Hard drive half full but cant find files to delete

just inherited a mac book pro coming from a mac mini and it sees everything was the same even after upgrading to lion but for some reason the hard drive is half full but i thought i deleted all files the previous owner had so id like to be able to get rid of the unneccesarily used space but dont know how to simply do it without fully starting over

In as much as the previous owner did not erase and reinstall the OS when he sold you the MBP the best thing to do is to start over. Do an Erase & Install of the OS. Then you can set up the MBP with your own information and password.

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New MacBook Pro hard drive is full - but Nearly All Files on DropBox. Please Help!

I recently bought a new MacBook Pro and I am no longer able to download files from my email because it is out of space. I store everything on DropBox and nearly no files on the hard drive. I am looking for assistance to reduce the 72.68GB of "other" on my hard drive. Many Thanks!
about my Mac:
Storage Space:
<Image Edited by Host to Remove Personal Information>

You have a very small hard drive, and not enough free space for your computer to function well. You need an external hard drive. If you anticipate adding a lot more files, you can clone your existing system to the external, and then boot from it. Or you can shift some of the stuff that you currently store in Dropbox to a backup area on your external drive, and then cut down what you keep in Dropbox to contain ONLY the files that you need to be able to access when not at home. You can also change the location of your Dropbox folder, with the caveats noted at the bottom of the help article I have copied below:
From Dropbox Help:
How do I move my Dropbox folder to a new location?
You can move your Dropbox folder to any location on your hard drive using the Dropbox desktop application. If you decide to move the folder, we strongly recommend choosing a location on the same hard drive as your operating system. Dropbox won't work correctly should the Dropbox folder ever become inaccessible.
You can select the new location from the Dropbox desktop application preferences.
Using the Dropbox desktop application on Mac OS X
Click on the Dropbox icon from your menu bar.
The Dropbox icon
Click on the gear icon and select Preferences... from the menu.
Click the Account tab.
Move the Dropbox folder location by selecting your folder from the drop-down menu labeled Dropbox location.
Let Dropbox move your folder and its contents to its new location.
Important: Your Dropbox folder will keep the same name as before and can't be changed by using the move feature. Dropbox will not sync your Dropbox folder if it has been manually renamed or moved through your operating system. If Dropbox loses track of your Dropbox folder, it will attempt to re-sync the folder in its entirety using its last known location.
Dropbox for Business users: If you've connected a personal and a work Dropbox, you'll see both of your Dropboxes listed here. Select the correct toggle before moving the Dropbox folder location.
For our advanced users
If you want to put your Dropbox folder on an external drive, proceed with caution:
The Dropbox folder must be available when your computer boots and before the Dropbox desktop application starts. Some USB drives, for example, take some time to mount before your computer recognizes them. The Dropbox desktop application could start before such a drive is ready and get confused. You'll receive an error and Dropbox will give you the opportunity to relink your Dropbox account or exit if it is unable to find your Dropbox folder.
If the external drive is disconnected from the computer while Dropbox is running, there's a small chance that the application will start deleting files before realizing that the entire drive has been removed. Again: When it comes to using an external drive for your Dropbox folder, tread carefully.

HT201250 I want to use Time Machine to back up my pictures because my hard drive is full but I'm wondering if once I back up the pictures then delete them will time machine delete them off the back up too?

I want to use Time Machine to back up my pictures because my hard drive is full but I'm wondering if once I back up the pictures then delete them will time machine delete them off the back up too?

Evetually yes.
If your pictures have been in the same location (same folder, same subfolder, ...) for more than a week, then copies if them will remain in your TM backups until it fills up. They are then vulnerable to being deleted.
If they've been there for less than a week, TM could delete them as early as a month from now. If they've been there for only a few hours, chances are TM will delete them tomorrow.
This is why TM is not the best tool to use to archive data that you will be deleting from your main hard drive. Copy them to a dedicated external drive, or burn DVDs.

Why does my Mac say my hard drive is full, but that's not true?

Why does my Mac say my hard drive is full, but there should be plenty of space on it?

You need to get a program like OmniDiskSweeper, it will check your drive and see what is taking up the space. From there you can decide what to do.

Hard Drive nearly full, but can't see why.

