Advice on freeing iMac disk space

Machine Model: iMac
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.7.8f1
I want to upgrade Panther to Leopard but don't have the 9 GB free disk space required. I transferred document files and iTunes to an external hard drive, deleted photos, got rid of games and Garageband, turned off file vault but still need 4+GB. I use a laptop for most things so can live without non-critical applications but don't want to accidentally discard critical ones. Any suggestions? I can't imagine what's taking up all the space on this computer.

Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions.
OmniDiskSweeper will help you identify what's taking up the space but I suspect you won't want to get rid of much:
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/
An external hard drive will add loads of space and is really good value. You can even just install Leopard on the external and leave Panther intact on the internal as a spare. Go for a firewire drive with an Oxford chipset. Here are some good examples:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
regards
mrtotes

Similar Messages

Is there a way to Move files to the iCloud thus freeing up disk space on my Mac? Or does iCloud only sync (replicate) files between my Mac and the cloud?

Is there a way to Move files to the iCloud thus freeing up disk space on my Mac? Or does iCloud only sync (replicate) files between my Mac and the cloud? I want to free up disk space on my Mac and assumed that the icloud would be a good way to do this, but having 'moved' 70Gb of files to the iCloud drive (I've upgraded to 200Gb storage) my Mac is still nearly full and I've realised that it seems to just Sync files just like dropbox.

So, the big question is did the Apple guys confirm that this is how the new iCloud drive should be working? I'm guessing, from your response, that this is indeed the case. Are they going to fix this anytime soon? I thought that this was a new function of the iCloud drive in Yosemite.
I just want an online storage facility to back up my photo & music collections. I did look at Dropbox as they have a good deal going with their Dropbox Pro, however this is still just a sync service where the Master files reside on your local disk drive - although I have read that there may be a way to work around this. Still not ideal.

How to search by File Size--Freeing up Disk Space

I'm wondering if there is a way to search my hard drive for the largest files...I have a 120GB hard drive and no space left, and I want to find out what is taking the space...
Is there a way to view the largest files on my hard drive?
Is there a utility to help clean up files that are no longer being used or that are irrelevant?
Thanks!
-dave

Look at these links.
Where did my disk space go?
http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38&Number=770243
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
Increase HD Free Space
http://macosx.com/forums/howto-faqs/275191-how-easily-increase-hd-free-space-lap top.html
 Cheers, Tom

Help freeing up disk space on external hard drive

trying to copy itunes library to external hard drive only to find i have insufficient space (need 100GB). deleted prior two itunes libraries and try again, but fail because external hard drive space is still insufficient. empty trash. eject external hard drive and reattach the thing. it still has insufficient space. make a new folder on external hard drive and copy all folders to this folder to see how much space all the files consume--the entire folder is 100GB, it is a 500 GB external drive, and it has only 21 GB free.
Why is the external hard drive which should have 400GB free, not freeing up the remaining space?
imac mac os x version 10.5.8 (free on hard drive about 20GB, so can't copy 100 GB back to hard drive and format or do whatever to external drive)
external hard drive is G-DRIVE mobile USB, purchased from apple I think.
OmniDiskSweeper used and just showed 100 GB used and 20 some Free. No huge files in trashes or temporary files.
Used DiskAid , and disk is normal, tried to repair but nothing to repair.
Suggestions please?

It sounds like there are multiple partitions on the drive, or perhaps only a small one with a lot of unallocated space.
See what Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) says. Click the top line for the drive (with the make and size) in the sidebar. You should see something like this:
See if there's more than one partition (indented under the main line).
Also see what's shown for the Total Capacity.

HT1338 Help with freeing up disk space

i have an error message stating my hard disk does not have enough available space. How can I correct this?

First, empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. Then reboot. 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. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your 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.
If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the available space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. 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.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your 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.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo 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 ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any 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. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS 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 ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Installation and required disk space

Hi,
I have just gone to install Leopard on my iBook. In the installation process when I select the hard drive on which I want to install on, it say that I need something like 6 gigs of free space. I only have 5 gigs free, so will this mean that I need to delete some files to have 6 gigs free and then when I install I'll have no space left on my hard drive and therefore need to delete a whole lot more stuff?
Thanks in advance.

