Available space on Mac OS X

According to my macintosh HD out of 999.86 GB I am using 977.39 and leaving only 22.47 GB free space. I have ran various disk space readers which say I am only using 78.2 GB which is probably more accurate so what has gone wrong.

If your OS X was installed by DVD, you could start the computer from that DVD to run Disk Utility, and have it repair disk, repair disk permissions, and restart from the computer's hard disk drive. Hold C key on startup with disc in optical drive, as available. Later models have no slot for DVD. It should take you through a Language -choose window, (english is USA default) and the next screen would is like an open Installer application, works like Finder. Do not choose install, but look into the upper menu for options that are helpful. Disk Utility is under Utilities.
By booting from the Installer and choose Disk Utility from the Utilities column in the header, this allows a repair of the unmounted hard disk drive in the computer. And when you are done, you can quit Disk Utility, choose to restart the Mac from the dropdown menu in booted Installer by using startup manager to choose a different startup drive.
But a just Safeboot (shift key held on startup) takes a bit of time and may help fix the error; unless there is a problem in sectors of file data on the hard disk drive. Restart after looking into this.
A report in the computer's regular Disk Utility may offer a message if you choose to Check Disk from the running OS X system, without the booted install disc method.
At some point if there is a hardware defect in the hard disk drive, you should be sure to backup you work to an external hard disk drive to have an archive before performing any invasive repairs to the computer HD.
There are a few other things one could do, especially
if checking these on the fly and not in the blind...
Good luck & happy computing!
{edited 2x}

Similar Messages

HT201364 i have all the requirements except 8gb of available space. my mac only has 4gb capacity.is there any way to get a smaller version of the mavericks software?

I have all the requirements except8gb of available space. my mac only has 4gb capacity.is there any way to get a smaller version of the mavericks software?

That refers to free disk space, not RAM. If your computer has 4GB of RAM, that's enough. If it only has 4GB of free disk space, you need to delete content from the internal drive; for best results, free up at least 20GB.
(97356)

HT201364 When I try to download this I get a message that says I haven't got sufficient space on my startup disk. I have checked my available space on the disc and I have only 3GB free out of 500. I have hardly anything on my mac - how can this be?

When I try to download this I get a message that says I haven't got sufficient space on my startup disk. I have checked my available space on the disc and I have only 3GB free out of 500. I have hardly anything on my mac - how can this be?

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion's Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

You need 3.54 GB of available space to download Mac OS X 10.7. Remove items from your startup disk to increase available space.

i recently upgraded my memory to 2gb to support download of lion. i am now receiving this message when i try to download lion:
You need 3.54 GB of available space to download Mac OS X 10.7. Remove items from your startup disk to increase available space.

Hi, Rick.
Your MacBook's hard drive is too full to accommodate Lion. How big is your hard drive, and how much space remains available on it?
It sounds as if you may be confusing RAM with hard drive space.
Check out this article on the subject:
http://www.ehow.com/about_5452977_computer-memory-vs-storage.html
It is generally recommended to keep a minimum of 15% of the total capacity of your hard drive as available space for smooth operation of your Mac.

How can I see available space on my Mac

where do I find my available space on my Mac

Is your system still MacOS X10.5.8?
Usually you can see the free space, if you select the system drive in the Finder and use the command "File > Get Info".

I feel that Apple. mac. Safari is selling out available Space on every search, and, or, we consumers are being saturated with junk mail. can't block it can't stop it from happening. Help

I feel that Apple. mac. Safari is selling out available Space on every search, and, or
we consumers are being saturated with junk mail. can't block it can't stop it from happening. Help

You can use junk mail filters but setting the criteria can be a problem.
A very good tool for blocking adware is available from Thomas Reed's site http://www.thesafemac.com Thomas is a regular contributor on ASC and a good helper.

