Unaccounted HDD space being used

So, in trying to clean up my HDD, I've found that some significant amount of data has been unaccounted for and hidden in my hard drive.
Let me break it down thus:
I have a Hard Drive with 55.9 GB total.
52.61 GB are used up, leaving 2.96 GB available. This is according to Finder and the StatPro widget.
In Macintosh HD, I learned the following:
27.11 GB make up the Users folder,
13 GB make up the Library folder,
8.17 GB make up the Applications folder,
and 1.98 GB make up the System folder.
(There are two other folders, but the grand total of data is under 200 kB)
Adding that up, that gives me about 50.27 GB used up on the Macintosh HD, give or take .02 GB.
If Finder is saying that 52.61 GB is being used up, and Macintosh HD in Finder states that ~50.27 GB is being used up, this leaves ~2.35 GB unaccounted for. What I'd like to know is, how can I find it?
Also, any suggestions on clearing up disc space? I mean, I've backed up my stuff on my external HD, but some things I use on a day to day basis on my MacBook that I can't simply lug around my LaCie 250 gig ext HD just so I can use it.

Thanks. I did find out where the majority of the unaccounted space was coming from: The VM folder within private (in particular, the "sleepimage" file). I have some degree of suspicion as to what it might be, but I'd rather hear from someone who has a better understanding of the situation, I'd like to know exactly what the "sleepimage" file is (I won't delete it, just would like to know).
That said, Disk Inventory X has proven very helpful. I have managed to remove a few gigs of data from stuff I've never used or needed (couldn't believe there were nearly 2 gigs dedicated to iDVD).

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my iPhone 4s keeps showing more space being used for photos than i have -
i have deleted cache folders, unselect and reselect in iTunes I read one post
where they said keep syncing and in a couple days it would correct itself, that
hasnt happened. I have see others have the same issue but no solution and nothing
appears to work my iPhone still shows 6.5 gig use of photos when i only have the camera roll listed

i thought the photo stream only holds 1000 i usuaaly take each month and save them to iphoto but if thats the my ipad should say the same amount and it doesnt - it shows 2.5 gig which is correct for iphoto. and i havent ever had that much but if for some reason icloud has that much saved how do i delete and again if it does why doesnt ipad show that amount _ HELP!

Have 4Gb of space being used on my phone thgat says other.... what is other and how do i remove it ???

have 4gb of memory being used on my phone and dont know what it is??

http://discussions.apple.com/message/17173728#17173728
a lot of discussions on this forum

"Other" space being used in iPod memory ...

i have been trying to sync about 2.5 gigs of audio to my iPod (it's a second gen. 4 gig). every time i try, the screen shows about 1.3 gigs being taken up by "other" files. i have no idea what these files are, how they got there, or how to get rid of them. does anyone have any ideas or tips?

Other can be Album Artwork, Notes, Contacts, Firmware etc. or files that are on there if you are using the iPod as a removable storage device. If you feel that Other is being incorrectly reported then try restoring your iPod. Restoring will erase the iPod's hard drive, reload the software and put it back to default settings. Once the restore is complete follow the on screen instructions and it should connect to iTunes and give you a prompt to automatically update your library onto the fresh installation. If you want to update manually or using selected playlists choose no and it will default to manual mode and you can choose whatever setting you like: Restoring iPod to factory settings with iTunes 7

Storage space being used and I don't know how...

I have been clearing out and sorting my iMac folders and files to make it neat and deleting anything I don't need.
On my About this mac>Storage section I realised that I have 57bg of music. But in my iTunes media library I only have 10gb?
I have no idea where this extra 47gb is coming from?
Also How do i reduce the amount of size of my "Other" because that's over 50gb aswell!

Try using Mac cleaner pro. It frees up a lot of space and it is on the Mac app store.

Space being used when syncing

795 songs are using 6.43 GB which is almost all of the 7gb memory on my i touch.
Does anyone know why this is happening and what I can do to fix it? I dont have anything else on the i touch that is taking up space so I cant understand it. I have tried manually transferring the music rather than syncing automatically but the same thing is happening. Why is 795 songs taking up so much space?

Yes if you change the setting to High Quality (128kbps) that will mean any new CD import you do will take up less space. Any tracks you buy from the Apple Store will still be provided in 256 kbps though.
What version of iTunes are you using as the 'Convert Higher Bit Rate songs to 128 kbps AAC' option only appeared in one of the recent updates. I have connected my iPod touch and checked that the option is there, I am using iTunes 9.1.1
Ian

I have 22 gb of space being used that says other?

I have 22gb of space used that says other on my macbook air. I got rid of old apps, downloads etc. What is this? ughh very frustrating!!! help please

Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Then reboot. 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 your 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.
If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. 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.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your 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.
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 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 ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the 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
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 icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (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.
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I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS 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 ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

How do i change so that the HDD currently being used for Time machine becomes the startup disk?