In general you need 15% more free disk space than required specs to get best performance. This number is arbitrary.
See my FAQ* on freeing up disk space:
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
120 GB hard drives exist for your iBook which you can use to get more space. They are Parallel ATA (not SATA!).
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

OS X Mountain Lion Install - Not Enough Disk Space

I am installing OS X Mountain Lion.   The download went fine.   It rebooted and began the install then failed because there is not enough disk space. The solution is obviously to make more room on the disk.
The problem is that everytime I boot my Macbook now, it takes me immediately into the installation for OS X Mountain Lion. I cant seem to get back into the OS to clean up disk space.
Is there any way to force my Macbook to boot to Snow Leopard again?   If not, is there any way to clear up disk space from within the OS X Mountain Lion installer or the OSX Utilities?   I'd prefer not to have to wipe my entire Macbook and restore from backup then go through the upgrade again after freeing up disk space.
Thanks,
JG

Can't be that, [64bit] as this MacPro I have is fully capable, and is running 64bit.
In fact, as far as memory serves, this one I bought [B.T.O. option] was one of the 1st 64bit offerings made available.
But thanks for weighing in …
Anyone else have a suggestion?
Mac Pro
MacBook Pro
Hardware Overview:
Model Name:    Mac Pro
Model Identifier:    MacPro2,1
Processor Name:    Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed:    3 GHz
Number Of Processors:    2
Total Number Of Cores:    8
L2 Cache (per processor):    8 MB
Memory:    24 GB
Bus Speed:    1,33 GHz
Boot ROM Version:    MP21.007F.B06
SMC Version (system):    1.15f3
Hardware Overview:
Model Name:    MacBook Pro
Model Identifier:    MacBookPro3,1
Processor Name:    Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:    2,4 GHz
Number of Processors:    1
Total Number of Cores:    2
L2 Cache:    4 MB
Memory:    4 GB
Bus Speed:    800 MHz
Boot ROM Version:    MBP31.0070.B07
SMC Version (system):    1.18f5
Even the graphics capabilities, are in the favor of the MacPro, which I opted for:
ATI Radeon X1900 XT, rather than the default option at the time.
This graphics card is due to be replaced with the newer 5870 upgraded card.
Just have not slipped it in the case, as yet.
But even without the graphics card update, it is still better than the MacBook's graphics capabilities, surely?

There is no more space for virtual disk ServerName_2.vmdk. You might be able to continue this session by freeing disk space on the relevant volume, and clicking Retry. Click Cancel to terminate this session.   Time: 30/05/2014 1:16:20 AM

