what is eating my memory on macbook pro

I have a mid 2009 13" MacBook Pro, Processor 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB Memory 1067 MHz DDR3, Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB Running OS 10.9.5. In the last few weeks I noticed there was only 17 GB of memory left so I began doing a long overdue cleaning of my hard drive. In a few days after throwing away many duplicate files I also noticed there was a time machine backup running on the hard drive that started exactly the time I noticed the memory getting low, Sept. 3, 2017. I disabled this through terminal since I have a TM backup externally and saved 5 GB and with all the duplicate or old files I threw away I was back up 80 GB free! I booted up the next morning and was back down to 45 GB free! No explanation whatsoever. I run Privacy Scan and Malwarebytes regularly. MacScan went to an unsupported version so I no longer run that. I did a screen shot of my hard drive showing all Disk Usage as well as Disk Usage under About This Mac. My Storage shows 43.34 GB free out of 159.18 GB. When I add up the space being used in my Macintosh HD including hidden files, all add up to just under 69 GB even though the bottom bar also shows 43.34 free. Can anyone help me figure out how to make these match and how to free up space?

OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), MacBookPro 2.26 GHz IntelCore 2Duo

Posted on Sep 20, 2017 12:24 AM

Top-ranking reply

Patty1959-2013 Author

Level 1

8 points

Posted on Sep 20, 2017 1:26 AM

EtreCheck version: 3.4.4 (448)

Report generated 2017-09-20 04:07:41

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 8:59

Performance: Below Average

Click the [Lookup] links for more information from Apple Support Communities.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Click the [Clean up] link to delete unused files.

Problem: Computer is too slow

Hardware Information:ⓘ

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)

[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5

1 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (Duo) CPU: 2-core

4 GB RAM Upgradeable - [Instructions]

BANK 0/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

Handoff/Airdrop2: not supported

Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Battery: Health = Check Battery - Cycle count = 523

Video Information:ⓘ

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB

Color LCD 1280 x 800

VG2728 SERIES 1280 x 800 @ 60 Hz

Disk Information:ⓘ

ST9160314ASG disk0: (160.04 GB) (Rotational)

[Show SMART report]

(disk0s1) <not mounted> [EFI]: 210 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2 - Journaled HFS+) / [Startup]: 159.18 GB (43.74 GB free)

(disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS23N ()

USB Information:ⓘ

EHCI Root Hub Simulation

Western Digital My Passport 25AA 2 TB

Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

EHCI Root Hub Simulation

Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

OHCI Root Hub Simulation

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

OHCI Root Hub Simulation

hub_device

USB 2.0 Hub [MTT]

Macally Peripherals Macally ICEKEY2 Keyboard

Logitech USB Receiver

Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Virtual disks:ⓘ

My Passport for Mac (disk1s2 - Journaled HFS+) /Volumes/My Passport for Mac : 2.00 TB (1.77 TB free)

Physical disk: (null) 2.00 TB (1.77 TB free)

System Software:ⓘ

OS X Mavericks 10.9.5 (13F1911) - Time since boot: about 13 hours

Gatekeeper:ⓘ

Mac App Store and identified developers

Clean up:ⓘ

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.wdc.WDPrivilegedHelper.plist

/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.wdc.WDPrivilegedHelper

Executable not found!

One orphan file found. [Clean up]

System Launch Agents:ⓘ

[not loaded] 6 Apple tasks

[loaded] 138 Apple tasks

[running] 40 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons:ⓘ

[not loaded] 49 Apple tasks

[loaded] 137 Apple tasks

[running] 63 Apple tasks

Launch Agents:ⓘ

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-08-12) [Lookup]

Launch Daemons:ⓘ

[running] com.adobe.agsservice.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-05-27) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (? 2afb3af7 4898e928 - installed 2017-08-29) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.malwarebytes.HelperTool.plist (Malwarebytes Corporation - installed 2017-01-31) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.wdc.WDPrivilegedHelper.plist (? 8ffe9417 0 - installed 2017-03-01) [Lookup] - /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.wdc.WDPrivilegedHelper: Executable not found!

