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Q: 52GB of Non-existent Movies on Hard Drive

I only have 2 GB left of free space on my hard drive. The overview of my storage says I have 52 GB of movies stored on my hard drive.

 

I do not know how this can be. I have five iTunes movies, all of which are in my cloud. So, they shouldn't be taking up space on my hard drive, right?

 

Also, I have no movies from iPhoto or my iPhone stored on my computer. Everything is stored on my external hard drive. I back up my computer about once a month.

 

I chatted with someone from customer support, who told me to restart my computer and hold down a few keys while I did. This freed up one more GB on my hard drive. But the support person couldn't explain to me why my computer says I have 52 GB of movies stored, when I don't.

 

Can anyone help me solve this problem? It's preventing me from downloading anything new onto my computer.

 

Thanks!

 

( I have a 13" Mac Book Pro running El Capitan.)

macbook, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jul 2, 2016 2:35 PM

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Q: 52GB of Non-existent Movies on Hard Drive

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  • by Carolyn Samit,

    Carolyn Samit Carolyn Samit Jul 2, 2016 2:43 PM in response to leappod
    Level 10 (122,086 points)
    Apple Music
    Jul 2, 2016 2:43 PM in response to leappod

    Restart your Mac (normally) then check available disk space.

     

    This may help also >  http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html

  • by theratter,

    theratter theratter Jul 2, 2016 2:52 PM in response to leappod
    Level 4 (3,907 points)
    Desktops
    Jul 2, 2016 2:52 PM in response to leappod

    See Where did my Disk Space go?.

    Use OmniDiskSweeper or GrandPerspective to search your drive for these files and where they are located.

     

    Videos and movie files on your disk may have nothing to do with iTunes but are part of the OS X and/or other applications' support and help files. Furthermore, if you are using the About This Mac's Storage display, then don't rely on it. It is only reliable when the disk has been completely re-indexed: Spotlight- How to re-index folders or volumes - Apple Support. The only reliable measure of space on your disk can be found by selecting the disk's Desktop icon. Press Command-I to open the Get Info window. In the topmost panel you will find the disk information: Capacity, Available, and Used. The only files that you could delete that are taking up space will be found in your /Home/ folder - all but the Library folder.

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Jul 2, 2016 5:34 PM in response to leappod
    Level 10 (207,963 points)
    Applications
    Jul 2, 2016 5:34 PM in response to leappod

    For information about the Other category in the Storage display, please 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.

    When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.

    See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space. A common waste of space is old iTunes backups of mobile devices. As illustrated in this support article, select the Devices tab in the iTunes preferences window, select the backups you want to delete, and click Delete Backups. Keep at least one backup of each device that you still use.

    You can, if you wish, use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) 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 ("Mountain Lion") and later versions.

    IMPORTANT: This comment is neither a recommendation nor an endorsement of any third-party software. You must always do your own research to determine whether unfamiliar software is safe and useful. Don't take anyone's word for it, including mine.

    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 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 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.

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

    Launch the built-in Terminal application in any one 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.