Recently, our mail server crashed at about 7pm one night, with the error 'There is no more space for virtual disk ServerName_2.vmdk. You might be able to continue this session by freeing disk space on the relevant volume, and clicking Retry. Click Cancel to terminate this session.'
When we click Retry, the server starts up OK.
There are no snapshots listed in Snapshot manager for any of the virtual machines on the host.
There is also free disk space available on the host and for the VM with the disk errors.
This happened at least three more times, often at bad times. Each time, we were able to click 'Retry' and the disk/system would allow the VM to start-up successfully.
I checked the Forums, the VMware support articles and the internet as I had not seen this problem before. I have completed the VSphere 5.1 - Fast Track course and this issue was NOT covered in the training.
Most of the advice on-line and even that on the VMware web-site was pointing to snapshots being the cause of this issue. There are no snapshots enabled and I cannot see evidence of snapshots ever being used.
- We are running VMware vsphere (5.1.0) and there are (were) 4 virtual machines running on the ESX host. We are using the free version of VMware/ESXi.
- The Hard disk types we are using for this Virtual Machine are 'Thin Provisioned'.
- There are 4 [Thin Provisioned] Hard Disks for this virtual machine.
- There are 6 CPUs
- There is 20GB of RAM (memory)
- The VM is running Windows Server 2008 R2 as the guest/VM operating system. It is an Exchange 2010 SP1 mail server. There is plenty of available disk space on all the drives. The [Exchange] log files are cleaned out regularly (automated).
I decided to move one of our non-critical servers off this host and on to another host to see if this helped the problem. This took quite some time, as we are not using HA or vmotion, nor do we have VCenter Server...nonetheless, I finally managed to get the non-critical server on to another host (n.b. This was a much smaller machine with less virtual resources assigned to it).
After moving the non-critical server off this host, we decided to monitor the Host and see if the issue resolved itself.
I checked the host about 6-10 times a day, from first thing in the morning till last thing at night - monitoring the performance of not only the Virtual Machine, but the ESXi host also.
There were no adverse performance issues. The only thing I did note, was in the Summary page on the ESX Host, under Storage, was If I right-clicked on the datastore and clicked refresh, then the free disk space would drop (ie from 140GB to 125GB).
After monitoring the host and VM for about 2 weeks, we did NOT have another instance of the above error.
Sorry for the long winded post, but I wanted to give as much detail given this error has been raised before and snapshots are usually blamed as the cause.
My question is this:
If the ESX host had plenty of available disk capacity and there were no snapshots enabled on the VM (or any other VM's on the same host), then why did our Virtual machine crash with the error that 'there is not more space for virtual disk Servername_2.vmdk'?
How do we prevent this issue from happening if we don't know the underlying cause?
I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions.
If I have not provided enough info on the specs or environment, please let me know and I will provide more information.
Thanks all,
Kurt

The type of storage is really based on your requirements, and your ability to withstand downtime.
iSCSI as you are using with a NAS such as Synology or QNAP. NAS Selector - Support - Synology - Network Attached Storage (NAS)
I wouldn't use iSCSI for Exchange or any database. It's a bit slow.
Do you have a single physical host? Then I'd probably to an external direct attached storage. This would be a card inserted in your host server that gives you multilane SAS/SATA connectivity (www.techcable.com/SAS-SATA/SAS-SATA.pps) and an external disk enclosure/array.
For multiple hosts to a single array, I recommend a fibre channel connection to a FC capable switch, and on to a FC connected array.
We used to use a HP P2000 (on old G1), but it's since been retired. Worked pretty well once firmware was upgraded. http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/disk-storage/product-detail.html?oid=4118559#!tab=features. They can be connected via iSCSI, Fibre Channel or 6GB SAS so they are flexible and reasonably priced.
Recommendations:
     Use RAID 6 with your large disk arrays. With large disks there is a measurable failure rate when rebuilding a failed RAID5 array based on MTBF.
     Use smaller 15K disks in RAID 0+1 for speed on databases/Exchange.
     Use slower 7.2K disks in RAID6 for file storage.
We are a small hospital and we have 3 VMware servers with dual CNA (FC and Ethernet in a single twinax cable) connections to 2 redundant Cisco Nexus 5K switches and then 4 Fibre Channel connections to an EMC VNX 5300. It's extremely fast with about 50 virtual servers, but was quite an investment. One thing we don't have to worry about is down time. If there ever is an equipment failure, we have redundant everything, including power split between two UPSs.
Our VNX has 3 tiers of performance. 3 100GB SSD "Fast Cache" in RAID 1 with hot spare, to keep the most used data ready, but it's not really a tier, however one could be built utilizing the same disks. A second tier is performance tier with a 8 600GB RAID 0+1 and hot spare. The third is a bunch of 7.2K 3TB disks in RAID6. The VNX autotiers, placing data on disks depending on where it's needed. The volumes are sliced and diced automatically in the background to make this happen and we never have to touch it. I used a demo of Solarwinds Storage Manager to monitor performance for a while and the utilization was always low, meaning all data access was fast, througout the day.
D

My imac keeps telling me my start up disk space is running low, how do i fix this?