User Launch Agents:ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist (? ? ? - installed 2017-08-25) [Lookup]

User Login Items:ⓘ

iTunesHelper Application (Apple, Inc. - installed 2017-07-07)

(/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

Calendar Application

(/Applications/Calendar.app)

Mail Application

(/Applications/Mail.app)

Internet Plug-ins:ⓘ

FlashPlayer-10.6: 27.0.0.130 (installed 2017-09-13) [Lookup]

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2016-11-06)

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 11.0.22 (installed 2017-08-25) [Lookup]

AdobePDFViewer: 11.0.22 (installed 2017-08-25) [Lookup]

Flash Player: 27.0.0.130 (installed 2017-09-13) [Lookup]

Default Browser: 537 (installed 2015-04-26)

JavaAppletPlugin: 14.9.0 (installed 2016-09-04) Check version

Safari Extensions:ⓘ

[not loaded] AdBlock - BetaFish, Inc. - https://getadblock.com (installed 2017-07-27)

[not loaded] Adblock Plus - Eyeo GmbH - https://adblockplus.org/ (installed 2016-10-27)

[not loaded] Firebug Lite for Safari - slicefactory (installed 2015-10-03)

[not loaded] Facebook Cleaner - Sonny Fazio - http://sonstermedia.com (installed 2015-10-03)

3rd Party Preference Panes:ⓘ

Flash Player (installed 2017-08-29) [Lookup]

Time Machine:ⓘ

Mobile backups: OFF

Auto backup: YES

Volumes being backed up:

Macintosh HD: Disk size: 159.18 GB Disk used: 115.45 GB

Destinations:

My Passport for Mac [Local]

Total size: 2.00 TB

Total number of backups: 63

Oldest backup: 3/14/17, 12:41 AM

Last backup: 9/20/17, 3:43 AM

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 2.00 TB > (Disk size 159.18 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU:ⓘ

38% mdworker

37% mdworker

2% kernel_task

2% AddressBookSourceSync

1% WindowServer

Top Processes by Memory:ⓘ

398 MB kernel_task

58 MB Finder

52 MB mds_stores

44 MB WindowServer

34 MB cfprefsd

Top Processes by Energy Use:ⓘ

11.08 WindowServer

0.82 Dock

0.36 DashboardClient

0.28 NotificationCenter

Virtual Memory Information:ⓘ

2.43 GB Available RAM

1.65 GB Free RAM

1.57 GB Used RAM

803 MB Cached files

0 B Swap Used

Software installs:ⓘ

Adobe Acrobat XI Pro (11.0.22): (installed 2017-08-25)

MacBooster 5: (installed 2017-09-09)

Adobe Flash Player: (installed 2017-09-13)

Install information may not be complete.

Diagnostics Information:ⓘ

2017-09-20 04:00:08 EtreCheck.app Hang [Open]

View in context

22 replies

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Sep 21, 2017 11:18 AM in response to Patty1959-2013

It was a pleasure !

happy computing !

Lex

Sep 20, 2017 10:53 AM in response to Lexiepex

Hi Lexiepex,

The first time I ever signed into iCloud is exactly when all the issues started. When I logged out I regained a fair amount of space. I just went further to clean the hard drive and disable the internal backup as I mentioned above which yielded me the 80 gig of free space. When I click on iCloud in System Preferences, I am logged out and it keeps asking me to login. That is the only screen it gives me now.

I was thinking it could be the battery too and when I asked my son-in-law who is an IT guy, he said now. I agree with you though and see it as the only possible culprit. I have looked at this laptop to see how to change the battery and there is no compartment like on my previous MacBook. I just searched and found this though MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2009 Battery Replacement - iFixit so I will make that one of my next projects.

Thank you Lexiepex and seventy one for all your help. I will update once I am able to get the new battery. And happy birthday seventy one!

Many Blessings,

Patty

Sep 20, 2017 11:03 AM in response to Patty1959-2013

Those run times for Etrecheck 8 and 10 minutes are completely out of whack. Under three minutes is typical.

Users who see run times this large, regardless of what else may be running on their Macs, correlate strongly with FAILED HARD DRIVES.

