What is taking up all the space on the hard drive?

My 500GB iMac is only 18 months old, and only has 115GB available. The two big users of space for me are iTunes, and iMovie, which between them account for 175 to 200GB. But what is taking up all the rest? I have a lot of photos in iPhoto, but am not sure how to find the usage of those, and doubt they account for a huge chunk. I use lots of apps, but do not have a significant number of additional programs, nor any presentations, spreadsheets, or other big users of space.
I would appreciate any suggestions for places to look for bug users of space. Also, are there any programs as there are in Windows for disk optimization?

I didn't mention iTunes, because it shouldn't have it's own trash. iMovie has it's own trash for what you trim from the original content when creating a video. This allows for undoing changes. Once the project is complete, you probably don't need those deleted clips - and they can take up a lot of space. I am not aware of this behavior changing in the new iMovie, but it may not have the same interface for clearing the trash as the previous versions.

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How do i find out what is taking up so much space on my hard drive

Hi,
My hard drive has a capacity of 27GB abd i only have 3GB available. How can i find out what is taking up so much space?

Look at these links.
Where did my disk space go?
http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38&Number=770243
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html
Increase HD Free Space
http://macosx.com/forums/howto-faqs/275191-how-easily-increase-hd free-space-laptop.html
How to free up my disk space
http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html
 Cheers, Tom

What is taking up so much space on my hard drive? says I have 500gb of 'other'

I work alot with video / photography / music, but in the 'about this mac' section it only says that I have about 80gb of each on my hard drive. However, it also says that I have 500GB of other and I am unaware of what this is, and how I can get rid of it.
Anybody have advice?

Try reindexing the hard drive for Spotlight according to this Apple document: Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes - Apple Support. Reboot and check again.

HELP with what is taking up so much space on my hard drive?

I have a 30g hard drive and it only has 7.92g left of space on it and I have deleted everything but a few extra applications and the onces OSX came with.
this is a dual boot system so that means It came with 0s9 as well. Please can anyone direct me on how to figure this out?
here are some specs.
powerbook g4 titanium
667mhz 1mb l3 cache
OS X 10.4.11
512mb SDRAM

You could also try running the maintenance (cron) scripts. These often don't get run on laptops and will clear out various cache and log files, freeing up disk space. You can run all three scripts in the terminal by typing:
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
You will likely be prompted to enter your password. They can take some time to complete (you can monitor progress using Activity Monitory). If you don't want to mess with the terminal, search around for a utility that will run the scripts (some are free, some are not).

My one year old macbook pro is full. : ( How can I see what's taking up all the GB?

My one year old macbook pro is full already. : ( How can I see what's taking up all the space? I cannot download anymore pictures. It's running slower than usual.

OmniDiskSweeper (free) - http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/download/
Archive files onto other media until your hard drive has at least 10% of its total size free, or at least 15+ GB at all times.

HT5318 Ever since I updated what looked like iTunes 10.6.1 my computer has been corrupted with Malware, which has filled up all available space on my hard drive. What do I do to get rid of the Malware?

Ever since I updated what looked like iTunes 10.6.1 my computer has been corrupted with Malware, which has filled up all available space on my hard drive. What do I do to get rid of the Malware?

First, 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.
First, back up all data 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.
☞ If you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later, 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.

HT201656 In itunes my iphone shows up as having nearly 8G of "Other"...what is taking up all this space?

In itunes my iphone shows up as having nearly 8GB of "Other"...what is taking up all this space?
On the iphone itself under settings, general, usage it indicates 12.7GB used and only 840MB available. I have one app (Audible) that is taking up 1.6GB, photos&camera take up 636MB, Spotify takes up 495MB, everything else takes up less less than 100MB each and totalling less than 2.5GB.
So if Audible is taking up 1.6GB and Spotify is taking up 636MB and all other apps take up 2.5GB this combined totals around 5GB. I have a 16GB iphone 4s.
16GB minus 5GB (my calculated usage) equals 11GB remaining. Allow for some required space utilization (let's say 3GB) and that leaves 8GB remaining. Why does my phone indicate 840MB available? That seems to equate to the amount shown in itunes that indicates 8GB of "other".
What is this 8GB of "other" that is taking up so much storage space on my iphone?
Thanks in advance.
John

johncdaly1955 wrote:
In itunes my iphone shows up as having nearly 8GB of "Other"...what is taking up all this space?
Other is usually around 1 GB...
A ' Large Other ' usually indicates Corrupt Data...
First Try a Restore from Backup...
But... if the Large Other Persists, that is an Indicator of Corrupt Data in the Backup...
Then a Restore as New is the way to go...
Details Here > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1414
More Info Here...
maclife.com/how_remove_other_data_your_iphone
More Info about ‘Other’ in this Discussion
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19958116

What is taking up all my space?

I have an 16 GB iPad mini that says its using 6 GB of space, but my apps don't even come close to that amount of space. How can I find out what is taking up all my space? I know people will say to back up my iPad and restore, but I don't want to upgrade to iOS 7, so that is not an option for me. Thanks so much in advance!