I purchased an Imac in Sept 2009 and pretty much use it for the iphoto and internet. Other than that, we have no movies and a small itunes catalog. My computer has recently started telling us that our start up disk or disk space is running low. I can't imagine that we are anywhere near filling up the internal memory so I am wondering if something else is the culprit.

Also, See this Video... For Freeing up Disc Space
http://macmost.com/what-to-do-when-your-hard-drive-is-full.html

I have OsX 10.6.8, and imac 2007-08, and enough disk space to download yosemite but still Apple tells something is wrong and generates a list of maybes but not a specific reason. Any ides as to how to pin point the problem of the upgrade?

Want to upgrade from 10.6.8 to yosemite and I have a imac 2007, and enough disk space. but when trying to download, I get a "I can't" due to a list of possible issues, but how to isolate the problem?
Thanks,
josefromaptos

Check that your computer is compatible with Mountain Lion/Mavericks/Yosemite.
To check the model number hold down the option/alt key, go to the Apple menu and select System Information.
iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) model number 7,1 or higher
Your Mac needs:
OS X v10.6.8 or OS X Lion already installed
2 GB or more of memory (More is better - 4 GB minimum seems to be the consensus)
8 GB or more of available space
Check to make sure your applications are compatible. PowerPC applications are no longer supported after 10.6.
Application Compatibility
Applications Compatibility (2)
Do a backup before installing.
If you can/do upgrade, I recommend you make a copy of the installer and move it out of your Applications folder. The installer self-destructs. The copy will keep you from having to download the installer again. You can make a bootable USB stick to install using this free program.
Bootable USB Flash Drive – Diskmaker X

How do I clean my mid 2007 iMac? The disk space is running VERY low and I would love an idea. I make videos and upload them to youtube and I need space to do that. Thanks for your time!

How do I clean my mid 2007 iMac?
The disk space is running VERY low and I would love an idea. I make videos and upload them to youtube and I need space to do that. Thanks for your time!
If you have an idea please respond!

You should never, EVER let a conputer hard drive get completely full, EVER!
With Macs and OS X, you shouldn't let the hard drive get below 15 GBs or less of free data space.
If it does, it's time for some hard drive housecleaning.
Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.
Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you store images in other locations other than iPhoto, then you will have to weed through these to determine what to archive and what to delete.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Look though other Apple Mail folders like the junk mail and delete the mail that is in there. Look through your sent items folders and see there is any mail in there that can be deieted.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.
Other things you can do to gain space.
Once you have around 15 GBs regained, do a search, download and install OmniDisk Sweeper.
This app will help you locate files that you can move/archive and/or delete from your system.
STAY AWAY FROM DELETING ANY FILES FROM OS X SYSTEM FOLDER!
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Look in your Applications folder, if you have applications you haven't used in a long time, if the app doesn't have a dedicated uninstaller, then you can simply drag it into the OS X Trash icon. IF the application has an uninstaller app, then use it to completely delete the app from your Mac.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its initial automatic tests, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run the maintenance tabs that let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
Good Luck!

"Out of disk space" on my 2TB iMac???

I'm sure there's a simple flag/switch/setting for this, but I just can't find it.
I have a new iMac 27" (which is perfect, by the way. No "yellow tinge" on the screen or any of those problems). I need to copy some video clips from my Windows laptop.
I shared my "Movies" folder on my iMac, connected to it from the laptop, and started copying a 4GB video file. The file is almost fully copied over -- 4.3GB now on the iMac -- but I'm getting an error on the laptop saying "There is not enough space on Movies...."
The dialog box says "Space free: 1.8TB, Total size: 1.81TB". Huh?
Thanks for any help or suggestions.

How much space is on your laptop? Could it be low on available disk space?