I do not recommend deleting your Backup at this point. Instead, I suggest you do everything in your power to keep it from getting damaged, as what it already holds may be the last successful backup you can make from that drive.

If you want to experiment with Time Machine settings, get a different drive and use it to start a NEW backup. Backing up to multiple drives presents no problem to Time Machine. It will back up to whatever drive is available. If two are available, it will alternate drives, and each of those drives will be a stand-alone backup, not dependent on the other backup drive in any way.

--------

Next, you should look to getting a replacement Drive. The overall easiest way to proceed is to get a drive that could replace your internal boot drive, and also buy an adapter or external enclosure to hold it while you install a new copy of MacOS on it while it sits in the external enclosure or adapter. This allow you to use your old drive's Recovery partition to Install the same version of MacOS on the external drive. Otherwise it is much more complicated.

Once you are happy that the Mac is running OK (maybe a little slow) from the external drive, THEN swap it inside the chassis, and move the old drive to the external enclosure. Any problems that appear at that point are problems of the surgery, and you are not left trying to debug a new Install, a new Setup, and new surgery all at once.

Sep 21, 2017 8:22 AM in response to Lexiepex

Hi Lexiepex!

I am not talking about the Time Machine problem you discovered in the second etrecheck report. I am happy to leave those issues to you.

I am talking about this:

EtreCheck version: 3.4.4 (448)

Report generated 2017-09-20 04:07:41

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 8:59

Performance: Below Average

and this:

EtreCheck version: 3.4.4 (448)

Report generated 2017-09-20 06:37:48

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 11:01

Performance: Poor

Those very long runtimes are VERY LIKELY to be caused by Bad Blocks on the Boot drive, which forces many, many retries and adds up to substantial delays in doing ordinary tasks (such as running etrecheck reports, which are very simple tasks).

Even on a Macbook that is extremely short of memory (which this one is NOT, as it shows 0 swap used) these times almost never exceed four minutes, and seeing times much higher is an indicator of imminent disk failure caused by excessive retries on the Boot drive.

Sep 21, 2017 11:05 AM in response to Patty1959-2013

Doing a restore should fix up your Boot drive if it is fixable, and sometimes it is. The drive controller is pretty clever, and will substitute spare blocks (that it keeps in reserve for just this purpose) for any blocks found to be bad after writing new data.

A clean bill of health from Disk Utility First Aid or Repair Disk says the Disk Directory is all good -- but it does not check the data blocks themselves.

Just to be sure, you should run etrecheck again, looking for a much shorter runtime (rated "good" or better).

This is what your last run time looked like:

EtreCheck version: 3.4.4 (448)

Report generated 2017-09-20 06:37:48

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 11:01

Performance: Poor

Sep 21, 2017 12:17 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

EtreCheck version: 3.4.5 (455)

Report generated 2017-09-21 15:12:56

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 6:05

Performance: Below Average

Click the [Lookup] links for more information from Apple Support Communities.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Problem: No problem - just checking

Hardware Information:ⓘ

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)

[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5

1 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (Duo) CPU: 2-core

4 GB RAM Upgradeable - [Instructions]

BANK 0/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

Handoff/Airdrop2: not supported

Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Battery: Health = Check Battery - Cycle count = 523

Video Information:ⓘ

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB

Color LCD 1280 x 800

VG2728 SERIES 1280 x 800 @ 60 Hz

Disk Information:ⓘ

ST9160314ASG disk0: (160.04 GB) (Rotational)

[Show SMART report]

(disk0s1) <not mounted> [EFI]: 210 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2 - Journaled HFS+) / [Startup]: 159.18 GB (95.41 GB free)

(disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS23N disk2: (6.12 GB) ()

USB Information:ⓘ

EHCI Root Hub Simulation

Western Digital My Passport 25AA 2 TB

Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

EHCI Root Hub Simulation

Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

OHCI Root Hub Simulation

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

OHCI Root Hub Simulation

hub_device

USB 2.0 Hub [MTT]

Macally Peripherals Macally ICEKEY2 Keyboard

Logitech USB Receiver

Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Virtual disks:ⓘ

My Passport for Mac (disk1s2 - Journaled HFS+) /Volumes/My Passport for Mac : 2.00 TB (1.77 TB free)