If you are still on iOS 6 on your mini, you may have gotten the auto-pushed iOS 7 update download on your device. Check your device under Settings>General>Software Update. If you have a button there labeled "Install" for the iOS 7 update, the update has been pushed to your device by Apple without your knowledge or permission, then extracted from an approx 1GB download file to a ~3.1GB installation package which is now using ~3.1GB of your storage space. It happened to my iPad mini along with an 8GB iPhone 4 (~2.5GB - 3GB of space robbed from an 8GB device) as well. The actual size of the update after extracted can vary between ~2.5GB to over 3.1GB depending on the device.
See the following topics & links:
*Auto-pushed iOS 7 @ CNET
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57604701-37/ios-6-holdouts-complain-about-larg e-unwanted-ios-7-download/
*How do I delete auto download of ios7 (linked work-around on page 2)
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5379403?start=0&tstart=0
*How do I stop my iPad 3 from automatically downloading iOS upgrades (work-around)
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5385718?start=0&tstart=0
*Apple Forced iOS7 update on my iPad2 !
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5378130?start=0&tstart=0

Do I need to use all the hard drive for time machine or can I partition it

Do I need to use all the hard drive for time machine or can I partition it

You cannot partition a TC disk.
See pondini about mixing data and backups.. but remember this.. the TC has no way to back itself up and TM cannot backup files on the TC. Anything not backed up on the TC will be lost at some future point.
http://pondini.org/TM/TCQ3.html

What does it mean when the hard drive icon with arrow appears on screen on start up?

what does it mean when the hard drive icon with arrow below, appears on screen on start up?

it needs to clicked to select it as the startup disk......for the boot to continue...

My 'backup' is taking up a huge space on my hard drive but I have an external hard drive for my back ups - how do i get rid of this?

Please can you help - I have recently added an external hard drive to my Macbook so it can be used as a back up and storage to save space on my hard drive. I have deleted videos and photos from my hard drive but they are being replaced with 'backup'
how do i get rid of this ?
thanks

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Time Machine makes local snapshots in all portable Macs with Lion or Mountain Lion. They are made in the internal drive and they are removed when your hard disk gets full, so you don't have to worry about it.
If you want to delete them, turn off Time Machine and turn it on every time you want to make a backup. You can also turn them off manually without having to turn off Time Machine, or you can delete those local snapshots > http://pondini.org/TM/30.html

What is going on with the Hard drives?

I purchased my macbook in Feb 2007. I've had two 160GB macbook hard drives corrupted (beyond any data retrieval) since then (and in the last year). I lost a great deal of PhD Thesis the first time.
Both times i had the screen freeze (unrelated to power since both were fully charged) and when I rebooted the HD could not be accessed. Seems to be corrupting the category B-tree in the catalogue. I have no idea what this means except i have no love for the B-tree. Off to mac repairers. Apple will not replace your HD without the old one which does create dramas when your old one is at data recovery.
I've learnt my external hard drive lesson (but always remember to back up your iTunes and iPhotos) since then but what's a reasonable expectation for your macbook to corrupt it's hard drive? Each HD took exactly 8 months to corrupt. coincidence? unlikely.
I have extra applecare protection cover but apple seem to think it's reasonable to replace the hard drive again and won't replace the macbook. I'm don't think that living in fear for the next 8 months is an appropriate resolution?
Is there an issue with macbook hardware that explains the HD corruption epidemic?

There have been some reports of a couple of runs of bad drives from the drive manufacturers, most reports being of Seagate drives, but I've seen nothing confirmed by any of the manufacturers. But all laptop manufacturers get their drives from the same vendors, so any vendor is equally likely to have a problem in such a circumstance. It's possible that your replacement drive was of the same series and so had the same problem, if such a problem really does exists. But laptop drives, being of very tiny parts, are more susceptible to failure; they're just not as robust as desktop drives, and of course are subject to more shock from travel. In my experience, support hundreds of laptops from various vendors, MacBooks are no more prone to hard drive failure than are any other manufacturer's system. So it could well have just been bad luck (presuming that the problem was indeed a hardware failure).
As to replacement, it's quite reasonable for Apple to just replace the hard drive again in the case of another failure, as there is really nothing in such a circumstance that would make replacing the entire MacBook help the situation.
Sorry you've had bad luck. I hope that your system behaves well from now on.
Regards.

What can I do with the hard drive from my broken iPod Mini?

Hello all,
A friend of mine has an iPod Mini that is broken beyond repair. However, the battery and the hard drive works fine. The question is, is there a way to utilize the hard drive as an external USB drive? If so, can anyone point me in a resource that outlines this? I have checked online but haven't had any luck.
Thanks so much,
Ed

Yeah, but I may have not descriped the issue with the iPod. He tried to replace the battery himself and broke the ribbon cable that connects the circuit board to the control wheel. The battery and HD are o.k. so I mentioned that he may be able to take the HD out and use it as a separate storage device. I thought they drives that had the same form factor as a compact flash card.
I told him to pay the 50 bucks to have Apple replace the battery but did he listen? I know it sounds like I have an imaginary friend and I did it, but really it was he that tried it on his own. <ggg>
Ed

How do I find what is taking up all the space in my iMovie library?

If I find the my iMovie library in Finder, it's total size is a reported 15.59GB and, as far as I can tell, I cannot open it in Finder to see what files are taking up that space.
If I look at my iMovie library in iMovie, it apparently contains one event, which contains one movie.
If I select the move as then go to File -> Reveal in Finder, I can see all the folders and files associated with the event and they come to a grand total of 5.95 GB.
So, how do I find out what movies, clips or projects are taking up the other ~ 10GB in the iMovie library folder?
I'm using iMovie 10.0.5

When I did that, I could still only see the same contents as shown in the third screenshot above. However, minutes after doing the "Show package contents", iMovie seems to have figured out that it didn't have 15GB of data in its library after all and updated its size accordingly. So, problem solved for now but I still find iMovie to be painful to use and I will probably avoid doing so as much as I can.

What is the "other" that is suddenly taking up so much space on my hard drive?

How do I find what is the "other" listed on my hard drive and clean it up? Seems to be taking almost 80gb's of space now. Also on my iPhone and iPad, although much less space is being taken.

read "more like this".

What is taking up all the space on the hard drive?

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