Loss of Hard Drive Space

I'm running a macbook pro (mid 2009) 10.8.2 OSX. Ever since I upgraded the OSX my hard drive space is rapidly diminishing. I have 160 gig of space, but as of this morning it shows only 24.6 gigs are available. I've tried to locate where the 140 gigs of files are but cannot locate. I have approx 9 gigs in the library, 11 gigs in pictures no music (kept on an external) and 9G in applications. Any suggestions where the remaining 110 gigs could've disappeared to? And how I can get it back? The computer has really started running slow over the last few days as well.
Cheers,
Doc

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 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 if you haven't already done so. No matter what happens, you should be able to restore your system to the state it was in at the time of that backup. 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 page that opens. 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.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. When you're done with it, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Similar Messages

Extensive loss of hard drive space

I have a late 2012 MacBook Air and today I moved my mac up staris with 11.43GB(what it had read for the last week) free on my hard drive and when it came out of sleep, not but a minuet latter, it read 2.16GB (and it still does) I have tried verifiing/repairing my disk using CleanMyMac2 but nothing it was gust gone 9GB lost I had been doing nothing besides browsing the internet on Safari. I even tried this with no such luck https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3738974?tstart=0 just poof gone.

You didn't do anything wrong. It is the system that willl costantly use more and more disk space.
If your Air has only a 128GB SSD you have way to much stuff on it to begin with. You should have a clear 20GBs+ of free space on your system at all times.
Also there is a Feature enabled by default on Mac notebook computers. That is the Time Machine Local Snapshot system. It makes hourly backups of files you have changed and makes copies of any file you have deleted. This system is supposed to automatically stop doing this when disk space get above 80% used ad it is supposed to Auto delete these temp backups to free disk space if that disk space is needed. That has not been the experience I have had with this feature.
You can read more about it on this website.
http://www.pondini.org/TM/30.html
Then you can make the decision to either leave it turn on, to turn it off or to turn it off then turn it back on.

Problematic partitions and loss of hard drive space, please help me!

Hey there
I'm fairly new to macs but recently purchased a 2.4 macbook from the apple website. Upon arrival i decided to setup which went great.
Then the problems started.
I tried installing Windows XP using the Boot Camp Assistant and all was going well, until it restarted giving me the dreaded disk error (i used a service pack 1 CD the first time, only hearing about the problems when it was too late!).
I restarted the mac holding the C key down and attempted to delete the windows partition which had been created. Afterwards i seemed to be able to log back into leopard without any problems but i noticed that the hard drive had shrunk.
I reattempted a Windows installation using the service pack 2 disk this time and again this failed.
After calling apple they got me to erase all data on the 'Mac HD' and then do a fresh install of Leopard.
I've just finished this, and my 160gb hard drive 'Hitachi HTS542516K9SA00' is now claiming it has a capacity of 149.05. I believe this is fairly normal right?
However.. below that in the 'about my mac' listing is 'Mac HD' with a capacity of 137.88, and 120.17 available after the fresh leopard install.
From what i've read this isn't normal at all, and it's also been suggested that there are bits and pieces of the Windows partitions still left on my Macbook.
As i'm new to all this, i have no idea what to do about it. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated as i spent alot of money on this machine in the hope that i would be problem free!

can you go to Disk Utility (Applications --> Utilities --> Disk Utility), select your hard drive on the left (should say the size and make/model) and click on the "Partition" tab? then tell me what you see. i am running bootcamp and see two separate partitions, which i've named windows and mac.

Missing hard drive space since upgrade

Hi,
Since upgrading to Yosemite I have lost loads of hard drive space. I have run 'du -chxd 1 /' as soon in terminal and the below is what it returned. The user folder is showing 329GB but in Finder, using get info the folder returns 49.2GB??
Any and all help would be appreciated.
Cheers
Daves-iMac:~ Dave$ sudo du -chxd 1 /
WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.
To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.
Password:
33M /.DocumentRevisions-V100
12M /.fseventsd
608M /.Spotlight-V100
0B /.Trashes
0B /.vol
66G /Applications
2.3M /bin
0B /cores
4.5K /dev
1.0K /home
3.4G /Library
1.0K /net
0B /Network
2.3G /private
1004K /sbin
3.9G /System
329G /Users
498M /usr
4.0K /Volumes
405G /
405G total

Solved, I used DaisyDisk which displayed that my other half was storing loads of iTunes data. I don't understand why Finder did not pick this up though?