Hi there,
I've got a 2009 iMac (4Gb RAM, 500Gb HDD) running 10.8.5. I got a Finder warning about the Hard drive space this morning saying I only had 400Mb left. Which is very strange, because most working files are kept on my machine, but copied back to a file server, and trashed from my mac.
After some trashing of bits and bobs, I managed to get to about 60Gb free (so at least the mac could function properly whilst i was doing some investigative work.
I did a "get info" on each of the folders in my user account (including the hidden 'Library' folder). Counted up to about 85Gb. I then did the same for the system folder - Apps, System, and Library - which came to 34Gb. That's a total of 119Gb (which is about what I would have guessed).
So there's about 320Gb of hard drive space that's being eaten up, but I can't see where. I have been doing some heavy work in iBooks Author, so I opened up the iBA files and deleted the previous versions. Won back a bit of space, but not a dent really. I think the local snapshot versions are actually pretty small.
Thinking that it had to be an issue with some bloated hidden file, I used Terminal to show hidden files, and tried to use the 'Find' facility to search for files over 1Gb; there were a few, but none hidden, and none i didn't already know about.
I don have TIme Machine, but that's set up for an external HDD, so that's not the issue.
Any ideas what I can try next?

Hi Eric – Thanks for the reply. Forgot to mention that I checked out the storage in 'About this mac'. Here's the shot.
As you can see, backups are pretty much at zero, so assuming that the 'backups' section comprises previous 'versions' of files, (local snapshots), then theoretically these are ruled out too.
I've downloaded OmniDiskSweeper (thanks for the link), and ran it, which is where things get really wonky. I left it for ages. I presume it had finished scanning, as it gives no progression bar or 'finished' dialogue box. Check out the screenshot.
Check out OmniDiskSweeper's data. The 'User' folder is the largest (unsurprisingly) at 75Gb, but that is only what I thought it would be. Check out the total amount scanned (at the top of the window). 102Gb. 102. Yet, there's there 'Get info' box on the left, saying I've got 418 Gb used on the hard drive.
The system thinks that there's more data on the HDD than OmniDiskSweeper. I'm suspecting that there's a corruption somewhere. I tried a 'light' clean of my system cache (using MountainLionCacheCleaner), and did a safe boot to clear some caches, but no result.
Next, I'm going to create a new User to see if the issue is within the User account or system-specific. Then I'm going to start up CarbonCopyCloner to see what that reports. Back in touch soon.

My computers hard drive is full but I need to back up my iPhone. What is the best way to do that, saving all the pictures, music, and app information in an easily access able location?

So apple requests that you back up your device before taking it in plus it's time to secure my photos and such so that I can have them in case my phone gives out. However, the hard drive on my computer is full and it does not have room to take all my photos through iPhoto and other things on my phone that I want backed up. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to where I should back it up. I have the standard 5 gb of iCloud but my pictures alone at more than 5 gb. Is it worth buying extra iCloud space or should I get an external drive for my computer? How would that work when transferring from my phone to the external drive and not storing it on my computer...

What computer do you have?
What operating system is it running?
Allan

Hard drive is full, but I don't know why

I can't seem to find out where all the space in my hard drive is taken. Itunes, idvd, etc don't show huge files. The window in finder does not show the size of each file either. How can I find out where it all is?

Use a program such as WhatSize or Disk Inventory X to determine where the space is being used.
(37953)

Is iCloud as good to back up files when an iMac 2007 model does not have an external hard drive is this enough to find files and apps at another time

I have given my iMac 2007 model running mountain lion OSX 10.8.3 to a friend and she doesn't have an external hard drive to back up would using iCloud be as good to back up files pictures etc and can I find them again if lost please.

These are the iCloud storage options: http://www.apple.com/icloud/includes/lightbox-storage.html
Also bear in mind that:
1. restoring data over icloud takes time
2. iCloud is not designed as a replacement to Time Machine.

ITunes cannot backup because it says hard drive is full but I have 292gb available

I (my girlfriend) have a MacBook 1,1 from 2006, an iPhone 4s, an iPad Retina and just bought an iPhone 5s.
I'm trying to backup the phones and ipad to MacBook but iTunes is saying that the MacBook doesn't have enough room.
I've checked and I do have enough room 292gb - this is what I would expect because the original hard drive burnt out and so I had to buy a new one (the Macbook has hardly anything on it).
I'm not sure if it's related but i'm also trying to backup this MacBook to an external hard drive (Seagate) and Time Machine doesn't list the external drive, or any other drive at all.
Thanks in advance.
Ryan

@Ronald,
I'm glad to know that you can get by on only 120 GB . However, that's not my experience on Windows. Admittedly, Mac and Mavericks in particular seem to manage memory a lot better than Win. But I've been using PS since ver 4 and it's always been a huge memory drain.
In CS6, I'm finding my scratch disk often exceeds 100 GB. I have dedicated almost 300 GB to mine and it's still not enough for everything I do. But I know how to manage my resources so I can get by on what I have until new computers arrive.
Nancy O.