Re : Lion freeing up Hard Disk Space automatically

Hey,
I know this will sound strange but ive been noticing my Har Disk space automatically going up. It was 80 GB yesterday, this morning it was 120 GB and now its 152 GB !! I havent deleted anything and i have no idea what files are being deleted ! is anyone else facing this ? Should i be worried ? Or should I just enjoy the new found leg room !!
Thanks,
Maahir

So would time machine cause the finder to show me additional memory ? Also strangely when I check the space thru system information, it shows me around 60 go which is more or less what it should be. But the status bar at the bottom of finder windows and the info for the macintosh HD both show the extra 90 gb

Running out of disk space - External Drive Advice

Hi,
I've been importing all of our HDV video in "Large" fomat (Not the original or full size). We have an Apple TV so wanted to get the qaulity up for our large TV.
Anyway, we have lots of digital pics, huge iTunes library and now I'm starting to run out of disk space with all of my iMovie imports.
I would like to buy a huge external drive to help offload:
Is there any reason I should be concerned about storing my video on external drive? Any editing performance issues?
I use time machine, if I buy a huge external, can I split it in half and use part for time machine and part for imovie?
Just curious.
Thx,
Brent

I agree that you can make this work. Your external drive must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled). You can do this as you are creating your 2 partitions in Disk Utility, if it has a different formatting when you buy it.
If you want to move your Events from your internal drive to your new external drive, you need to do it from within iMovie so you do not break the links to your projects. To do this, open iMovie and click VIEW/EVENTS BY VOLUME. You should be able to see a small icon in your Event Library List for your external drive. You can Command-Drag your event icons in the event library list to this icon for your external, and all the links to your projects will be preserved. (hold down the command key while dragging). If you do a simple drag and drop, it will copy not move.

I am having trouble with disk space,

I am having trouble with disk space, I am always getting the error message that I need to delete files on my start up disk, I am all out of space. I cant even save a file to my desktop without getting the message, Is there a way I can free up space. I am not very computer savvy, being a pensioner I cannot afford expensive options. I was familiar with the old apple imac, but I was given a macbook pro for my birthday, and am trying to work it out. I use it mostly for photos and web.

