How do I free up disk space on my MacBook Air

Hi,
I have a MacBook Air with a 128GB disk. I recently noticed that I seemed to be using up 74% of the disk capacity so thought I would try and remove some old video files from iTunes. When deleting the files I was prompted to remove the files from the file system which I did. I then empted the trash. But that seems to have very little impact on the disk space used. Considering I must have deleted about 20-30GB of files I would have expected the disk usage to come down a fair bit (I have a 128GB SSD).
Any idea how I can get my disk usage back down?
Thanks
Andy

Have a look at these Links...
Where did my Disk Space go?
what-to-do-when-your-hard-drive-is-full.html
And Here > The Storage Display

Similar Messages

How do I free up storage space on a Macbook air?

How do I free up storage space on a Macbook air? My e-mail seems to be taking up the most space?

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the Storage display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.
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 restart the computer. 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. Restart 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 by pressing 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.

How can I free up disk space for iPhoto?

I'm a new Mac user and I've just received a message that says iPhoto has run out of disk space. I've only had this Macbook Pro since March and I do a lot of image editing, but I don't have thousands and thousands of photos or anything. I used the disk utilty and it still appears I have plenty of disk space in general. How can I allot some of this disk space to iPhoto? Is that possible?
Thanks!

try this link from thexlab website they are not always correct but they are useful
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html

How do i free disk space on my macbook air

Is there a simple way to find and delete duplicated files and folders.I need to free up much needed disk space,
or there an app that will do it for me ?

Well, iTunes is a start. It duplicates your songs. (at least with me) try looking for the duplicates and deleting them. Second, iPhoto is the DEVIL!
I have a MBP mid-2010 with 250g hard drive, and i freed 30g of space cleaning out duplicate pics that iPhoto makes. There is another 10 I have an option of cleaning, but those are very important to me, so I chose not to.
That's about it.
Btw, check your applications folder and delete anything uneccesary.

Disk space usage on MacBook Air 256 GB

I have a MacBook Air 256 GB version (summer 2011). I only have abot 15 GB stored under my personal data and about 30 GB on a partition for Fusion under which Windows 7 is installed. Other major applications are MS Office 2011, nothing else much, other than what came with the laptop. I've cleaned the browser cache.
However the system information shows only 10 GB free on the Serial ATA; where do I find the files that are clogging up the disc? With files mentioned as above, I would expect at least 150 GB to be free.
Thanks!

I'm still betting on the Time Machine backups being the issue. Apple sometimes "adjusts" reported free space to try and remove this space, though I've seen it get (temporarily) fouled up about this number. So, for instance, Finder does not count such space as used, but Disk Utility will show it as used.
Those backups are written to "/.MobileBackups" which (kind of) shows up as the "MobileBackups" drive you will see from time to time. Although items are written out to it and some deletion compression takes place, like your external Time Machine the general rule is that this thing will continue to grow until it (eventually) fills all available space. That is by design.
The MobileBackups disk you see in OmniDiskSweeper is the mounted version, and it doesn't appear you will get useful information if you "size" that volume. However I believe you can get the "real" size of the MobileBackups from a couple of places.
Officially, About This Mac->More Information and then Storage will tell you about the backups on your flash drive. That's *usually* correct, though I've seen it get lost on the machine I'm writing this on. I suspect that's because the machine had been set up using Migration Assistance from a MacBook Pro that had been running Lion for a while and some of that information may have "tainted" the starting point. Now the system appears to have finally figured out the real space used :-) .
I'm not sure it's more reliable (since now everything appears to work fine), but you might also get some information if .MobileBackups is involved by running the command in Terminal to show the size of that directly (Finder won't show because only root has permission to look at it).
I first fired up Terminal to get a command prompt. From that prompt I entered the following:
sudo du -sk /.MobileBackups
You will be asked for your password to authorize the command, but by the Terminal (not the standard OSX dialog).
When it ran (took a short time) it output the following:
2728912
/.MobileBackups
Which basically agrees with the 2.8GB of backups that About This Mac's More Information screen comes up with now. And which Finder totally ignores and treats as not used.
If your drive has as much free space as you expect it should have and either you've had the machine for a while, or you've downloaded and deleted a buch of videos in a directory that's not excluded from Time Machine's backup routines, I could see those "there but not really" files (at least as OSX seems to view them) easily growing to be a pretty good size. As I noted, if this is the problem OSX will kick parts of that backup off the drive as more space is needed--it's holding them there "just in case" you might want to restore them.
Have you actually had OSX complain about not having enough free space on the boot drive?
What I have found with Lion is that trying to reconcile various utilities views of free drive space can quickly drive you crazy :-) . The cause always seem to involve accounting for that mobile version of Time Machine backups.