Osx lion: available space on my HD has increased significantly since the iCloud and recovery disc updates for Mac.

osx lion: available space on my HD has increased significantly (doubled!) since the iCloud and recovery disc updates for Mac. I am guessing OSX Lion now recalculates what is 'available' as I have not deleted anything major. I have two MacBook Air's (1 core 2 duo and 1 i5), both with 256 drives. I am also running win 7 on Parallels 7. Any thoughts?

you can't necessarily download the Mountain Lion installer via the App Store since it came already installed on your computer.
Not true. You can go to the Mac App Store and download the installer
(from the link that WALTER-MILANO-ITALY posted above)
Install OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion
If you completed your installation of OS X, your installer may have been removed after your successful first login to OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion. Mac App Store's Purchases page should show Install OS X as being "Installed", and disallow its download, when viewed from a computer running OS X.
To redownload the installer on a computer running OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion, press and hold the Option key while you click the Purchases tab. If the button to the right of the Install OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion item doesn't change to "Install" and allow you to download OS X, use Spotlight to search for "Install OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion" on your computer.

Verbatim disk drive historically used only for time machine backups. Recently i added some other media files to use some of available space without partitioning, the disc now refuses to mount in finder despite appearing in disk utility. Repair fails. HELP

Sorry to elaborate a bit more.
I have used time machine since owning my mac book pro with no issues. i keep the timemachine backups on an external hard drive made by Verbatim. This has not external power source.
Recently i decided to use up some of the available space on the external verbatim disk drive to store some movie files which were sitting on my macbook pro.
Therefore i created a new folder outside of the time machine backup folder and stored the movie files in there.
From then on Time machine failed... and a few days later i noticed it was not mounting in 'finder'
Therefore i used disk utility to see if it was recognising it. Which i was. However when i try to repair it the repair process fails.
In disk utility i am presented with 1 TB Samsung HN M10 which has a child called Verbatim HD.
The 1TB Samsung hardware appears fine, but the verbatim disk i am unable to fully verify and fix.
Does this mean i have lost all my back ups?
Have I lost all the media that i put on there?
Is there any way to fix this?
Any help would be appreciated.
didier07...

To summarize: You used an external Verbatim HD for your TM backups. Then, you stored some movie files on the "spare" space on the Verbatim drive. Now, Disk Utility isn't being recognized, and repair is disabled. Your home Samsung drive is working fine, but the Verbatim cannot be verified.
The problem, I believe, is that the external Verbatim drive wasn't partitioned. There should be two partitions: one for TM backups, the other for video. That way, you can perform backups, and still retain some space for video or somesuch.
Frankly, I don't know how to fix this except through the following. (1) Erase the Verbatim drive, (2) Create a new blank space and format it, (3) Make two partitions - one for backup, the other for video. (4) Run TM through one partition, but switch to the other for your videos. The better solution might be to have one dedicated drive (perhaps the Verbatim) for backups, and another dedicated drive for video backups; that way, you'll have plenty of space for expansion.
I hope someone will correct me if I'm incorrect, but I believe you've essentially lost your backups and media. I don't know how you can retrieve that clump of the now-undifferentiated data on the Verbatim drive. To retrieve any lost data, you're going to require another external drive that's larger in capacity, as well as data recovery software; don't expect encouraging results. If you're desperate, there are firms like Drive Savers that can offer a more comprehensive solution - at a cost.
Post if you have questions, or additional concerns!

HT5318 Ever since I updated what looked like iTunes 10.6.1 my computer has been corrupted with Malware, which has filled up all available space on my hard drive. What do I do to get rid of the Malware?

Ever since I updated what looked like iTunes 10.6.1 my computer has been corrupted with Malware, which has filled up all available space on my hard drive. What do I do to get rid of the Malware?

First, reboot. That will temporarily free up some space. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB free for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data.
Use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space.
Proceed further only if the problem hasn't been solved.
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 really see everything, you have to run it as root.
First, back up all data if you haven't already done so. No matter what happens, you should be able to restore your system to the state it was in at the time of that backup.
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.
☞ If you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later, open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
After installing ODS in the Applications folder, drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
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.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. When you're done with it, quit it and also quit Terminal.

External hard drive has no available space even though i have deleted nearly everything on there

I have an external hard drive for backups and it has no available space even though i have deleted nearly everything on there. Where is the space?

Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

How do I find how much me more I have available on my mac?

