How can you see most recent usage of mac's hard disk space?

Question

Level 1

9 points

How can you see most recent usage of mac's hard disk space?

Hi,

I have been clearing up my computer to save storage. About 2 days ago I freed up my hard drive to have about 50gb out of 500. But in just two days it dropped to 37.7gb, without me adding anything..... I feel almost like I have a virus or something that is saving stuff to my computer. Is there some way that I can find out where these 13 gb went?? Is there some way to see the most recent files and folders that used disk space???

Thanks!!

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), iOS 9.2.1

Posted on May 5, 2016 6:48 AM

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Answer 1

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

May 5, 2016 8:18 AM in response to alexw7070

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 the files you do not want on your Mac or delete them.

Do not forget to empty trash. Only then is space allocated for additional data.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

Ciao.

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Answer 2

alexw7070 Author

Level 1

9 points

May 5, 2016 1:47 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

Thanks! But I already I know how to view the current files taking space on the hard drive. I am trying to figure out how you can organize the largest users of disk space by how recently they were added to the computer. So I am trying to locate the files that were added without me knowing, and that is the only way that I could find it.

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Answer 3

K Shaffer

Level 7

34,972 points

May 5, 2016 2:02 PM in response to alexw7070

There should be a View selection once you find a list of items in the hard drive

that could tell you the dates they were added (or changed, etc) and their size.

A 'view' of content in folders can be changed to columns, icons, etc. in Finder

and also in each Folder, where details can be exposed on a per-folder basis.

This has changed from a few OS X versions, and perhaps is not as nice as it

once was in Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and earlier system builds.

You may be able to use another 'find' application to see how contents are rendered.

One that I use in addition to Finder (find) is EasyFind; it is freeware, locate download

from this page: http://www.devontechnologies.com/download/products.html

Good luck in any event! 🙂

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