Randomly losing space on my macbook pro?

So I've got about 22 free gigs on my macbook pro, but sometimes lately it randomly drops to 19 or so even though I haven't downloaded anything new. When it does this the computer starts running much more slowly. If I restart the computer I get the free space back and the computer runs normally. It's very annoying.
Edit: It doesn't do this all at once, it rapidly loses little bits until it gets to around 19 and then seems to level off.

Wooginator wrote:
But then shouldn't the space come back when I close programs, instead of just when I restart?
No. Once the system allocates a page file, it doesn't give it back until you reboot. It can reuse that page file for a new program if an old one is closed.
Also how do I tell by looking at system utility memory whether this is what's happening?
At the peak of the slowness and disk usage, check Activity Monitor > System Memory > Page outs. To account for the space usage, you should expect a total page out size of multiple GB (3GB at least, could be much higher). To account for slowness, add the rates for Page ins and Page outs; if that rate is high, that would explain the slowdown. I can't quantify "high" because I don't know the capabilities of your hardware.

Similar Messages

Places to save memory space on a MacBook pro?

I need to free up 10 gb of space on my MacBook pro, is there any easy places to save disc space?

Yes, an external hard drive - like the one you use for backing up your system?

Can i restrict apple mail client from downloading all emails...and allow it to pick a start date for gmail mail to sync? i am flooded with old emails, thousands on them ...eating hard drive space of my macbook pro and un necessary overhead

can i restrict apple mail client from downloading all emails...and allow it to pick a start date for gmail mail to sync? i am flooded with old emails, thousands on them ...eating hard drive space of my macbook pro and un necessary overhead

The genius bar technicians can check your MBP for possible hardware problems and specific software issues that you may have. The diagnosis will be free. Any extensive repairs will not be free.
If you have minor software problems, you essentially will have to deal with them yourself. Examine these two comprehensive documents for possible problem definition and solutions. If you encounter problems that you are unable to cope with, start a new discussion and there will be persons willing to assist you in solving them.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3521
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353
Ciao.

I recently moved my iTunes folder to a portable drive to make space on my macbook pro with Mavericks, and now the space is still taken up by back ups? any help to clear this space up would be greatly appreciated! Oh btw, macbook pro backs up to time caps

Im trying to free up some of the space on my macbook pro, its been filled up with itunes hd movies, so i purchased a 1TB portable hard drive and moved all my itunes files to it to free up some space. When i went into about this mac and checked storage, it says i have over 400GB's of back ups. I back up everyday through time machine to my time capsule, not sure what to do, any help is much appreciated! thanks

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, nor should you disable them or Time Machine.

I keep on getting this error when i try to copy files to my 2T Time Capsule, Please help im running out of space on my MacBook Pro.... The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)

I keep on getting this error when i try to copy files to my 2T Time Capsule, Please help im running out of space on my MacBook Pro....
The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50)

I would get an external drive today and copy all your stuff off the TC.. forget trying to load more onto it. There is a good chance after 3years (A 2TB should be only about 2years tops), the disk or the TC itself is on the way out. Do it immediately. If TM is also failing to backup you need to recognise symtoms of impending doom.
Unfortunately the error messages are archane and it is hard to discover their meaning.
You also cannot verify a network drive.. you can verify the TM sparsebundle though so do that.
A5. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Reboot the whole network from off.. certainly if you run later OS it can simply lose the drive..
If you still fail to be able to copy to the TC.. then get that external and copy off it. Tell us if you can do that.

What is the best way to manage my iPhoto, which is taking up too much space on my MacBook Pro?

What is the best way to manage my iPhoto, which is taking up too much space on my MacBook Pro?
Specifically, I'd like to keep some of my favorite pictures on the laptop while moving the rest to an external hard drive. Is there a way to tag just a few pictures inside an event/album as "favorite", while storing the rest in an EHD, but still keep them connected to the same event/album? I'd like to have just the favorite pictures on the laptop, but when I have the EHD connected, be able to view all my pictures in the same place, and not have to browse through separate hard drives. Ideally, whether or not a picture is designated as "favorite" will determine where it resides.
Is this at all possible?
I have only 7 GB left on my HD and I'm desperately needing a solution!
Thanks!

You need two libraries to do this. One on the external with all your Photos. One on the internal with a subset - your favourites. You do it this way to make backing up easier - that is, back up the library with everything, so you're only backing up one.
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
Now you have two full versions of the Library.
3. On the Internal library, trash the Events/albums/photos you don't want there
Now you have a full copy of the Library on the External and a smaller subset on the Internal
Some Notes:
As a general rule: when deleting photos do them in batches of about 100 at a time. iPhoto can baulk at trashing large numbers at one go.
You can choose which Library to open: Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
You can keep the Library on the external updated with new imports using iPhoto Library Manager

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.

