Hard drive full of "other" Is iMovie the culprit?

Issue: Friend's macbook pro is full of "other". The hard-drive capacity is 319.21GB. Other accounts for 262 GBs.
The macbook is running OS X 10.7.5 Time machine settings are ok – no screenshot problems.
I ran omni disk sweeper and the biggest area taking space is movies at 170 GB. iMovie Events.localized accounts for 158GB.
My friend says that she has noticed when she imports videos from her flip video camera they are larger than the capacity of the video camera. i.e. the flip 4GB capacity but when she imports the footage it takes up much more space on the computer.
So my first guess is that the issue is related to iMovie. I’m wondering if there is an import setting that is off. Any thoughts?

“Other” Storage:
A commonly asked question is what is included in the "Other” storage category reported in the About This Mac Storage display. Other includes everything that is not audio, movies, photos, apps and backups. In other words it includes the OS, mail, documents... See http://pondini.org/OSX/LionStorage.html and What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It? and Apple Support Communities https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-5142
Also see Where did my disk space go: http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
For hints on how to create more free disk space see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5779274?tstart=0

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Why is my hard drive full when I only have the operating system loaded and nothing else? No pics, music, nothing...It's the 60 Gig hard drive on the air built in late 2010.

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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 free on the startup volume 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. Back up all data now. 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. 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.
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I recently purchased an external hard drive to back up my iMovies. When I try to open the movies on the backup I get a message "you may not have permission to modify that folder" How do I change permissions on the backup?

I recently purchased an external hard drive to back up my iMovies. When I try to open the movies on the backup I get a message "you may not have permission to modify that folder" How do I change permissions on the backup?

Hi
One Must NEVER move or alter any folders named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Projects - or - alike
on DESKTOP/FINDER - Ever ! - ONLY Within the iMovie Program ! else all connections are broken and hard to impossibly to mend !
but rather do as described here under
Moving Event's and Project's
Connection - Either connect one Mac in Target mode to the other via FireWire. Or use an external hard disk !
(Target-Mode - Start one Mac e.g. laptop - BUT keep T-key down during full up-start - Now a FW-symbol is jumping around the screen and it will work as an external hard disk when connected to the other Mac)
A. The External Hard Disk - MUST BE - Mac OS Extended (hfs) formatted to work for Video. UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange works for most other things but not for Video whatever program is used (iMovie or FinalCut)
B. Should be a FireWire one as USB/USB2 performs badly to me and especially when filling up
C. Do never Move or Alter any folder named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Project's
on DeskTop/Finder - as this will result in iMovie losing connections to them and repair can be anything from hard to impossibly
D. Moving and Copying must be done within iMovie application and Events to Events - and - Project's to Project's.
E. Moving Project's to Event's - Do not work for me - I have to export project as a QuickTime movie then Import this into Events.
Event's window can show two faces
Like this
or like this
from one hard disk Event - You can move it to the other hard disk
You can not (at least not me) move Event to Project or other way around only
Event to Event and Project to Project
Yours Bengt W

My mac air says hard drive full and 90% is full of 'other' which I cant work out what 'other' is as i Have transferred most to my external hard drive

My mac air says hard drive full and 90% is full of 'other' which I cant work out what 'other' is as i Have transferred most to my external hard drive.
Do you know how I can tell how large each file is taking up and what my 'other' category could be?
thanks

Initial easy steps to gain disk space:
- Delete all files in the Downloads folder.
Empty the Trash.
- Start iPhoto.
Empty its trash.
Restart.
Backup:
Run a Time Machine (or other) backup since you are about to delete and move files and you may need to recover from any inadvertent mistakes or decisions. You will need one external hard drive for your Time Machine (or other) backup and a second if you plan to offload some files. (See suggestions for where to purchase hard drives at the end of this message.)
For more about backups:
Time Machine Basics: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Most commonly used backup methods:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031
Deleting files:
Then use the free application OmniDiskSweeper http://www.omnigroup.com/more to explore your volume in descending order by size so you can attack the problem from the top down, deleting the largest unwanted files first. Delete with caution and do not delete any system files. Remember to empty the trash after trashing the files.
Additional reference on freeing disk space:
http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
Offloading files:
Consider moving some of the no-often-used large files or directories to an external disk. Use ODS again to find them. This will be at least your second hard drive. Your first one(s) is/are for your Time Machine (or other) backup(s). Do not offload files onto a Time Machine disk.
Format the second drive as Mac OS Extended (journaled). Using OWS to find large files/folders and copy them from the system drive to the external hard drive and delete them from your internal drive.
Then  > System Preferences > Time Machine > Options… > Remove the offload HD name from the exclusions list.
Now both your system disk and your external offload disk will be backed up onto your Time Machine disk.
From: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
To move your iTunes Music folder to another disk or partition:
To change the location of your iTunes Music folder, carefully follow the instructions in the AppleCare® Knowledge Base document "iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Music folder."Additional information can be found in iTunes Help.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.thexlab.com/105/ 00000849.html
Laptop users may want to consider having two iTunes libraries: a small library of current favorites on their computer, while their complete library resides on an external hard drive. Utilities like iTunes Library Manager enable you to easily have multiple iTunes libraries you can use with your account. https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7689/itunes-library-manager
To move your iPhoto Library folder to another disk or partition:
To move the iPhoto Library folder to a new location, employ the instructions in the AppleCare Knowledge Base document from http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506 corresponding to the version of iPhoto you are using. Additional information can be found in iPhoto Help.
Laptop users may want to consider having two iPhoto libraries: a small library of current, favorite photographs on their computer, while their complete library, or archives of older photos are saved on an external hard drive. Utilities such as iPhoto Buddy and iPhoto Library Manager enable you to have multiple iPhoto libraries that you can use with your account.
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/12175/iphoto-buddy
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7158/iphoto-library-manager
Hardware — Bigger disk/SSD:
OWC sells 120, 240 and 480 GB SSD upgrades for MacBook Airs. A 240 GB upgrade costs $265. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/ . If your Mac is under warranty or AppleCare replacing the SSD will void the warranty.

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http://www.halfspot.com/use-your-pc-hard-drive-for-time-machine-backup/

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iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
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External drive
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Part 5: Copy music to your new computer
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Hard drive full of "other" Is iMovie the culprit?

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