HD free space going from 700MB to 7GB w/ reboot?

I have a MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD. I have it partitioned with Bootcamp, and the size of the OS X partition is ~40GB.* It was giving me a message that I only had ~700MB of space left and I needed to clean up my hard drive to continue downloading files. I checked Activity Monitor, and indeed this was the amount it showed as being free.
After I rebooted for unrelated reasons, the partition suddenly showed as having ~10GB free. After a couple of minutes it showed 7.75GB free, where it seems to have stabilized. I did not do anything else to adjust the amount of free space on the HD.
Does this make any sense? What could have happened?
* I need to repartition, but that is a separate conversation.

Thanks Niel. That could explain it. I'm all too aware that my system is always running out of physical RAM - I only have 2GB, and the current state of 12MB Free with another 500 Inactive is not uncommon (for example as pasted below):
When I look at the /private/var/vm/ path I see six swapfiles and a sleep image, taking up a total of 4.3GB. What I don't understand is why 4 of the 5 swap files haven't been modified since yesterday, nor has the sleepimage file. Does this imply that some or all of these are not functioning correctly? Screenshot of the /private/var/vm/ path below:

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Free space on boot drive constantly decreases until reboot

Hi there. I have a really weird thing happening that I've never seen before.
I'm running 10.7.4 on an iMac, and have about 45GB free on the system drive. At least that's right after I boot up the system. After that, the free space available on my HD slowly but constantly decreases, and the computer slowly but surely becomes less responsive. When the free space on the boot drive gets down around 37GB (which takes 2-3 days... I usually never turn the machine off) I get so many spinning beach balls... in ALL applications... that the computer becomes basically unuseable and I am forced to reboot. But as soon as I do, free space is back up to 45GB, and computer is snappy and fast again.
What the heck?

Your problem is excessive swapping of data between physical memory and virtual memory.
That can happen for two reasons:
(1) You have a long-running process with a memory leak (i.e., a bug), or
(2) You don't have enough memory installed for your usage pattern.
Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination. In Activity Monitor, select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table once or twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If one process (not including "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more memory over time without ever releasing it.
This suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details:
Memory Usage Performance Guidelines: About the Virtual Memory System
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.

My iMac 8,1 (early 2008) is running very slow. I continually get the spinning color wheel. The free space dropped from 133. GB to 87.86 GB in about 2 days. System memory is 2.00 GB with 1.25 GB free. kernel_task root 1.1 63 205.3 MB intel.

My Mac is running very slowly. After reading other posts I have attempted to gather more info for an easier more accurate response but not being computer savy am unsure what is helpful/necessary. The utilized space is 231.6 GB with 88.13 GB free. Memory is 2.00 GB w/ 1.25 GB free and 771.8 MB used. The kernel_task root 1.1 63 205.3 MB intel. What can I do to increase the speed and stop the spinning wheel? Thanks for all your help.

See:
Mac Maintenance Quick Assist,
Mac OS X speed FAQ,
Speeding up Macs,
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines,
Maintaining OS X,
Five Mac maintenance myths, and
Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X for information.

After upgrading to Mavericks, the free space on my SSD keeps going down for no apparent reason

I downloaded Mavericks and installed it on my macbookpro ( with Crucial M4 SSD) and the free space on my ssd keeps going down for no reason. I reinstalled it from a bootable flashdrive, and the free space went from 20G to 60. Since then it keeps going down and I am now on 48G. I cannot find the source of the drain. Anyone else with the same problem?

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20025542-263.html
I have not tested the solution suggested in the article linked above.
But hope it helps.

Mysterious Free Space Issue

Hello All,
Not sure if this is in the right forum or not - but I'm having an issue with my MDD Power Mac G4. I have 23 GB of free space on the drive my OS is located on - the drive is just under 70 GB in all. Recently I've been having issues with free space just dissappearing. All of a sudden, I'll only have 500 mb of free space on the drive. I reboot - all 23 GB are back.
The issue seems to happen when I first boot my computer up - example, last night i shut my tower off. This morning, booted up and started working. in less then 10 minutes time - my free space dropped from 23.2 gb to 625 mb. All I was doing was listening to itunes while i read the news on my laptop. I rebooted - and now all 23.2 gb are back...
Based on previous experiences - my system should now be fine until i shut it down again - even if thats days away.
Anyone have any ideas??

Thanks for the tip!
I'm not running any of those programs you mentioned - but am going to download whatsize and give that a try.
I uninstalled Intego's virus barrier today due to a seperate issue where the scanner would suck up 120% + of my processors out of nowhere. Perhaps the two issues are related somehow - only time will tell on that.

