Unable to clear drive space

I needed space on my hard drive - so recently deleted a ton of files (moved 50Gig of iTunes files, large files, etc off shore). However, the free space has not changed and this purple part (backups) keeps growing in size. Please tell me how to get rid of the purple and yellow (backups, other) shown above.
Interesting to note, I thought it may have something to do with TIME MACHINE - although this seems ridiculous since why would Time Machine back up my data off shore, yet keep a copy on my internal drive that I am attempting to back up? Why would any software engineer find this to be a good idea? Be what it may, I thought this may be a possiblity, so I turned off Time Machine, restarted, and now the purple "backups" has turned to yellow "other" (shown above). At any rate, I still need it gone.

'Other' simply refers to files that cannot be placed in the other five categories. It includes operating system files, email, data files, etc.
What do you see when you select the drive icon on your Desktop then Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window? The upper panel displays information on the drive space. This is all that really matters. The graphic you are looking at is next to useless.
Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

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HT201612 clearing disk space in mac drive in windows partition

I am using MacBook Air and having both the operating system installed (Windows and linux).
My windows partition "BOOTCAMP" is having 79 GB (30 GB is still free) and Macintosh HD is of 32 GB (only 19.6 MB is free).
I am not able to login to Linux operating system because of low disk space.
I am able to login to Windows OS. I want to clear some dispace in Macintosh HD.
I would request for some help in this regard.

It is not clear how many operating systems you have, two or three. If you have a Bootcamp partition for Windows you can not have three partitions because Bootcamp won't work with more than two partitions. If you want to remove the Bootcamp partition to free up hard drive space you must use Bootcamp Assistant to remove the Bootcamp partition and return your hard drive to a single OSx partition.
So try to better explain what you have and what you want to do.

G'day. I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space. How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

G'day. I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space. How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

The slightly bigger question is whether you want to move all movie content to the external drive (essentially meaning that drive will always need to be attached when you're working with your videos), or whether you just want to archive older videos off to the external drive.
If you want to move all videos, then just move the 'Movies' folder in your home directory to the external drive, then create an alias of the external 'Movies' back in to your home directory. Now the 'Movies' icon in your home directory will point to the external drive and everything will just work (as long as the external drive is attached when you launch iMovie)
If you want to archive older movies then each Movie should have its own subdirectory within your Movies folder. These can easily be moved off to the external drive, and moved back should you ever need to work on those movies again.

Hi i am have had a lot of trouble emptying my trash. when i go to put something in there it asks from my password and the item goes off the screen, but this does not clear any space on the hard drive.

Hi i am have had a lot of trouble emptying my trash. when i go to put something in there it asks from my password and the item goes off the screen, but this does not clear any space on the hard drive.

1. Triple-click the line below to select it:
~/.Trash
2. Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Show Info
from the contextual menu. An Info dialog should open.
3. The dialog should show "You can read and write" in the Sharing & Permissions section. If that's not what it shows, click the padlock icon in the lower right corner of the window and enter your password when prompted. Use the plus- and minus-sign buttons to give yourself Read & Write access and "everyone" No Access. Delete any other entries in the access list.
4. In the General section, uncheck the box marked Locked if it's checked.
5. From the action menu (gear icon) at the bottom of the dialog, select Apply to enclosed items and confirm.
6. Close the Info window and test.

Unable to delete a disk image and reclaim hard drive space.

I created a disk image on which to store some stuff, and I now want to get rid of the disk image (which is 115 gigs of storage) and reclaim the hard drive space. I'm running Mac OS X 10.8.3. I have been unable to delete it through disk utility. I can only unmount it or mount it, but the storage space remains with it. I can't get rid of it through the downloads folder either, but if I find it in "volumes" via spotlight, and try to put it in the trash, it tells me "ENN.dmg cannot be thrown away because it can't be deleted." I tried using root user to delete the item and it told me I could not because it belongs to another person. My permissions are "read and write." I've searched all sorts of forums. Can anyone help? Thanks!

What error are you getting? Are you dragging and dropping on the trash can or right clicking and selecting "Move to Trash"?
Right click on the image file and select get info. What are the permissions set to.
Can you move or copy it to another folder or a external drive and if you can copy it can you delete the copy?

How to clear hard drive space?

my hard drive is "full" i need a way to clear space or compress files, without taking them off of my computer, Ive already put all my photos and movies on an external hard drive all thats left is 25 gigs of music and applications really. hard drive is 80g. I cant have my external hard drive all the time and i need space on the laptop in general, thanks for any help

i said right there, that i didnt want to move any more stuff off of the computer, ill dump trash or compress files, but i need to make room.
Not being a smartass, but somtimes it doesn't matter what you want.
If you can't clear enough space you may have to move more files off, or buy a larger internal drive.
http://www.bombich.com/software/local.html
This is not tested on Tiger, but there may be an equivilent.

Unable to get the complete drive space in lenovo g580

HI All,
I have new lenovo g580 laptop with DOS operating system. In that i had installed the windowns 7 ultimate. After instalation i had one issue with hard drive partition.
Issue: I am able to get the drive space around 420 GB, reming space it is showing as unallocated space. I am unable to patition that space.
Please suggest me to partition and to use that as general.
please let me know if need any more information.
Thanks in advance,
Krishna

Hi ykrishna,
thanks for posting and welcome to the community. To do this please go to the
Start button > Highlight "Computer" and Right click > Select Manage. (Please see illustration below)
Once done a new window should have opened up. (Please see illustration below)
From here you should be able to see the unpartitioned block. Select the unpartioned block, right click and select "Make partion active". Be sure to assign a proper drive letter aswell.
Hope this helps
Regards

I am running out of hard drive space so I clear 32GB of space at midnight, went to bed. When I wokle up I had no space left even though I had not used the computer, the system.lg is FULL of stuff and I have no HD space anymore? What's eating it up?

