Hard Drive Files - sudden increase

[transphasic]

Hi all. In the past month or two the data stored on my MBP14/2021 has increased substantially, by some 50 Gigs and I have no idea why this is happening. I am on the latest version of Monterey.

Is there a tool built in to the OS or third party that can detail the increases over the past several months in major folders? For example, "pictures" or "downloads", etc. so you can see possibly where the hard drive is storing far more files, either because of the OS or my own actions as a user?

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

You can try checking the storage usage using the built-in "About This Mac" feature or a third-party app like OmniDiskSweeper. These tools won't show how the size of folders has changed over time, but they will display the current size of each folder.

 

[Fishrrman]

Download DiskWave from here:

DiskWave Homepage

It's small in size and free. It's old, but it still works fine (up to Monterey, at least).

Open DiskWave and go to the preferences.
Put a checkmark in "show invisible files".
Close preferences.

The DiskWave window shows you all your volumes and drives in plain English (no ridiculous graphical formats).
Click on any item "on the left".
Now, you'll see what's ON the volume, listed in order of "largest to smallest".
You can easily locate what's eating up your space.