Missing hard drive space and files after Genius Bar installed new Hardware

I took my computer to genius bar. They installed a new CD/DVD drive. My computer wouldn't load when I got it home, so I reinstalled OSX and now I am missing tons of hard drive space and all my old files (which have been backed up). How do I fix this?

"DURING WARRANTY SERVICE IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THE CONTENTS OF THE APPLE
PRODUCT’S STORAGE MEDIA WILL BE LOST, REPLACED OR REFORMATTED. IN
SUCH AN EVENT APPLE AND ITS AGENTS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS
OF SOFTWARE PROGRAMS, DATA OR OTHER INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE
STORAGE MEDIA OR ANY OTHER PART OF THE APPLE PRODUCT SERVICED.
Following warranty service your Apple Product or a replacement product will be returned to you
as your Apple Product was configured when originally purchased, subject to applicable updates.
You will be responsible for reinstalling all other software programs, data and information.
Recovery and reinstallation of other software programs, data and information are not covered
under this warranty."
http://images.apple.com/legal/warranty/docs/cpuwarranty.pdf

Missing Hard Drive Space (15 GB unaccounted for)

I've had my Mini for about six months now. Love it. Everything is working perfectly except for one oddity that I'm hoping someobody can help me understand and/or correct:
I seem to be missing about 15 GB of hard drive space for no reason - at least that I can understand.
Here's what I get from the info screen on my drive:
Capacity: 74 GB
Available: 5.9 GB
Used: 68.31
All I can account for is 52.22 GB
Music: 41.11 GB
Movies: 4.33 GB
Pictures: 3.6 GB
Library: 547 MB
System: 1.81 GB
Documents 832.7 MB
Any idea why I seem to be missing 15 GB?
Thanks in advance.

I run Mac Janitor about once a week and still have
this problem. I'm assuming that is similar to the
program you mentioned.
To address that specific point: No. Mac Janitor performs one specific set of routine tasks (not all that critical - and not needed as frequently as once per week) while YASU performs a range of system-related maintenance tasks, which include those Mac Janitor handles, but go well beyond what it is capable of doing.
Yours is just such a situation where YASUs functions could prove useful in themselves, and would in any event help in narrowing down the cause of the loss of space, since it will either release the used drive space, or in failing to do so, confirm that it is being used by files. In the former case the problem is resolved, and in the latter it would then lead to use of software such as 'WhatSize' (downloadable from www.versiontracker.com) to examine the entire contents of the drive and establish exactly which files and directories are taking up what amount of storage space. Most mysterious losses of space such as yours can be readily resolved once you know where the space has gone!

Mavericks recovered hard drive space post-install

I had about 12 gig free on my 15" 2012 MBP pre install. Installed 10.9 and now I have almost 36Gig free. Ran HD checks and no issues reporting. I looked at my backup and checked folder sizes in my profile pre and post install and all the data is there. I have an OCZ 256GB SSD drive installed and I've heard the stories about SSD and potential data loss but everything looks fine and is present post-install. I've read nothing about 10.9 compressing files so I am really stumped. I don't backup system files so I can't determine if some older files were purged. Still, thats a lot of data to recover. I then installed 10.9 on a new 27" Imac and hard drive space remained about the same and no extra space recovered. I'm a certified Mac tech and even all the techs I work with have never seen behavior like this on any version post-install. Anyone ever hear of this or have a similar experience? Thanks!!

Just installed Mavericks this morning and am surprised and alarmed in equal measure.
My MacBook Pro Late 11 750GB HG had:
156GB remaining before installing mavericks
It now it has
415GB remaining post installation.
All my apps and files appear to be there so I am at a loss to work out what has happened.

Tally problem: Hard drive space doesn't add up.

