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iMac Storage Space Disappearing

Dusty Bin

Dusty Bin

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 1, 2011
24
1
UK
I'm using OS X El Capitan v10.11.6 on an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010).

On my Mac I have iTunes 12.8.2.3 open and nothing else.

I cannot add any mp4 files to iTunes.

I also cannot add any files greater than a few MB to my iMac from my external hard drives.

My available storage space showing as in excess of 30 GB.

However, when I try to add a 255.4 MB file to iTunes, for example, I receive an error message telling me there is not enough room on my mac to copy all of the requested files.

I have also noticed that my available storage space is shrinking slowly even though I have no other applications running and no web browsers open on the Mac. (I am posting here using my iPad).

I have tried restarting my Mac, but the error persists.

What could be wrong, and how do I get a fix, please?

I did try asking this question on the Apple Support Communities site, but sadly no-one has replied as yet.

I am hoping someone on here has the answer, please.

Thanks in advance.
 
Download DiskWave from here:
It's small in size and free.

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.

What is it?
 
Thanks, Fishrrman.

I have successfully downloaded DiscWave (only 852 KB) thankfully!

I’m going to open it next and see what shows.

Thanks again for now.
 
OK. DiscWave opened successfully.

It's showing 469.48GB used of 499.25GB capacity.

Listed in order of largest to smallest are: -

369.58GB Users
11.16GB Library
9.5GB Applications
8.3GB Systems
6.08GB lost+found
1.78GB private
1.12GB usr

and then a dozen or so smaller headings, the largest of which is only 22.01MB.

I also note that my available storage space has now shrunk to 29.55GB.

So, that's what's on there, but why if I still have 30GB of storage space available, can I not add a 255.4MB file?
 
What do you have in your Users folder that is eating up 370gb of space?
 
It's mainly movies and audio content.

I wouldn’t describe it as ”eating up” my space.

It’s occupying it, yes, but it’s not causing the available space to shrink, nor does it prevent a 255MB being added when there’s nearly 30GB of free space remaining, or is it?

I’ve previously had less available space, but yet been able to add larger sized files without difficulty, until this week.

I still cannot fathom what is wrong now.
 
"It's mainly movies and audio content"

Might be a good idea to move a lot of the video stuff to an external drive.
Particularly if most of it is "just sitting there" and you view it only occasionally or not at all...
 
delete mail cache through files
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Caches/WebKit
i zapped 5.4 GB a month ago!
also zap the PRAM alot

is 369 GB total?
 
369.58GB Users
11.16GB Library
9.5GB Applications
8.3GB Systems
6.08GB lost+found
1.78GB private
1.12GB usr

the first item is the entire drive or
ahhhh
your imac has hidden files
that happened to me in 2017 on the mini
i reinstalled mountain loin, then el cap
You should not do that tho
there are software that cleans up hidden files
podcast gathers junk and duplicate videos in Photos hog GBs

you should remove files you dont need every week on a external drive.
and restart press cmd-opt-p-r after the chime and release, do this twice.
 
Um, hate to tell you this, but in order to copy a file anywhere it has to prepare it for copying which eats up space as well.

Your computer is telling you bluntly, that it is too full. In a nutshell, you can't operate with a full hard drive as your system needs swap space to function. Being that it is a mechanical drive, it could very well be fragmented like Swiss cheese... in which case, finding a place to even create swap space to might be difficult, which can also cause it to balk at copy commands.

Internal drives aren't infinite and are terrible places to store stuff that you don't access consistently. In other words, unless you have a tower with multiple drives in it, your best bet is to have an external drive to store stuff on. It's easy to become a pack rat, it takes due diligence to keep that from happening.

I'm guessing your base drive is 500GBs. If you're into media files, you should be looking at 4TBs or larger for that sort of stuff. That stuff eats up disk space like no tomorrow. 4K content, even more so. Move all of it off your primary drive. The only stuff you should have on your primary drive is that which must reside there. Almost everything else can be stored and accessed externally.

Your options are: to get a beefy external drive, replace your existing external drive, get a new computer with said larger storage, or start getting rid of stuff.

Think of your hard drive as a room filled with ping pong balls with you in it. It's funny at first, but then you're like, how the hell do I get out of here? I can't even open the door? Hello, that's what your computer is saying when it says you don't have enough room to copy a file.

There is also a possibility that the drive is starting to fail. Full drives mimic the same behavior as failing drives. So getting the stuff off the drive may be more prudent.

There's no loosening of the belt on this stuffed turkey... time to move the giblets to a new location then assess the status/perfomance of the drive.
 
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replacing the drive in a iMac is moderate involved at least 2 hours and display removal.
an external drive would solve many storage problems.
 
Thanks for your replies.

I’m going to start to get rid of a lot of stuff!
 
Do you use time machine?
If so, could "snapshots" be eating up disk space?
 
No. Don’t use Time Machine.

I’m currently transferring lots of files from the Mac to an external hard drive as suggested above.

I’ll restart the Mac once this is completed and see what difference this has made.

Thanks
 
Just an update to close this thread: -

I cleared off over 100GB of stuff onto an external HD.

Then restarted the IMac. No change.

Have had to perform a Time Machine back up, erase the computer and then restore from the TM backup.

So far, all good now.

From your advice above, I still have more to get off my hard drive: a work in progress.

I appreciate you guys’ advice.

Thank you!
 
Maintain the Time Machine backup, for both the internal drive and your external data.
It sounds like you have ZERO backup in place.
If your drive dies, everything would be gone.
 
Fishrrman said:
Do you use time machine?
If so, could "snapshots" be eating up disk space?
Click to expand...
To emphasize this, I set up boot camp on my MBP this week, and the Boot Camp Assistant’s process of removing Time Machine snapshots cleared over 100GB of space on a 512GB SSD. I’m actually still a bit steamed about this, considering I backup regularly to an external drive using time machine.
 
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