How do I find how much me more I have available on my mac?

if you mean "Memory", as in RAM, you can 1. look at "About this Mac" which is under the apple menu at the top left of your screen, and it will tell you how much total ram you have.
2. If you mean hard drive space, if you select your startup drive in the finder, and do "Get Info" (control-click), it will tell you how big the hard drive is, and how much free space is on it.
3. Or go to applications>utilities>activity monitor and check out the system memory and disc usage buttons on the bottom.

HT6114 how to free space on mac

Please help

Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. 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 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. Reboot and it should go away.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) 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 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.
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 or GP 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.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install the app you downloaded in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding 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:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective
Launch the built-in 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 to be careful. 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, 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.

I have purchased a macbook air with 64 gb hard disk. the available space is only 10gb. With this available space, i can't use the system effectively. kindly advise.

I have purchased a macbook air with 64 gb hard disk. the available space is only 10gb. With this available space, i can't use the system effectively. kindly advise.

You should have bought one with a larger SSD. You can regain some space by disabling the sleepimage file:
To disable safe sleep, run the two following commands in Terminal:
$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
$ sudo nvram "use-nvramrc?"=false
When done, restart your computer. Now go delete the file "/private/var/vm/sleepimage" to free up some hard drive space. When you put your computer to sleep it, should happen in under five seconds; my MacBook now goes to sleep in two seconds.
[robg adds: To state the obvious, with safe sleep disabled, a total power loss will wipe out whatever was open on your machine. To enable safe sleep mode again, repeat the above commands, but change hibernatemode 0 on the first line to hibernatemode 3, and =false to =true on the second line. You'll then need to reboot again. Personally, I prefer the safe sleep mode, even with the slower sleep time and hard drive consumption -- even if for no other reason than it's great when changing batteries on a flight.]
You can also delete unneeded files:
Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion's Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Why does my Macintosh HD and Utility Disk give different available space values?

My MacBook Pro (about a year and a half old) has started running extremely slowly out of the blue, to the point it is barely functional. I've tried basically everything, restarting, cleaning up the desktop, clearing out my downloads file, starting in safe mode, resetting the PRAM, updating the operating system. Now my Mac HD says it has about 400GB free space out of 700GB, however today I was running utility disk to see if that would detect a problem and when selecting the first Macintosh HD option it says I only have around 18MB free, is this my problem? and if so how do I fix it? and why would I have two different values for available space? The second Macintosh HD entry does have the same available space in the get info page as is listed in the Disk Utility.

“Finder does not take into account the Backups/ local snapshots,
but disk utility includes them.”
http://pondini.org/TM/30.html
Disk space / Time Machine ?/ Local Snapshots
Local backups
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18861?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

How to increase "available space"

Hello. I'm on my first Mac and have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and want to upgrade to Mtn. Lion. It says that it requires 2GB of memory, which I have, and 8GB of "available space." I have 6GB. Does Apple have a snappy way to increase "available space" that does not require opening the computer up? Thank you.

iStuckagain wrote:
Thank you all for your help. Your answers made me cringe, and since I was cringing so much that I decided to go back and look at the numbers and I have to apologize: I gave the wrong number for disk space. (Feeling like a dork right about now.)
My computer comes with two 2GB (banks) of DDR3 memory, so the memory is 4GB. I got some help learning about and locating the Applications>Utilities>Activity Monitor>System Memory section and found that I have 1.82 GB free, 641MB wired, 1.42GB active, 139.7MB inactive, and 2.18 GB used. Adding free and used gives 4GB total memory, and so I think I do have just under 2GB free. I will check out both places you listed, Eric Root, and I will get, as you suggested, Csound1, as much RAM as my computer permits.
And regarding "disk space," I don't have 6GB, I have 640GB! I looked a few tabs over and found that my disk usage is 333.92GB utilized and 305.87GB free, so it looks like I have 640GB (650, but 640 useable?) of disk space in total and that just over half is being used.
I'm sorry for the poor researching in my original post, but I'm pretty new to the inner workings of computers. That's just where I am right now. It appears that the memory I thought I had enough of, I need more of, and the disk space I thought I was out of, I have plenty of! Jeez. Anyway, I appreciate the help from all of you and I will take care of that RAM problem pronto .
You're welcome

Available space on Mac OS X

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