I am running out of hard drive space so I clear 32GB of space at midnight and went to bed.
When I wokle up I had no space left even though I had not used the computer, the system.lg is FULL of stuff and I have no HD space anymore?
What's eating it up?

WORD TO THE WISE
the OmniDiskSweeper was a very helpful download, because it laid out the HD and all the files on it in a "largest to smallest" fashion. When I did this I found that I had an inordinate amount of memory being taken up in my Mail Data folder, this did not make much sense so when I dug deeper I found that a 59MB scanned file that I had emailed 3 weeks ago had not been delivered, so the computer was retrying every minute and saving the history of what it was doing, so it was saving the 59MB file as well as the log about the 59MB file and hence for the last 3 weeks it's been chewing away at HD space recording the activity of the undeliverable file.
I deleted the Data record folders and removed the yahoo account from My Mail and reinstalled it with proper IMAP information and the HD is secure and holding at 331GB of free space. Like it ought to be.
I love the fact that if something very strange is happpening on your MAC there is a REASON....find it and fix it, and move on. In the PC world you would reboot 20 times, call some guy in India who will ony try to sell you a new subscription or warranty for $99 and never solve anything.
I am at rest once more, thanks for the tip

How do I clear up space on my hard drive

how do I clear up space on my hard drive

First, you need to have a back-up of your hard drive before deleting files. Use a utility such as "Disk Inventory X" to see where your largest files are located. Then, and back-up before, you can begin to delete them. There are also some other good utilities that others can recommend to get an idea of what's hogging your hard drive space... I'll let others chime in on their particular favorites.
Good luck,
Clinton

System is freezing up on import. I have tried to reboot my computer three times, but that hasn't worked. I have tried clearing out hard drive space and that hasn't worked.

I have tried to reboot my computer three times, but that hasn't worked. I have tried clearing out hard drive space and that hasn't worked.

Mdgc wrote:
My imac will not authorize itune movie downloads to my ipad.
What exactly does this mean? Your iMac doesn't authorize anything. Are you getting an error message or what message are you getting with regard to authorizing? The iPad is not authorized? What?
No do not restore yet.

HT4906 I tried to do the update but it reads that I don't have enough hard drive to do the update. How do clear up space on my hard drive to do the upte????

I tried to do the update but it reads that I don't have enough hard drive to do the update. How do clear up space on my hard drive to do the upte????

That is hard to say, as we do not know what you keep on your hard drive.
To free space
empty the trash, both on your Desktop and the Aperture Trash,
Delete files and folders you do not need
Move files to an external volume.
There are utilities that let you find large files, like Omni Disk Sweeper, but that is not a free application.

Archiving movie files to clear up hard drive space...how?

Hello,
I have noticed that my hard drive space is significantly reduced by the movies, slideshows, idvd's etc. that I have created.
I have about 100GB of files to archive and I am asking what is the best and quickest way to do this?
I would prefer to backup the files onto a DVD that I can reload onto a mac later on if I need to. I could make a dvd that is playable in any dvd player but I'd like a data backup that I can load and edit at anytime.
Is this possible and how do I do this?

a single-layered dvd-r fits 4.7GB... <math> ~22 DVDs.... phphewww...-
plus, most iM projects are much larger than to fit on one dvd...- you need a 3rd party Tool as toast7, which allows socalled spanning (=automatic segmenting and, much more important: rejoining these segments to one, single file...)...
how about investing into any external firewire harddrive, ~200Gigs are for <150€ (some offer<100€)... reliable, fast, convenient (drag'n drop).
don't forget to format with DiskUtility as MacOsExtended/hfs BEFORE usage
I do have 3 (4?) ext. hds here in use, just for my homevideos in edit, websites under construction, backups (4600 titles in iT... I don't want to rip all my CDs never again again!!), etc....

Hard drive space literally disappearing while I watch...

Hi there-
I'm wondering what is going on... I can literally watch my hard drive space tick down to nothing. I keep clearing and seconds later it starts ticking down again to nothing until everything is unable to run.
Where should I start with this?
Thanks in advance!
--Jeff

Hi Allan-
Hard to say what the free space was... It literally changed every couple of seconds until I had nothing left. (ZERO).
I cleared my iTunes library to give it about 40 gb of space - and it's doing okay now - or so it seems.
I have 3.5 GB of RAMM (physical) in the machine.
Weird... Any ideas?
Thanks!
--Jeff

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.

My hard drive is nearly full but I cant find whats taking up all my hard drive space

I have an intel macbook pro with 500 internal HD.
I have 160gb of music in my itues folder with another 7gb on a previous library, I am unable to find the size info of my applications folder but I susspect it to be around 50gb, however I only have 59 gb of free HD space remaining. How to I find out what is using the remainder od my hard drive space? I have not yet checked my iphoto. where would this be? Is there someway of checking to see what folders are the bigest on my hard drive?
I can's work out why my disk is so full.
Any help greatly appreciated. :-)

MacBook Pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro

Unable to clear drive space

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