HT201364 what is the best way to open up disk space on my macbook pro

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO FREE DISK SPACE ON MY MACBOOK PRO, I NEED SPACE TO DOWNLOAD YOSEMITE

OmniDiskSweeper (free download)
<http://www.omnigroup.com/more>
<http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/7402/omnidisksweeper>
DO NOT delete files in your Home Folder -> Library tree as there are things like your iPhone backups, your email messages, your application preferences, etc...
DO NOT delete files outside your home folder, as you may end up deleting something essential to Mac OS X, and turn your Mac into an expensive “Door Stop”.
I will point out that you will find some very large files in private -> var -> vm (these are the Mac OS X virtual memory paging files (swapfiles) and where Mac OS X stores the copy of RAM when your Mac is put to sleep). The swapfiles get deleted on reboot, and the sleep image is just going to be created again when you put your Mac to sleep.
If you think you have found something to delete outside your home folder, it would be best to ask first before deleting. There are many examples of people deleting files outside their home folder, or renaming files, or changing the ownership or permissions of files, and then their Mac stops running. Do not be one of those people. Ask first.
PS. Please do not use ALL CAPS for your entire messages. In the world of text messages, forums, etc... ALL CAPS is shouting, and we haven't done anything that annoying yet

How do I remove recovered photos (used photorec to recover lost photos) to have more space in my macbook pro HD?

How do I remove recovered photos (used photorec to recover lost photos) to have more space in my macbook pro HD?

Hello there, Shrid.
The following Knowledge Base article reviews how to Sync photos:
iTunes: Syncing photos
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4236
You will just sync to the new computer. Keep in mind:
Additional Information
Syncing photos with your device will create an iPod photo cache.
Syncing photos can only happen from one computer or user account at a time. Syncing photos with a different computer or user replaces the photos on the device.
You can't reimport pictures synced from your computer to your device back to your computer. You can only import pictures in the Camera Roll or Saved Photos from your device to your computer. If you need to retrieve synced photos from your device:
Email them from the device to yourself.
Copy them from the emails to your computer.
On iPhone and iPod touch using iOS 5 and iOS 6, all synced photos will appear in a unified category called photo library. Photos are not duplicated; this is a way to view all synced albums in one place. You can also tap a specific album beneath photo library to view individual albums.
Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Pedro D.

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?
Thank you...

The Hatter..This may be helpful information. I go to force suit and there is both Safari and "Safari web content not responding in red" and this may
be the problem. I delete files and I get up to 50 to 50 MB and then it goes right back down to zero with no use on my part. I made a mistake by
viewing **** on a CHatterbate site and I think that this may be the problem. How do I get rid of this virus, if that is what is happening> I ran Clam X and
it did not find anything...Thank you, again.

HT4718 I tried merging the empty space on my Macbook Pro Hard disk but it says that there is a problem with my disk and i need to reformat it. What should i do to keep my applications and software + files?

Hi All,
I was given a macbook pro with parallel windows, and later windows was remove but hard disk space is greyed out and could not be merge and when i run a 'verify disk' it told me to reformat my OS. The nearest service centre is real far away from me and i hope to solve this on my own. I need to keep my applications and files, how do i do so? As some of these applications was given by my company. I need help on keeping my files and reformating.
Thanks in advance.
MelC

Get an external drive and make a clone of your internal, erase the internal, set it for 1 partition (OSX Journaled) and restore the clone.

Home media server for mac, that you can also get to remotely. Any ideas? I am out of space on my macbook pro hard drive and appletv. Need some sort of media server for delivery to macs, ipods, ipads, etc. Any suggestions?

Hi,
I have been using my macbook pro as a home media server, hosting most content on the macbook with ipod touch, ipads, and appletv streaming/sharing content. I have run out of space on both the macbook pro and the apple tv and am looking to moving the content to a home media server. Any thoughts/suggestions? I'd like something that I can access remotely too. I have an old slingbox and also have a static IP address.
Any thoughts/suggestions would be most welcome!

Don't worry I've sorted it! I just had to turn off Reminders as well in iCloud. Calendar then worked fine, even when I turned Calendar and Reminders back on.

When using my external hard drive, the files I put on it still show up on my computer as backups and continue to take up space on my macbook pro. How do i fix this?

I transfer files from my macbook pro to the WD my book for mac and then delete the file off of my computer, but then it just shows up on my macbook pros hard drive in the "backups" category and continues to take up space on my computers hard drive.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
OS X Lion and Mountain Lion create local snapshots if you have Time Machine enabled > http://pondini.org/TM/30.html
As local snapshots are backups in the internal drive, it's normal that the files you transferred are part of them. You can delete the local snapshots by turning off Time Machine in System Preferences > Time Machine, but you don't need to do that. Time Machine will delete them automatically when your hard drive is full

Is my time capsule take the place of an external hard drive? I need to make space on my MacBook Pro.

Tried to load Lion. My MacBook Pro says I need to clear out some space - start up disk in nearing full. Can I save to my Time Capsule? How?

If you're already using the Time Capsule's disk for Time Machine backups, it's not recommended to also use that disk for other things. You'd probably be a lot happier with a disk directly connected to your Mac.

I am running out of space on my MacBook Pro. If i back up my entire hard drive. Can i then delete programs etc. to free up space and if i need them again reinstall from the backup?

My MacBook Pro is running low on hard drive space. Can i perform a backup and then delete programs, files, photo's etc. on my hard drive, And then access them through the back up at a later time?

I agree with samberl ... the problem is not the saving of your programs to reinstall, but that you have outgrown your hard disk.
Sadly, harddisks are about 160% of what they were about 3 months ago due to flooding in Thailand and labor strikes there. A bad time indeed to update harddisks.
You could make enough room by moving some data files for now to an existing external drive.
Then wait for prices to drop.
Then create a clone of your internal drive on a new (cheaper then) drive, and install a new bigger and clone back onto the new drive.
If you can wait a few months.

Randomly losing space on my macbook pro?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for