Clean Out your Hard Drive

I wasn't sure if this was possible..but I thought I remember reading somewhere, even though you delete emails/pictures/documents..they still take up room in your hard drive- is there a way to delete these from your hard drive in order to make more room (I feel like i heard something about running de-fraggmenting?? )...or do i just need to buy more HD?? Thanks!

One OSX feature that takes care of a lot of the unneeded files is its ability to auto-execute built-in maintenance scripts. These do a lot of clean-up. The problem is that the scripts are designed to run in the wee hours of the morning local time and they only run if the computer is on and not sleeping--not too realistic.
Fortunately, the scripts can be run manually. Here is a good article on the scripts and how to use them without staying up all night:
http://thexlab.com/faqs/maintscripts.html
I use the Terminal method described there to maintain our stable of OSX Macs and find it's not nearly as scary as some people want to make it.

Similar Messages

I downloaded Lion on my iMac. It apparently cleaned out the hard drive. Nothing shows up from before. It looks like a brand new computer. It is backed up on Time machine. Any idea of why this happened and suggestions on restoring? Thanks.

I downloaded Lion on my 4 yr old iMac. The download stalled at the last minute so I clicked "CANCEL". When it was restarted, Lion was there, with no apparent option but to go ahead and install so I assumed it was okay. Didn't transfer data from "another computer" when prompted - assumed it would transfer from that computer. It apparently cleaned out the hard drive. It looks like a brand new computer. None of my apps, programs, files, or thousands of photos.   It is backed up on Time machine, but it's a sickening sight. Any idea why this happened and suggestions before restoring? Thanks.

I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots. Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
See Pondini's page for more explanation:   What are Local Snapshots?   http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.
The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library. Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

Best way to clean out a hard drive.

I have a A505 S605 Satelite laptop with a hard drive full of junk. I would like to start over by cleaning out the hard drive completely. After the hard drive is cleaned out, I will install everything using the recovery disks that I got from the Geek Squad when I bought the computer.
What is the best way to get the hard drive wiped out? Thank you for your help.

Just back up the data you need to keep onto a usb thumb drive or usb external hard drive then run the Recovery Disk to restore the system to it's factory out of box state. IT will wipe the drive as part of the process leaving your system exactly as it came to from the factory. You don't need to delete anything first.
If you don't post your COMPLETE model number it's very difficult to assist you. Please try to post in complete sentences with punctuation, capitals, and correct spelling. Toshiba does NOT provide any direct support in these forums. All support is User to User in their spare time.

I seem to have deleted my iphoto while cleaning out my hard drive, can i recover it with the pictures it had on it?

while clearing out my hard drive on my MacBook Pro 10.6.8 i managed to delete my iphoto is it possible for me to relocate it? along with the photos it had on it?

If your Mac came with iPhoto preinstalled, before the AppStore was introduces, iPhoto should be on the system install DVDs that came with with your Mac. Look for the DVD with the bundled additional applications.
If you deleted your iPhoto library, restore it from your backup - you need to restore "iPhoto Library", which is located in your Pictures folder by default.
How long ago did this happen? If it was only recently, data recovery software could be used to restore jpeg images, but this kind of software is not available for free,

Wiping out your hard drive

If I'm looking to sell my laptop and get it back to when I first purchased it, is there a way to wipe out the hard drive, and all the settings and histories to get the computer back to when you first take it out of the box and start it up for the first time?
Thanks!

For casual users, just re-install the MacOS, being sure to use the option format the drive. Formatting and overwriting the drive is sufficient security for anyone who doesn't know you and need your specific personal data.
Don't waste your time erasing seven times, or buying a program to "securely" erase a drive. To the motivated hacker or cop, there's no difference between erasing once and erasing/overwriting seven times.
My FBI computer crime agent friend reads "erased seven times" drives every day. He says the only way to destroy data to destroy the physical platters with a hammer, ensuring the glass no longer looks like pie slices (which can be re-assembled). Wow.
If you have that kind of sensitive data, put a new drive in the machine before you sell it.