Jillian,
I'm assuming this is a second-hand machine. If it is brand new, get it to Apple because it's their problem, not yours.
First thing you should do is go to Programs: Utilities: Disk Utlity and choose "Repair Permissions." If you don't have the OS X system disk (a DVD) go ahead and verify the Disk. It can't fix itself, so to speak, but can tell you if there is a problem. iIf you have the OS X system disk then boot off the disk, go to Disk Utility, and run Repair Disk. Assuming all is OK:
You don't need to download any programs to get started on figuring out why all your space is gone. Try this first:
Oh, when deleting, especially at first, you may have to move only small folders or even files, of 100 MB or so to the trash, then empty the trash. As the free space increases, you can trash progressively larger files. To delete files, the computer needs to create even more files to tell it what files it is deleting before it deletes them. I know, go figure.;)
It would not be a bad idea, and is in fact a very good idea, to run the disk utility "Repair permissions" after every half-dozen trash/empty trash cycles and then restart the computer.
The basic plan is to search for unreasonably sized folders.
From the Finder:
Open a window, click in the window and then:
Go to menu item View. (If you click on the desktop instead of a window, you'll get a different set of view options, none of which is the one you want.)
Click on it and move the cursor to the bottom choice, Show View Options (alternative Apple (Command)-J). Make sure the checkbox "Calculate all sizes" is checked. If it isn't, check it and then click on "Use as default" When checked, it will show you the size of a folder. If it was unchecked, don't be surprised if nothing seems to be happening as it will take awhile for the computer to calculate the size of, literally, thousands of folders. But some will start to show up right away. If you open a new window and don't see any folder sizes, Repeat the Show View Options routine above and if Calculate all sizes is checked, just wait.
I've heard you Aussies enjoy a beer or two. If your Mac has to calculate all the folder sizes, this might well be a good time to have a cold one or two, as it will take some time.
Go to the root level, which is "Computer" or "_Your Disk Name_," generically Macintosh under Devices in the sidebar.
Make sure you are in list view and can have the size column visible. Click on it (turns blue-grey) and it will sort by size, large to small or the reverse. Click again to reverse the sort order.
On my 10.6.8 machine, I have
98 GB under Users.
22 GB under Applications. If you only have the Apple-supplied applications, you probably have between 4 and 6 GB here.
Library is 24.5 GB
System is 4.6 GB
Other than a few trivially small files or folders, that should be about it for the root level.
If you have two System files, you shouldn't, and will need to get rid of one. Ask for advice before deleting one or the other. If you have a, "Previous System," or "Old System," -- can't remember the language, you can proably safely delete it if you are satisified with how your computer is working.
The Library is a candidate for bloat. Some applications, especially those that manipulate audio or video, store the bulk of their code, generally resources of one type or the other, in the Application Support folder. For instance, I have a 10.5 GB folder of Live Type in my Application Support folder. Honestly, I don't know what program it is for, but don't care because I upgraded to a 3/4 TB drive. In contrast, on my 10.7.1 computer, which has little more than the Apple supplied software on it at this point, uses only 1.5 GB for Application Support. The support folders will remain even if the program itself is deleted. As a general rule, I wouldn't bother checking out anything under 300 MB or so. Any folders over that, you should note for possible deletion _but_ be sure to ask someone with more knowledge about this what it is used for before deleting. If it is used for some program that isn't on your machine, meaning the program has been deleted, you can safely delete it. If the program is still on the machine, decide if you will use that program and, if not, delete the program and its application support files.
My next largest folder in the Library is Audio at 2.7 GB. I have audio editing programs, so that makes sense. You probaby have one also, but shouldn't be over 500 MB or so.
Next is Printers at 1.4 GB. This is a good place to clear up space. You'll see folders with various printer brands. Do you have a Brother printer? No? Trash it. Just keep the folder with your printer brand and the PPD folder and trash the rest. If you want to get real fancy, open your brands folder and delete the files for every model other than the one you have.
My next largest is Fonts at 490 MB. Leave that alone. In fact, unless Fonts is something insane like 2 GBs, stop deleting from the Library.
Go to Users. There could be between one and more than one user. (Fudge of an answer there.) There is no such thing as a guideline for user folder size. Is there a previous user? If so, check with them and see if you can delete it. I have a "dummy" administrative - level user that can be used for some esoteric rescue operations and it takes up a trivial 33 KB or something like that while my own account is pushing 100 GB.
You'll see several folders, Music, Pictures, Desktop, etc. This is stuff you or the previous user have created. If you don't want it, delete it. You will also see, aha! another Library folder. There shouldn't be many folders over 100 MB here except for Mail and our friend Application Support. I get a lot of mail, rarely delete any, and have carried it over from 10.3 and measures out at 3.7GB. Still, if its someone elses mail and you don't want it, you can delete it, but again, check with more knowledgable people as there are probably some files and folders you absolutely should not delete, others that you should delete from within Mail, and some you can manually delete.
My Application Support Folder weighs in at 1.4 GBs, of which 1.2 GBs is for Final Vinyl. That's a lot. Sneaky sucker stored some untitled audio files in there. Bye! OK, now the Application Support folder is down to 145 MB. So, I'd say anything much over that should be investigated for possible deletion. Close up Library and move on.
Downloads may be very small or very large. Depends on how meticulous the previous user was in deleting or moving to a more appropriate location. Ask them if there is anything they want, and if no, delete it.
My Application folder has Zero KB because I always install at the root, administrative level. If there is anything there, figure out if you want to use it or not. If not, trash it.
Overall:
1) Don't sweat the small stuff. The days are long gone when searching a hard drive for a 100 K file to delete is worthwhile.
2) Start small. A disk that full is going to be pretty touchy, so once you have identified a bloated folder, go inside of it and trash the smaller files and folder, then empty the trash, then delete a few more files, empty the trash, etc.
3) Don't forget to periodically Repair Permissions and restarting the computer.
4) If you are unsure about whether a folder or file can be safely deleted, ask someone knowledgable or just knock off for the day and hit it again tomorrow. Seriously, an unanswerable question you have might well be answered by sleeping on it and attacking it the next day.
5) As Douglas Adams wrote: DON'T PANIC!
Best of luck!
Chris

Advice on freeing iMac disk space

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