How do i add more storage space on my macbook air ?

HI, I HAVE 121 GB OF STORAGE ON MY MACBOOK AIR VERSION 10.9.2. IT KEEPS COMING UP THAT I DONT HAVE ENOUGH SPACE ON MY LAPTOP. HOW DO I GET MORE STORAGE SPACE SO THAT THIS PROBLEM DOESNT OCCUR?

backup your static media huge files, pics , vids, audio to an external HD.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427

How do I use an external hard drive with iMovie 10.0.1? I have run out of disk space on my Macbook Air.

How do I use an external drive with iMovie 10.0.1? It is not obvious and I have run out of space.

If you want to move a complete iMovie 10 library (file with .imovielibrary extension) click on the library in the libraries pane and select File - Consolidate Library Media. This ensures that all media is copied to the library. You can then move the library onto your external drive using Finder. The first time to want to access it from iMovie you will have to tell it where it is by choosing File - Open Library -Other and navigating to it.
If you only want to transfer part of a library to another drive, create a new library a at the desired location File - Open Library - New and copy projects and events to it from within iMovie.
Its all described in iMovie help - "Work with multiple libraries".
Geoff.

How to free space on your macbook air

how do you free "startup disk" space on your macbook air , I cant update my software

Hope this helps.
1. Empty Trash.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10677
2. Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    Hold the option key down and click "Go" menu in the Finder menu bar.
    Select "Library" from the dropdown.
    Library > Mail > V2 > Mailboxes
    Delete "Recovered Messages", if any.
    Empty Trash. Restart.
3. Repair Disk
    Steps 1 through 7
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5836
4. For more on this:
    http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
    http://pondini.org/OSX/LionStorage.html
Best.

How to free up disk space on drive C

We have been running Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials Sp1 for a number of years now without any apparent problems. We have noticed over this period, the free space on the 'C' drive diminishing over time. We are now at a point where housekeeping
needs to be undertaken to prevent disk space issues occurring in the future.
1) Is there an in-built utility that would identify what applications or directories are using the most space? If not, are you aware of a utility that could offer this functionality i.e. Treesize. Does Microsoft offer a utility?, maybe as part of Systernals?
2) The 'C' drive is 60Gb in size (I believe this was the default size during the install). When the server was initially installed, it had 20Gb free space on drive 'C'. At the point of writing, free space is now 7Gb. All installed applications and user shares
are pointing to a second drive (D). I'm assuming that the increase in used space is caused by log files or windows updates.
2) I've manually scoured the 'C' drive and noticed that folder 'C:\Windows\winsxs' is 10.6Gb in size. I believe this folder relates to Windows Updates. Are we able to carry out housekeeping on this folder? If so, please could you advise the correct way of achieving
this. The 'Disk Cleanup' utility only offers to clean up 1.2Gb which is not enough.
I hope someone can offer some assistance.
Regards

Hi LMG09,
Currently, please refer to following article and check if help us to recover Disk Space on C drive on the SBS
2011.
Recovering
Disk Space on the C: Drive in Small Business Server 2008
à
I've manually scoured the 'C' drive and noticed that folder 'C:\Windows\winsxs' is 10.6Gb in size
The Windows component store (C:\Windows\winsxs) directory is used during servicing operations within Windows
installations. Servicing operations include, but are not limited to, Windows Update, service pack, and hotfix installations. The component store contains all the files that are required for a Windows installation. And, any updates to those files are also held
within the component store as the updates are installed. Please also refer to following article and check if can help you.
How
to Clean up the WinSxS Directory and Free Up Disk Space on Windows Server 2008 R2 with New Update
If any update, please feel free to let us know.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Justin Gu
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected]

Please for referral information, how can I get more disk space, or actually information and guidelines that can have enough free disk space. How, I have to delete documents or downloading to another drive.