Hard drive free space issues..

Hope someone can help me with this weird problem..
Every time I boot my macbook the hard drive space is correct but if I add files to the hard drive the free space goes down. When I remove any files the free space does not change. I've tried relaunching finder many times no change. This has been happening since 10.5.4. I have found that the only way to remedy this is to reboot.
This is getting annoying as I don't reboot my macbook regularly. It spends most of its time in sleep mode..
Thanks.

Try:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger and Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.0 for Tiger, and 4.1 for Leopard) and/or TechTool Pro (4.6.1 for Leopard) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

Free space requirement in Oracle database

In my oraganization SAP application running with oracle as database. now our database is 1300 GB and right now 90 GB space free in database (92 % used). since System implementation we kept this free space upto 90GB by adding datafiles every week. I am newbie and want to know that how much free space oracle requires for better performance. can I stop adding datafile .

user8694422 wrote:
But in SAP application,SAP has its own intelligency for database monitoring. we only add datafile in database for its space management.Now there is no space in our file system to add any of the datafile. In database 90GB out of 1300GB free. so what happen if database growth furher? database will get hang?I am not sure at all what SAP recommends but there isn't any thing that says that X amount of space should be left free. Oracle has come out with the alert mechanism that can help you to get the alert when the free space goes below the specified limit that you mention but more than the performance, it's the availability IMO that's going to be effected. For example, if you have run out of space, you won't become more slow or faster but you won't have space to do any further writing and that's going to cause the operations to be halted as long as you won't solve the issue by adding more space or by adding new files. So , saying that database would hang would be incorrect, not operational, yes!
Just my 2 cents
Aman....

Failed erase free space

I recently ran the secure erase free space option from the disk utility using zero-out overwrite. The system locked up for about an hour, ultimately resulting in a force quit and reboot. Since the wipe process was not itself finished, the overwrite file was not deleted by the disk utility and now the disk has only approx 100 MB of free space... not enough to log-in.
I have read previous posts regarding how to delete this file from terminal but with root enabled. Since I do not make a habit of keeping the root user enabled, it seems some of my options in Terminal are very limited. And since I am not fluent in Linux, I need some assistance. Here are my efforts thus far:
a. Load Terminal from CD.
Screen is:
-bash-3.2#
Typed:
sudo rm -f /var/root/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/*
And I get:
-bash: sudo: command not found
I have also tried:
sudo ls -al /var/root/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems
And I get:
-bash: sudo: command not found
b. I attempted to enable the root user from Terminal by typing:
% sudo tsch
And I get:
-bash: fg: %: no such job
I have also substituted .../root/... for .../mwdemoss/... (my short handle) also with no results.
I could restore from Time Machine if I *NEED* to, but I have a few files which haven't been backed up yet. I give preference, therefore, to the deletion of the overwrite file. If you are able to assist, please let me know. As I said, I have almost no experience with Terminal and so if your solution involves Terminal commands, please be very explicit in the keystrokes.
Thank you kindly.

Restored data from Time Machine.

Lost free space after an "Erase Free Space" procedure

I just ran the "Erase Free Space" application from the Dick Utility. The erase failed and now I have ZERO free space available. I am now showing that all 111g or used oposed to roughly 50% prior to the Erase Free Space. I have found a few articles trying to explain what to do but, I have been unable to locate the empty temp files that we created during the Erase Free Space, so I have been told. Can anyone help me resolve this solution and restore my free space?
Thank you,
Shannon

WhatSize should be able to find the temporary files
<http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize/>
You could try the Erase Free Space from Disk Utility on the install DVD. It might delete the files when it finishes.

Disk Utility - strange error - enough free space

I am trying to burn DVD-R using Disk Utility and it's giving me error after I press 'Burn" saying "The disk inserted doesn't have enough free space".
I inserted 4.7GB DVD-R drive and my original file size is 4.36 GB and the disk image version is 3.82GB.
Why would it say not enough free space? What am I missing here.
Thanks for any help. I have lot's of my own DVD-R version movies and I am trying to copy that to DVD-R.
I appreciate any help..

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
The true space of a blank DVD is not 4.7 GB based on 1024 MB GBs, but based on 1000 x 1000 x 1000 Bytes. As a result, when the original file size might be 4.36 GB it might not be enough. I've found you really have to go under 4.34 GB to fit a DVD to the brim, and sometimes less depending on the quality of the DVD media.