I'm trying to work out how my laptop computes it's 80Gb hard drive space so that i can work out what to get rid of.
If I work down the icons in the left of my finder and 'get info'
it reads:
desktop 3.7 GB
applications 6.6GB
home 43.88 GB (made up of all the others plus 9.81 GB library space plus some Kb's for folders)
documents 5.36 GB
movies 9.02GB
music 14.64GB
pictures1.29 Gb
There is 2.47 GB available
Now no matter what i do, my figures tally everything up to around 53GB. and not the 74.4GB it says i have used.
Any suggestions of where i'm going wrong?
powerbook G4 15" Mac OS X (10.3.9) 2GB memory

Hi, dabbla, and welcome to Apple Discussions. If your Powerbook thinks there is only 2.47GB of free space available on your 80GB hard drive — whether or not it's right — you need to start removing things immediately, while you still can. Don't try to problem-solve or achieve any deeper understanding first: you are in a near-emergency situation that could become a dire data-loss disaster at any moment.
If you can't make any more rational decisions about what to trash first, start with whatever is already backed up elsewhere. First to go should be anything of which you have two or more backups, then things that you've backed up once and tested the backups to be sure they're good. If that doesn't free up at least 7.5 more GB of free space, trash any very large applications or application-related sample, tutorial, or template folders that you can reinstall from original installer discs after the crisis is past. You want to be looking for files and folders that are 100MB or more in size; discarding little 3MB and 10MB files or folders will never get you where to need to go.
You must maintain at least 8GB, and preferably about 12GB, of free space on an 80GB drive at all times for trouble-free operation. With as little free space as you have now, your OS is desperately short of space for its swapfiles, your Powerbook is being slowed down significantly, and you are at serious risk of crashes and data loss as your OS, applications and documents compete for the available disk space. You may be completely unable to burn DVDs or even CDs.
It's possible that you have some directory damage that is causing your Powerbook to misreport the amount of free space that is available, but you may not be able to repair the damage until you've freed up some more, because what the OS believes may matter more right now than what is actually true. As soon as you've freed up several more GB of space on your drive, boot to your Panther installer Disk 1, open Disk Utility from the Installer menu, and run the Repair Disk routine, repeatedly if necessary, until it gives you two successive "Appears OK" verdicts. You may then find that more free space is available than was reported before. If so, good.
After that, download Onyx or MacJanitor and use it to run the Daily, Weekly and Monthly Background Maintenance (cron) tasks. That should free up a bit more space and put your house in good order. You can then proceed to back up all your unbacked-up documents, if any, to other media — a FireWire hard drive is far and away the best choice. Documents that are dormant or retired and don't need to be kept ready at hand on the Powerbook can also be backed up to CDs or DVDs (so you have redundant backups of them) before you delete them from the PB's hard drive.

Where's my missing hard drive space?

I posted earlier about this, it may be a bit off topic but if anyone can offer a clue, I would appreciate it.
I got my win 7 upgrade and was waiting until vista started giving me headaches or the win7 service pack1 came out to upgrade...vista got me to upgrade today and I have to admit it was much less painful than i anticipated.
My question is about the missing hard drive space on my Idea center K230 on the box and on the side of the comp it claims a 640 HD (it claims in small print that up to 18gb may be used for the service partition) I questioned this when i first got it and even after deleting all the preloaded crap it was still saying 540 available out of 580GB....then I read that Lenovo has a huge partition for backup. So when I do my upgrade to win 7- 64 bit, I do a clean install and delete the smaller partition and reformat and expand the larger but before installing the new OS it says I have 596 available, so where the hell is the other 44GB of hard drive...did Lenovo rip us off and put 600GB hard drives in the K230's or is there a hidden partition still left that I cant find?
I am running everything off of my 596GB C: drive, I have my virus stuff and video card extras loaded, everything from the upgrade and 21 available patches and new drivers for most of my stuff....right now I am at at 575gb available and if i can ever find a printer driver that works I will create a backup point or disc from there, whatever win 7 allows. I never wanted the Lenovo one button back up and thought it was stupid to put a big glowing button on the keyboard that wipes your system back to when it came out of the box...I had nightmares of someone getting curious and going "what does this button do?"
.I notice I have a program files folder and a program files (x86) folder with a bunch of redundant files. what's the deal with this is Lenovo still hiding a backup program (maybe in that hidden partition?) that fills my hard drive twice as fast or is there a purpose for the file copies?
Any info on the above questions would be appreciated, and for those of you just looking for upgrade info I have good news, when you finally get your win7 upgrade disc it is the easiest windows installation ever, almost copmpletely automated, and very fast. So far the only sticking point is finding a printer driver, but I have 3 printers i can try, maybe one is supported.