Clean out my hard drive

how do I clean up my hard drive on macbook pro? need more room. thank you.. life long pc user so am totally lost...

Have a Look at this Video...
http://macmost.com/what-to-do-when-your-hard-drive-is-full.html

I don't have many files, or many large applications on my MacBook Pro. 13'' with a 320 gb hard drive. However, Activity Monitor says I'm using almost half of it. What can I do to clean out the hard drive and keep only the files that I actually use?

I'm curious if there's a "defragging" or "cleaning" service available from Apple that I can use to take back some of my hard drive space.

Here are some links with information and caveats.
http://www.macworld.com/article/28636/2004/01/cleaningutilities.html
http://www.macworld.com/article/133684/2008/06/maintenance_intro.html#lsrc.mod_r el
http://www.macworld.com/article/133730/2008/06/maintenance_routines.html#lsrc.mo d_rel
http://www.macworld.com/article/28480/2003/12/handson.html#lsrc.mod_rel
http://www.macworld.com/article/42286/2005/01/preventmacdisasters.html#lsrc.mod_ rel

I want to clean out my hard drive and re-install Tiger

I am copying my user folder and bringing it on to an external Hard drive. Is there anything that I should know before I do this. How do I make sure that I'm not deleting anything that I don't want to be deleted. What are some things I need to know. thanks

You may want to clone your whole drive to the External HD with Carbon Copy Cloner...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
So you for sure don't lose anything.

Cleaning out the hard drive

I don't know if there is a better term for this, but I was wondering if people could collectively give me ideas on what files tend to "collect" and take up space on a hard drive that really don't need to be there.
For example, after watching nearly a thousand DVDs on my computer, I was always wondering where the information on each DVD was being stored, and it's all this hidden file stuff for each DVD. I managed to find that location (thanks to this discussion group) and delete every file for every DVD I'd seen, and the "savings" would make Geico proud. The amount of stuff that collects on a hard drive is expansive and as I'm trying to consolidate my hard drive, any tips would be helpful.
Are there other similar areas of "build-up" that would make our hard drives that much more useful? Other ideas may be youtube videos and quicktime movie downloads (I've posted the relevant questions to their respective boards), etc...

Hi,
use an app like Disk Inventory X http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14393/disk-inventory-x ; Grand Perspective http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19515/grandperspective or JDisk Report http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/20598/jdiskreport to find the places and files that eat up your disk space.
Regards
Stefan

What are your options when you run out of hard drive space?

What are your options when you run out of hard drive space?

I 110% agree, it is a disaster but it saves your mac until you recieve an external HD.
Csound1 wrote:
XcodeDeveloper wrote:
I know but he just wanted options so I gave him one that helped me. If he filled up his HD a Gigabyte is sometimes a small miracle, exaggeration on small .
OSX with 1G of free space is a disaster waiting to happen.
Read this:

I have a white MacBook. I just changed out the hard drive with a 500GB. When I turn it on I get a file fold with a ? In the middle that flashes. What do I do next?

I have a white MacBook and I just changed out the hard drive with a 500GB. When I turn it on I get a file fold with a ? In the middle that flashes. What do I do next?

Clean Install of Snow Leopard
Be sure to make a backup first because the following procedure will erase
the drive and everything on it.
     1. Boot the computer using the Snow Leopard Installer Disc or the Disc 1 that came
         with your computer. Insert the disc into the optical drive and restart the computer.
         After the chime press and hold down the "C" key. Release the key when you see
         a small spinning gear appear below the dark gray Apple logo.
     2. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue
         button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
         After DU loads select the hard drive entry from the left side list (mfgr.'s ID and drive
         size.) Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. Set the number of
         partitions to one (1) from the Partitions drop down menu, click on Options button
         and select GUID, click on OK, then set the format type to MacOS Extended
         (Journaled, if supported), then click on the Apply button.
     3. When the formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed
         with the OS X installation and follow the directions included with the installer.
     4. When the installation has completed your computer will Restart into the Setup
         Assistant. Be sure you configure your initial admin account with the exact same
         username and password that you used on your old drive. After you finish Setup
         Assistant will complete the installation after which you will be running a fresh
         install of OS X. You can now begin the update process by opening Software
         Update and installing all recommended updates to bring your installation current.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.