After i empty trash (the secure empty doesn't work either), the system does not reclaim the free space.

After i empty trash (the secure empty doesn't work either), the system does not reclaim the free space.
I need to run the erase free space option from the disk utility every time...which is really annoying and time consuming.
Any ideas how to solve this?
Thanks in advance =)

There is a thing in iPhoto whereby the first time you delete a photo it asks if you want to delete or just remove from the album, something like that. Unfortunately it is one of these things with a "don't ask me again" checkbox. Now, "deleting" photos only removes them from the album they are in. To actually trash them I must then go to "all photos" and find them, to send them to the trash. To help find them, what I do is rename them zzz or something, so sorting them will get them to the bottom of my collection. Just maybe your photos are still lurking around?

My iPhone wont sync my music from iTunes, all updated software and plenty of GB free space.. what's going on? It says error (13019).

Just recently I bought a bunch of new albums on iTunes, and when I plugged my iPhone 4 in to sync the music over, it went through all 5 steps in the viewer box, but at the end it said, "The iPhone "andrea's iPhone" could not be synced. An unknown error has occured (13019)."
I have no idea what this means, all my software is up to date and my phone still has 8.6GB of free space left (it's a 32GB) and I'm only trying to add 20ish songs.
Anyone have this sort of issue or error warning before? I figured I'll have to go into an Apple store to really sort this all out, but thought someone on here might have dealt with something like this before.
Please help!

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2830

How do I transfer my photos from my iphone to my computer in order to free space on my iphone?

*Disclaimer: I am new to icloud and iPhone so please dont flame me.
I have my iphone 4s syncing with iTunes. I have created a seperate folder to have the phone sync with.
My photos keep taking up space on my phone and I want to download them to computer and/cloud so I can free up space on my phone.
I have storage on the icloud (which I bought and probably didnt need to) so that is available.
Thanks,

If you are using windows, you want to go to my computer, right click on your phone and select import pictures and video, it will give you the option to delete after importing, which will erase them from your phone if you want or you can manually delete them
Just keep in mind, syncing takes content from the computer to the phone, importing goes from phone to computer

How do I get my videos to upload from my sony handy cam when I get the message The following file could not be imported. The file is in an unrecognized format. I am using a macbook pro version 10.9.3, I have 411 gb free space, it worked before I updated

How do I get my videos to upload from my sony handy cam when I get the message The following file could not be imported. The file is in an unrecognized format. I am using a macbook pro version 10.9.3, I have 411 gb free space, it worked before I downloaded the latest update for iphoto.

You may be able to download and install the update from here: Digital Camera RAW Compatibility 6.01
If I upgrade to Yosemite will I be forced to go to the new Photos program
No. After upgrading (and of course make a back up first) you will need to update iPhoto to v9.6.1 (you won't be able to do this prior to upgrading). Here's how:
Go to the App Store and check out the Purchases List. If iPhoto is there then it will be v9.6.1
If it is there, then drag your existing iPhoto app (not the library, just the app) to the trash
Install the App from the App Store.
Sometimes iPhoto is not visible on the Purchases List. it may be hidden. See this article for details on how to unhide it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4928
One question often asked: Will I lose my Photos if I reinstall?
iPhoto the application and the iPhoto Library are two different parts of the iPhoto programme. So, reinstalling the app should not affect the Library. BUT you should always have a back up before doing this kind of work. Always.
Photos is v1 of a new app, as yes it's not as mature as iPhoto. It uses a different technology for working with external editors. That requires Adobe to write an extension to let it hook into the new app. Not done yet, neither has anyone else.
Going forward: iPhoto will run on OS 10.10., but there is no guarantee for subsequent versions of the OS. You might want to factor that into your anger term thinking.

Transfer Purchase from iPhone 5s to iTunes reducing free space?

Sometime I Transfer Purchases from my iPhone 5s 32GB running iOS 7.0.4 using iTunes 11.1.4 for Mac and recently notice it reduced free space on the iPhone, even before doing any sync from iTunes.. several weeks ago just before Transfer Purchases there was 7GB of free space on the iPhone, after Transfer Purchases there's only 5.3GB left, I restart the phone and there's 5.9GB left
Today there's 5.7GB free space, after Transfer Purchase there's only 4.3GB left, after restart the phone 4.7GB left
Wondering what Transfer Purchase actually doing with the phone that increase the storage usage up to more than 1GB permanently..? and how do I reclaim those free space?

Hi,
Read this http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386
Jim

HD free space going from 700MB to 7GB w/ reboot?

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