Physical disk: (null) 2.00 TB (1.77 TB free)

System Software:ⓘ

OS X Mavericks 10.9.5 (13F1911) - Time since boot: about one hour

Gatekeeper:ⓘ

Mac App Store and identified developers

System Launch Agents:ⓘ

[not loaded] 5 Apple tasks

[loaded] 143 Apple tasks

[running] 36 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons:ⓘ

[not loaded] 49 Apple tasks

[loaded] 140 Apple tasks

[running] 60 Apple tasks

Launch Agents:ⓘ

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-08-12) [Lookup]

Launch Daemons:ⓘ

[running] com.adobe.agsservice.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2017-05-27) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (? 2afb3af7 4898e928 - installed 2017-08-29) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.malwarebytes.HelperTool.plist (Malwarebytes Corporation - installed 2017-01-31) [Lookup]

User Launch Agents:ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist (? ? ? - installed 2017-08-25) [Lookup]

User Login Items:ⓘ

iTunesHelper Application (Apple, Inc. - installed 2017-07-07)

(/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

Calendar Application

(/Applications/Calendar.app)

Mail Application

(/Applications/Mail.app)

Internet Plug-ins:ⓘ

FlashPlayer-10.6: 27.0.0.130 (installed 2017-09-13) [Lookup]

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2016-11-06)

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 11.0.22 (installed 2017-08-25) [Lookup]

AdobePDFViewer: 11.0.22 (installed 2017-08-25) [Lookup]

Flash Player: 27.0.0.130 (installed 2017-09-13) [Lookup]

Default Browser: 537 (installed 2015-04-26)

JavaAppletPlugin: 14.9.0 (installed 2016-09-04) Check version

Safari Extensions:ⓘ

[not loaded] Adblock Plus - Eyeo GmbH - https://adblockplus.org/ (installed 2016-10-27)

3rd Party Preference Panes:ⓘ

Flash Player (installed 2017-08-29) [Lookup]

Time Machine:ⓘ

Mobile backups: OFF

Auto backup: YES

Volumes being backed up:

Macintosh HD: Disk size: 159.18 GB Disk used: 63.78 GB

Destinations:

My Passport for Mac [Local]

Total size: 2.00 TB

Total number of backups: 61

Oldest backup: 3/14/17, 12:41 AM

Last backup: 9/21/17, 2:45 PM

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 2.00 TB > (Disk size 159.18 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU:ⓘ

3% WindowServer

2% kernel_task

0% DVD Player

0% fontd

0% coreaudiod

Top Processes by Memory:ⓘ

448 MB kernel_task

423 MB Safari

133 MB Mail

130 MB mds_stores

106 MB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

Top Processes by Energy Use:ⓘ

3.88 WindowServer

1.52 DVD Player

0.06 AppleSpell

0.02 Dock

Virtual Memory Information:ⓘ

1.06 GB Available RAM

78 MB Free RAM

2.94 GB Used RAM

1012 MB Cached files

0 B Swap Used

Software installs:ⓘ

Adobe Acrobat XI Pro (11.0.22): (installed 2017-08-25)

MacBooster 5: (installed 2017-09-09)

Adobe Flash Player: (installed 2017-09-13)

Install information may not be complete.

Sep 21, 2017 8:45 PM in response to Patty1959-2013

That runtime is much better than before.

But you might not be out of the woods yet. You should try to get one more Backup (your last one looks to be from the 14th).

If you could run etrecheck again, and would not mind, clicking on the [Show SMART report] item in the report will add about 20 more lines of stuff to the output, including some counters that indicate how many blocks are reporting error corrections are needed to get good data. That would give us an idea about what problems remain, if any.

Disk Information: ⓘ

ST9160314ASG disk0: (160.04 GB) (Rotational)

[Show SMART report]

(disk0s1) <not mounted> [EFI]: 210 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2 - Journaled HFS+) / [Startup]: 159.18 GB (95.41 GB free)

(disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

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what is eating my memory on macbook pro