Can i recover photo files lost when i wiped out my hard-drive and reinstalled mac os x?

Can i recover photo files lost when i wiped out my hard-drive and reinstalled mac os x? I know that when a computer is wiped cleaned that the info is still on the hard drive, how do I access it? Can I pay someone to access it? Long story short, everything was saved to my external hard drive except my photos, by mistake of course.

You have to stop using the drive immediately. Completely stop. Do not boot the computer from the drive.
File recovery software: Try using an application such as Data Rescue 3 - http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php or FileSalvage - http://subrosasoft.com, or one of the ones listed in the (old) link below. Some have free trial versions that let you see if the software will help before you decide to buy. You will also need a second hard drive equal to or larger in size than your first drive as a destination drive for recovered files.
http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/mac-recovery-software
It is critical that you do not use the computer or even turn it on until you have rescued your files. Files only have the directory reference to them removed when you empty the trash or otherwise delete them from a computer (unless you use secure erase, in which case they are gone forever or can only be potentially be recovered by very expensive means) and are still present on the computer. However, their space is marked as available to any other file creation done on the computer (even done by you booting the computer) and there is risk that your files will be overwritten by the computer.
Even if the above works, do not expect the results to be pretty or even 100% successful. Files will often lose their names and you will have to re-name them one by one.

How to create a repository(not just custom) using your hard drive

I don't know if many people know about this, so I am giving this a shot. There are three major articles on wiki.archlinux.org: Custom local repository,
Using a CD-ROM as a repository, and Offline Installation of Packages. These are available online through the WIKIs at archlinux.org.
I was first confused because when I was reading "Offline installation of packages", I didn't know what these ".db.tar.gz" files where. I came mainly from a Debian / Ubuntu
background (I actually tried many distros before this), so getting used to the way the repository works and no graphical install manager for it. However, I enjoyed a challenge and
I found out that these are database packages that contain descriptions and locations on where these files are located. The ones on the ftp server are already compiled. I don't know if,
however they are compiled with the most recent versions.
With all that said, I thought you had to have it all in one directory in order for this to work, but as it turns out, location is not really an issue. I decided to have a directory reside on the root.
I chose root because it's only for the install of my own packages. I could have done it as a seperate user account, such as "repos" in PCLinuxOS (another distro I tried). I didn't want to have a seperate account for this. Therefore, I created "/root/repository". Within this directory I created directories for all repository archives. I basically did a "cd /mnt/dvd" and migrated to the particular repository directories. I would copy all the "pkg.tar.gz" files into their respective directories with "cp * ~/repository/<name-of-dir>". For intance, I started with the "core" directory, because there was some things I didn't install in the core directory during installation and if the packages needed it, it was there. This follows for the rest of the directories, such as "community", "testing", and "unstable", etc.You can go to the ftp mirrors to find out what directories are available. The main point is that your files should be in the format ".pkg.tar.gz". These are package files that get converted into a sort of database format that as I mentioned, informs the system the description and where the files are located, and so on.
The command to perform this, is "tar -xvf /root/repository/core/core.db.tar.gz *.pkg.tar.gz". You can replace core with whatever repository you are adding. So, for example, "extra.db.tar.gz" would be in the "extra" directory. This information is located in the "Offline installation of packages". The command to create this database is called, "repo-add".
The format for this command is "repo-add /path/to/dir.db.tar.gz *.pkg.tar.gz". So, if it's the core packages you would "cd ~/repository/core" and "repo-add core.db.tar.gz *.pkg.tar.gz".
Then, you need to edit the "/etc/pacman.conf" configuration file for pacman. I basically would comment all out except for the repositories I need. So, for example "[core]" and "/etc/pacman.d/core" would tell where normally the servers are located for these files. This information is located int the "Custom local repository" article.using the "repo-add" command.
Furthermore, I edited each server file located in "/etc/pacman.d/<repository>" where repository is core, extra, etc. I would perform, "nano /etc/pacman.d/core" for example and comment out all servers. I then add a "local repository" by typing in "file:///root/repository/core", saved it, and then did a "pacman -Sy" to update the repository database. Now, I can do "pacman -S <package-name>" where package-name is whatever I wanted to install. Voila! Please let me know of any suggestions, questions, insights, or comments. I hope I'm not missing anything in this article. I do remember using "rm -rf * in the "/var/lib/pacman/<repository>"directories and using "tar xvf <repository>.db.tar.gz". I don't if that something to do with it, though. Be careful with the "rm -rf *" command, because you can erase your hard drive if you are not careful, for those who aren't informed.
P.S. Please note all these are done with the root user.

