage just by turning on the machine....

Posted on Mar 4, 2016 10:44 AM

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Answer 1

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,329 points

Mar 4, 2016 12:32 PM in response to MrScharfy

To determine what you have on your MBP, 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.

Addendum: The program that produces the display in 'About This Mac' has a bug in it. It is not to be trusted for accuracy. Usually, but not always, a Spotlight reindex will correct it, but not in your case.

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Answer 2

my ginger

Level 5

4,928 points

Mar 4, 2016 12:55 PM in response to MrScharfy

If you go to the utilities folder and click on disk utilities. Then click on your drive (the indented one) down at the bottom right you will see capacity,available and used.

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Answer 3

MrScharfy Author

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Mar 4, 2016 12:46 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

DiskSweeper was helpful. Google is using something under File System that's almost 1 gig, called 00000000...whatever that's supposed to be. And Mail is 3.2 gigs...not sure if that's normal, but seems high for mail...Pictures only shows as 25 mb, as opposed to 5 gigs that "About this Mac" was showing so that seems more likely. A lot of random things... sleep image, under private/vm is 1.1 gig? What is that? swapfile is 1.1 gig?

I guess I just bought 120 gigs but can really only use 50 gigs....Lame.

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Answer 4

MrScharfy Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 4, 2016 12:55 PM in response to my ginger

How can I have 10.12 gigs of photos, when I've never connected to iCloud, haven't connected a camera or phone or anything to the laptop. 10 gigs of photos, literally out of the box...

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Answer 5

my ginger

Level 5

4,928 points

Mar 4, 2016 1:22 PM in response to MrScharfy

The graph shows 73.67 GB available. If this agrees with what shows in disk utilities then it is index correctly. Otherwise, what disk utilities shows is what is correct. Do you use Gmail for mail? All Photos would show up in home picture folder. If you click once on it and then go to file get info.It will tell the amount in pictures folder.

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Answer 6

MrScharfy Author

Level 1

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Mar 4, 2016 1:23 PM in response to my ginger

My photos folder is practically empty, so I have no idea where they're getting 10 gigs of photos from...

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Answer 7

my ginger

Level 5

4,928 points

Mar 4, 2016 2:34 PM in response to MrScharfy

Inside the pictures folder you will have what is there. As far as photos Ichat and others. Click on the individual files and using get info will help you to see which one holds the most. The same thing applies to music folder as that is the audio files. Also in Itunes under music or movies. Down at the bottom it tells you how many movies or audio/music files and the size. I would say that the index is wrong. In disk utilities under used does the total amount agree or disagree with what spotlight is showing?

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Answer 8

Klaus1

Level 9

52,879 points

Mar 4, 2016 3:47 PM in response to MrScharfy

Hard drive space and ‘Other’:

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

Also, try to rebuild the Spotlight index: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

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