Start-up hard drive is full but need to upgrade to new version of I-Photo

I need to move my I-Photo library to my external hard drive because my Start-up disk is full. When I plug in my EHD and try to view a folder, I get the message that the iphoto library needs to be upgraded to work with this version of I-Photo. I haven't moved photos yet and I haven't tried to download because I'm guessing I can't download anything new since my start-up disk is full. It seems like a "Catch-22." What should I do?

Thank you for responding. I tried to move my music file first which didn't work and then documents which didn't work. When trying to move both to the trash after moving to EHD, I got a message stating "documents/music can't be modified or deleted because it's required by MacOSX. I tried the music file first and when that didn't work, I chose the documents file. I feel like I am constantly running into roadblocks like this.

Moved music to external Hard Drive. Now Itunes cant find Music

Moved my Itunes to an external hard drive and went through preferences in Itunes with the location. However, when I click on the music, Itunes cannot play and I have to manually link the library to the song to the new location. I have over 300 songs in Itunes as well as videos and photos.
Am I going to have to manually link each file? Or is there an easier way?
I am using Windows XP
Thanks

If you moved the files then you have to re-link the files. Using iTunes to move the files would maintain the links.
This article gives the details.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305451

I have erased my hard drive, and now i cant find it on DU

I have erased my hard drive, now when i'm trying to re-install mountain lion i can't see the hard drive in DU. Any ideas on how to restore this?

Try the following document:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
If that doesn't work, this site has a lot of info on hard drive problems:
http://scsc-online.com
I'm personally betting that the first link will fix your problem. The second link has a book you can download that has a lot of reset and troubleshooting information on it.

My MacBook says my hard drive is full - but it isn't!

My MacBook keeps saying I have no disk space left yet when I add up the space I've used, it comes to less than 50GB of my 180GB drive. How can this be? Where are these mysterious files supposedly taking up all this space and how do I get rid of them?
Please help!!!
Thanks in advance =)

Hi and welcome to Discussions,
use something like Disk Inventory X http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14393/disk-inventory-x to determine what's eating up your harddisk space.
A simple 'add up' might be leaving out a lot of files (especially system files and the like).
Regards
Stefan

Hard drive almost full, but I can't access info to delete!?

I opened up Safari for the first time in a long time and it asked to update my keychains. I did. Then after I restarted my mac everything went back to default and I can't find anything I had saved. All music, pictures, gone!
The strange thing is when I look at the free space available, it says I have 5.6 gigs left, which is the same amount of space I had before everything was erased! Does anybody know what's going on? How can I find everything that was lost?

Hi inergi, Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Did you attempt to rename your home folder? If not, WhatSizemay help you find it.
-mj
[email protected]

Message that hard drive is full when clearly it is not!!!! HELP!!!

This is weird. Got a message that I had 117 mb left on hard drive. Dumped a bunch of programs and pictures. Then it said I had 25 gb on drive. Three days later, having done NOTHING, I got a message I was totally out of hard drive space again. Dumped a couple of programs - back up to 1.84 gb. An hour later it is full FULL AGAIN. I had done NOTHING. What is going on here??? My user folder says I have no space when I go to "get info" but when I check "get info" on all the folders inside (system, library, pictures, music, etc) it only adds up to half of the capacity of my hard drive (250 gbs). So in fact I know I only have less than 100 gb on that computer This is very strange. The drive is not full, and when I dump programs and data, it fills itself back up but can't find out why/how/where. I threw out the finder preferences but that didn't work. I booted up from my Leopard disk and it said my hard drive was full, but I KNOW it is not. What is going on??

Sounds like something is generating garbage. You've got a couple of options (at least) to track it down, starting with one tool built into the command-line interface. Pop open the Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Termain.app) and type in the following:
cd /
sudo du -hd 1
Enter your password when prompted. du is the Disk Usage command, which will print out the disk space taken up by each folder, including invisible ones. Note that du can take a fair bit of time to complete; my own drive took about 5-6 minutes with only 27GB on it, so yours will probably take longer.
Your other option is to grab Disk Inventory X, a freeware utility which performs a very similar job to du, but with a shiny user interface to help you locate the offending space waster. If you're not comfortable with the terminal, this may be the best place to start.

Hard drive half full but cant find files to delete

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