Please for referral information, how can I get more disk space, or actually information and guidelines that can have enough free disk space. How, I have to delete documents or downloading to another drive. (The problem is that Safari could not download the file "iTunesSetup.exe" because there is not enough free disk space.Try deleting documents or downloading to another drive) ... Perhaps this is the main problem why can not open iTunes and inscription is: the folder "iTunes" can not be found or created, and is required. The default location for this folder is inside the "Music" folder. - And after options ok, appears option: Choose iTunes Library with inscription iTunes needs a library to continue. You may choose an existing iTunes library or create a new one - but still following options Choose Library and the following options can not open iTunes ... Please for instructions on how to eliminate the problem or eror ...
Mac is running OS X v10.6.8, Safari should be 5.1.10. Or Mac OS X / Version 10.6.8 / Build 10K549 / Serial Number W8****ATM / Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / Memory 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 or More Info:
Hardware Overview:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro7,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2,4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1,07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP71.0039.B0B
SMC Version (system): 1.62f7
Serial Number (system): W80394HFATM
Hardware UUID: 94647506-C5D0-5D73-BC7F-FC680D238F43
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
<Personsl Information Edited by Host>

buy an external HD 1TB for $60
NO notebook is a mass storage device, so dont try to turn it into one, it doesnt work that way.
Unless youre using it every couple weeks, its static data and should be on an external HD
In the case of a Macbook Air or Macbook Pro Retina with ‘limited’ storage on the SSD, this distinction becomes more important in that in an ever rapidly increasing file-size world, you keep vital large media files, pics, video, PDF collections, music off your SSD and archived on external storage, for sake of the necessary room for your system to have free space to operate, store future applications and general workspace. You should never be put in the position of considering “deleting things” on your macbook SSD in order to ‘make space’.
Professionals who create and import very large amounts of data have almost no change in the available space on their computers internal HD because they are constantly archiving data to arrays of external or networked HD.
Or in the case of the consumer this means you keep folders for large imported or created data and you ritually offload and archive this data for safekeeping, not only to safeguard the data in case your macbook has a HD crash, or gets stolen, but importantly in keeping the ‘breathing room’ open for your computer to operate, expand, create files, add applications, for your APPS to create temp files, and for general operation.

How can I put part od the iTunes music library of iTunes music on an external drive in order to free up disk space?

How can I put part od the iTunes music library of iTunes music on an external drive in order to free up disk space?

see this
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Peace, Clyde

I deleted unwanted photos from my iPhoto library, emptied iPhoto trash & Finder trash... this did not free up disk space. please help!

I deleted unwanted photos from my iPhoto library, emptied iPhoto trash & Finder trash... this did not free up disk space. please help!
I have a 15-inch MacBook Pro (Late 2011) with OS X Mavericks 10.9.5
Last week, my 500 GB Harddrive had 120 GB free space. I was feeling crumby and decided to make productive use of taking a day off to lounge around. I snuggled up with my laptop and dedicated hours to meticulously combing through my iPhoto Library. I had 13,000 pictures, and I got rid of those I didn't want. Having said "sayōnara" to about 6,500 pictures, I then emptied the iPhoto trash and the Finder trash. I took delight in the iconic paper crumpling sound of them vanishing into the digital void.
Everything seemed perfect: the photos I loved were still there, the photos I loathed were gone, both trashes were beautifully empty. Having thrown away all of those awful, boring, and unflattering images of poorly light lunches and selfies gone wrong, my iPhoto library was half the size as before! I felt renewed, a little lighter, somehow more free, and I expected my hard drive to be a bit different to.
I eagerly checked my storage stats. My heart sank to see that my 120 GB of free space, was still only 120 GB of free space. I restarted my MacBook; this did not help. I restarted it the next day; this also did not help. It's been 5 days and the hard drive still has 120 GB free space. This is not an emergency and it will probably be a good while before I clutter my laptop to the brim. Yet while I am glad I don't have to see cringeworthy pictures of my ex's unmentionables every time I'm showing off things I do want to remember, I'm still disappointed and now obsessed with solving this mystery.
What is going on? I don't see them, so where are they hiding? How do I get the free space I should have earned from throwing away 1,000's of photos?!