Hi wise2u!
You can read all the details about how storage manufacturers use multiples of 1000 to measure disk space, and Windows reports it in multiples of 1024, and there is some overhead for Windows, or you can just use this rule of thumb from wikipedia:
A general rule of thumb to quickly convert the manufacturer's hard disk capacity to the standard Microsoft Windows formatted capacity is 0.93*capacity of HDD from manufacturer for HDDs less than a terabyte and 0.91*capacity of HDD from manufacturer for HDDs equal to or greater than 1 terabyte.
0.93 * 640GB = 595GB, which is about what you're seeing.
I don't work for Lenovo. I'm a crazy volunteer!

I have a new Windows tablet computer with limited hard drive space, and cannot transfer my itunes library to the hard drive. Can I run t media from an external hard drive? If so, how do I transfer my files?

I have a new Windows tablet computer with limited hard drive space (32 GB), and cannot transfer my itunes library to the hard drive. Can I run itunes from an external hard drive? I have tried to follow some of the directions on this site, but am having no success. Thanks.

iTunes will run fine with the media on an external drive.
However, I suggest that a tablet computer with a tiny hard drive is not ideal as the primary computer for managing an iTunes library, even a small one. If you have another machine, perhaps a big, boxy, inexpensive old desktop with a decent amount of storage, that might be a better choice.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364

I HAVE BEEN USING MID 2011 MACBOOK AIR 11 INCH.I AM LOSING MY HARD DRIVE SPACE WITHOUT ANY REASON.FIRST IT WAS 84.1 GB NOW IT IS 83.9 AND SLOWLY LOSING SPACE.WHY IS THAT?? PLS PLS HELP

I have macbook air mid 2011 .. Now i am losing my hard drive space without any apparent reason..I am not downloading anything not i am adding anything still that i am losing my hard drive space for no apparent reason..pls pls help..

I have never heard of a relation between the enabled state of Time Machine, and boot. Its probably coincidental.
Try booting in Safe Mode (hold down shift key, whilst booting). Then check for apllications in your Users & Groups preferences that are starting up with login. Disable all startup apps, then eanable them one at a time, booting normall. See which app is possibly hanging.
You can also try doing a Repair Permissions and Repair Disk on your startup drive. This must be done within Disk Utility when booted to your Recovery Partition. To boot to the Recovery Partition, hold down the OPTION key while booting, and select the Recovery Partition drive to boot from. Then run Disk Utility.

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

HT201250 I had files stored on a hard drive that were not on my Mac. I used the hard drive for my first Time Machine back up, but it was not enough hard drive space to finish. Now those stored files are gone. Is there any way I can recover them?

I had files stored on a hard drive that were not on my Mac. I used the hard drive for my first Time Machine back up, but it was not enough hard drive space to finish. Now those stored files are gone. Is there any way I can recover them? No, they were not part of previous Time Machine backups, and I have checked both the hard drive the documents were lost on and the new one that I now use for backups. Any suggestions would be helpful, as the lost files are old pictures that are gone forever. :[ Thanks!

1. Yes, if both drives are formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
2. Reformat the drives if needed, open the Time Machine pane of System Preferences, and remove the drive with the pictures from the list of items set to be excluded.
(110331)

Can I connect an external hard drive to my time capsule to add virtual hard drive space?

I would like to make a 4 TB external hard drive available wirelessly on my home network. I have heard that I could connect it to my router or my Time Capsule to do this. Is this possible? Is there any special setup I need to do to enable this to work?
Additionally, I have two Macbooks in the house and have recently purchased a second Time Capsule. I would like to back up each computer to its own Time Capsule. Is there a configuration that would make this possible?
If the two Time Capsules are connected together via an ethernet cable (in extend the network mode), and one elects to back both of their computers up to the primary Time Capsule, does the primary use the secondary Time Capsule's hard drive space to continue backing up once it becomes full?
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See if Pondini can help http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html

How do I get more hard drive space for my Macbook Pro?

I am losing hard drive space and I don't know why? Is something writing or copying on my Macbook Pro?
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Loss of Hard Drive Space

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