pressh wrote:
gradgrind wrote:
smitty wrote:pressh, I understand and appreciate your point of view... well taken! Are you implying that I should have written in steps, such as 1, 2, and 3? Also, should I have got ridden of the redundant information if it is contained in the Wiki article and / or taken out the commands on how to apply them and left only with the explanation? Is this what you imply? Sorry if I seem redundant with these questions, but I'm curious so I can improve for the future. I am new to this and open to any suggestion and comments.
Maybe you could either edit the existing wiki pages where they were not clear to you, or else add a new wiki page, or both. Certainly give the whole a clearer (visual) structure, and (if they don't already exist) add links between the connected wiki pages.
Yes that is partly what I mean. Further you could get rid of the information that is not really needed to follow the guide (for example what the command 'repo-add' does. People could if they are interested look it up in the script itself, or you could add it here and link to it).
And yes a bit of structure would be nice. You don't have to nessesarily call it 1,2,3, as long as it has some kind of structure in it (the visual point is very important here). You could take a look at existing wiki pages on the web and see how most of them (not all of them are good of course) are structured.
That's a good point, too. How do I found out what articles are more effective? I am doing research on this particular matter at the moment and came across articles that have tips on technical writing. Could this help in the long run? Or, is it better to get feedback from other users and improve that way? In other words, do first, and ask later, as one user point out?

Running out of hard drive space---can I use my external hard drive-??

I have a 16GB iPod nano. I hope I can explain my problem well enough.
My laptop computer has the iTunes that I use for syncing my iPod. It has over 25gb of songs in it, but my problem is that it has completely run out of hard drive space, and I don't think I can delete anything else.
I have a 250 GB external hard drive that also has all my songs backed up on it, that has hard drive space left on it.
Is there a way to load new music into the external hard drive, that will sync up to the iPod when I connect it to the laptop, WITHOUT putting a copy of it into the laptop, and taking up space-?
The way it appears to me, and I may be wrong, is that there are 2 copies of eaxh song on my laptop---the one in my music folder, and then the one in the iTunes folder. Is that correct-?
OR, is there a way to remove some of the songs from the laptop, and put them into the external hard drive, but will still sync up to the iPod-?
Thanks for any help that anyone can offer, I'm desperate ~!
I'm not sure if this can be done, but I'd hate to think that I cannot put new music onto my iPod.
Thanks~!

Hello melbernai,
I think your best move would be to the move the entire iTunes library including of all of its file to your external hard drive and running your iTunes from there. You can even have it so that all newly imported music is saved to the external drive as well.
For more help on how to do this, I would check out this article on how to move and run your iTunes library from an external hard drive.
http://lifehacker.com/238296/ultranewb--how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-ex ternal-drive
Hope this helps.
B-rock

How do you see the size of your hard drive

I am new the the MAC world and I am trying to figure out some things. How do you see the size remaining on your hardrive?

If you have a folder open or dubble click on your hard drive you, can turn on the status bar which will show you available disc space:

Clean Out your Hard Drive

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