Thank you, Terence!
Yes, I only emptied the trash when it was really full, once I waited until the trash cans contained 2,600 photos and then I emptied them - Oooops! In the future, I'll keep in mind your suggestion of deleting less than 100 photos at a time.
I downloaded the iPhoto Library Manager and used it to rebuild my iPhoto. After a few hours of rebuilding, it generated a new copy of my iPhoto Library. This versions was nearly identical to the original (it was missing 5 photos and was therefore only 5 mb smaller). I guess my Library wasn't defective.
I checked my storage stats, and interestingly, using iPhoto Library Manager did help with the problem that developed after I re-indexed my hard drive. My hard drive is able to properly recognize data categories again, instead of listing almost everything as "Other". Understandably, my free disk space changed from 120 GB to about 60 GB, because my hard drive now contained a second copy of my iPhoto Library as well as iPhoto Library Manager. It seemed like all I needed to do was throw these away, but when I emptied the trash, my problem was not solved. My Hard drive now looked like this:
It appears to me that when I empty the trash, the things I throw away are just hanging around as backups instead of leaving! I went into System Preferences and turned of my time machine OFF. Now my hard drive looks likes this:
The back ups of the iPhoto files, and the program which I deleted, are still on my hard drive some where but now they are listed as "Other" instead of "Backups". Do you know where they might be and how I can delete them for good?

Compressing movies to free up disk space

I have 4 movies and they take up 4GB of space. Does anyone know how to make them smaller to free up disk space? The movies that aren't from iTunes are formated for iPod. (I read that somewhere)

Where did you get them from and what is the bitrate of the movies? There's a way to make them smaller but a little bit smaller leads to a little bit less visual quality. Knowing what bitrate they are now would give some idea as to how much smaller you can go before impacting the quality of the video.

How can i clean up my disk space on my MacBook Pro

how can i clean up my disk space on my MacBook Pro something like a disk cleanup on a pc?

Those things you did on your PC you need not worry about on your Mac. Most is done behind the scenes.
Kappy's Personal Suggestions About OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible. Drive Genius provides additional tools not found in Disk Warrior. Versions 1.5.1 and later are Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.)
If you are using a pre-Leopard version of OS X, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced since Tiger. (These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion and should not be installed.)
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems. For more about malware see Macintosh Virus Guide.
I would also recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX 2.4.3, or Cocktail 5.1.1 that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. (There is no confirmation that this version also works with Lion or later.)
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Data Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. SyncTwoFolders
6. Synk Pro
7. Synk Standard
8. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Always have a current backup before performing any system updates or upgrades.
Additional suggestions will be found in:
      1. Mac Maintenance Quick Assist,
      2. Mac OS X speed FAQ,
      3. Speeding up Macs,
      4. Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance,
      5. Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up,
      6. Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines,
      7. Maintaining OS X,
      8. Five Mac maintenance myths,
      9. How to Speed up Macs, and
    10. Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X.
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity or 20 GBs, whichever is greater, as free space.

How do I free up space on my Macbook Air?

How to free up space on my macbook air?

This is for you:
OSX Tips
Where did my Disk Space go?

How do I free up disk space on my MacBook Air

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for