Hi there,
I bought this mac with 2 HDD's (a 250gb and a 2tb). When I booted up the mac for the first time, I accidently chose the 2tb HDD as the time machine.......thing so this makes the 250gb HDD the startup drive. This is useless for me as I only want the documents to be backed up so I want the 250gb drive to be the time machine and the 2tb to be the startup drive.
I've tried opening the Mac OS X installer and it doesn't allow me to set the start up drive to the 2tb drive as it isbeing used for the time machine and i've already turned it off within the system preferences.
Please tell me it's possible to switch them around other-wise this will just be a wasted purchase completely. I already accept the fact that I may have to wipe the drive and re-install everything as well as the documents etc but as long as I get some sort of solution that will allow me to do this.
Can someone please help me with this!
Regards
Eric Wade

Copy off everything you want, restart from the iMac's original disk, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, wipe drives as desired, and then install the OS.
(58930)

Device space being used up, diagnostics is off and I'm not downloading anything

How do I prevent it from doing that?

Elector
Elector wrote:
I answer a question on the post. I am not assuming what plan they have, or should have or may have had in the past.
If you are under a contract for two years since the phone is now paid off ( subsidized device) the cost of the plan does not get reduced, based on the original posters post.
There for my answer is 100% correct for the facts known in the post.
Would a, Could a or Should a has nothing to do with my reply.
Unless the poster states exactly what plan they are on the only reasonable reply was the short and sweet one I gave. If they continue as is, without looking into plan changes (again no plan was listed) there is no reduction since paying off the subsidized device.
Good Luck
Since there is more than one plan available and since there is one plan available that does qualify for a discount once a subsidized phone is paid off, your original reply is not and could never be 100% correct, maybe 50% correct. The only reasonable response (also short and sweet) is "It depends on your current plan and/or whether you are willing to switch to the one plan that is eligible for a discount, otherwise no you might not get a discount."

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I have and the same thing happens. I'm wondering if it's an issue with my
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How Do I Get Rid Of The “Other” Data Stored On My iPad Or iPhone?
http://tinyurl.com/85w6xwn
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 Cheers, Tom

Over 6 gig of space being taking up by emails

After purchasing the new 5S, my two email acounts download over 10,000 emails. I subsequestly deleted 95% of them from the inbox and the trash and junk folders. However, my phone still says I have 6 gig of space being used for emails even though there are only about 100 emails for both accounts. No pictures either. I even reset one of the accounts to delete the emails off the server when deleted from the inbox, and changed the setting in Outlook to remove from server when deleted from deleted folder... but according to the iphone, I still have 6 gig of space being used for emails. Any suggestions as this is overly using my memory on the iphone.

Thanks for your suggestions.......FYI........I turned off the features that are connected to the iCloud and miraculously got over 2 gig back. Guess that answers the question. I do not restore my phone unless absolutely necessary. I didn't always use the cloud so i thought maybe turning it on had caused the space problem and it was. Haven't connected to itunes yet to see if "other" has gone down but I'm sure it has.

On my iPad I have got a lot of "other" memory being used (18gb) why? I can't see anything on there!

On my iPad I have got a lot of "other" memory being used (18gb) why? I can't see anything on there!

How Do I Get Rid Of The “Other” Data Stored On My iPad Or iPhone?
http://tinyurl.com/85w6xwn
With an iOS device, the “Other” space in iTunes is used to store things like documents, settings, caches, and a few other important items. If you sync lots of documents to apps like GoodReader, DropCopy, or anything else that reads external files, your storage use can skyrocket. With iOS 5, you can see exactly which applications are taking up the most space. Just head to Settings > General > Usage, and tap the button labeled Show All Apps. The storage section will show you the app and how much storage space it is taking up. Tap on the app name to get a description of the additional storage space being used by the app’s documents and data. You can remove the storage-hogging application and all of its data directly from this screen, or manually remove the data by opening the app. Some applications, especially those designed by Apple, will allow you to remove stored data by swiping from left to right on the item to reveal a Delete button.
 Cheers, Tom

I used time machine to restore on a formatted MAC. Now the HDD space has reduced by 100GB but I cannot see any of the files. How do I find and delete those 100GB data from the HDD?

I used time machine to restore on a formatted MAC. Now the HDD space has reduced by 100GB but I cannot see any of the files. How do I find and delete those 100GB data from the HDD?

dglenn9000 wrote:
I created a new user account just to see if it was my user Library or if there was something wrong with my system. And the new user account is doing most of the same things so I will need to do a full restore anyway.
Not necessarily. I'd suggest downloading and installing the "combo" update. That's a combination (thus the clever name) of all the updates to Leopard since it was first released, so installing it should fix anything that's gone wrong since then, such as with one of the normal "point" updates. Info and download available at: http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacOS_X_10_5_8_ComboUpdate Be sure to do a +Repair Permissions+ via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) afterwards.

When I see the usage on my iPod touch 4 they have categories for how much space is being used where. What does the "other" category contain? Like what could I delete on my iPod to get rid of the "other" category?

when I see the usage on my iPod touch 4 they have categories for how much space is being used where. What does the "other" category contain? Like what could I delete on my iPod to get rid of the "other" category?

What is the Other on my iPhone and How to Remove It
An "other" larger than about 1 1/2 GB usually indicates that the "other" includes corrupted files.
First try:
"First you go settings/general/usage/music/then left swipe over music and press delete and you would think it deletes your music but it doesn't instead it deletes your other but make sure your ipod is connected to a computer while doing this"
as recommended by:
How do I get rid of "other" storage: Apple Support Communities
Next, usually restoring from backup eliminated the corrupted files. However, sometimes restoring to factory settings/new iPod is required.
To restore from backup see:
iOS: How to back up
To restore to factory settings/new iPod see:
iTunes: Restoring iOS software

Unaccounted HDD space being used

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