MBA Hard Drive Space Disappeared

[HBK Carl]

Hi All!

Been using my MBA for 3 months now and noticed that I have lost a large amount of hard drive space, I currently have 40GB free when I have hardly anything on the computer, I have a few freeware apps and about 8GB of Music, thats it, I have looked at where the space has gone but can't figure it out.

Is there any such tools for removing stuff that is not used and to do a "Spring Clean" to get rid of anything I don't need?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Carl

 

[Satori]

Most probably you have some large cache files accumulating somewhere.

You could have a look at Disk Inventory X. It will scan every file on your hard drive and produce a color-coded map of what’s taking up your drive space.

Cache Out X cleans up all of your caches and can often free up some hard drive space for you.

Only catch is that I haven'y tried either of these programmes with Leopard yet... so let us know if they work!

 

[HBK Carl]

hi thanks for the reply.

I had a play with both apps. Disk inventory is very interesting, my MBA has 7gb of plain text docs and documents! I have zero personalfiles on there so this is very strange.

I don't know what I am safe to delete to be honest. Does any1 know how much hard drive space was available from an out of the box 80gb MBA?

 

[gcmexico]

download appcleaner from CNET...great app to remove a whole program from your mac computer

 

[nintendude]

hi thanks for the reply.

I had a play with both apps. Disk inventory is very interesting, my MBA has 7gb of plain text docs and documents! I have zero personalfiles on there so this is very strange.

I don't know what I am safe to delete to be honest. Does any1 know how much hard drive space was available from an out of the box 80gb MBA?

about 73GB i think

 

[zedsdead]

This happened with my SSD model a while back, and the Apple Genius had no idea what was going on and Apple ended up replacing it.

 

[robby818]

iphone updates consume a lot of space. 250 MB each. I had three of them in my itunes folder.

Do software updates get deleted after they are installed?

 

[ayeying]

about 73GB i think

The hard drive is 74.2GB usable. Subtract 14.5 GB of the stuff they install, you get about 59-60GB usable when you first get the system.

 

[HBK Carl]

The hard drive is 74.2GB usable. Subtract 14.5 GB of the stuff they install, you get about 59-60GB usable when you first get the system.

That probably explains it, I am using tools like monolingual to free up some extra space by deleting thing I do not need such as extra languages!

 

[HBK Carl]

iphone updates consume a lot of space. 250 MB each. I had three of them in my itunes folder.

Do software updates get deleted after they are installed?

No they don't I found 1GB worth in my iTunes folder, if you want an extra 3GB download monlingual and delete the extra language packs.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

This happened with my SSD model a while back, and the Apple Genius had no idea what was going on and Apple ended up replacing it.

For an obvious software (potentially user) issue? Wow that was nice of them.

 

[HBK Carl]

I now have 51GB free space, and all I have on the disk is a 10GB iTunes library!

 

[iSee]

This app helps you zoom in on what's consuming your hard disk space.
(And looks good, too!)

Disk Inventory X: http://www.derlien.com/

You should be able to figure out what is taking up your space.

 

[dashford]

Can't seem to free up any space

I have a MacBook Pro running OS 10.4.11 with 110GB HDD. I recently used iMovie to edit some video and suddenly I have used all my hard drive. So I copied then removed over 10GB of iTunes music and secure emptied my trash. I also erased about 20GB of iMovie files. But I am still showing less than 1GB free space. I have run Disk Inventory X and this just tells me I have 91.6GB in my sparse disk image without breaking it down. I am a reasonably experienced computer user but relatively new to mac and *nix. I just want to free up some hard disk space. Can anybody help please?

 

[ayeying]

I have a MacBook Pro running OS 10.4.11 with 110GB HDD. I recently used iMovie to edit some video and suddenly I have used all my hard drive. So I copied then removed over 10GB of iTunes music and secure emptied my trash. I also erased about 20GB of iMovie files. But I am still showing less than 1GB free space. I have run Disk Inventory X and this just tells me I have 91.6GB in my sparse disk image without breaking it down. I am a reasonably experienced computer user but relatively new to mac and *nix. I just want to free up some hard disk space. Can anybody help please?

Are you using FileVault? If so, thats why. Do a restart.

 

[dashford]

Are you using FileVault? If so, thats why. Do a restart.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, Filevault Protection is on. Are you suggesting I should not be using Filevault or that I need to turn Filevault off, reboot and then turn Filevault on again? Cheers, D.

 

[Heavenkittykat]

I now have 51GB free space, and all I have on the disk is a 10GB iTunes library!

so what did you end up doing? I wanted to free hard drive space in my macbook air too.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

so what did you end up doing? I wanted to free hard drive space in my macbook air too.

When will you guys finally understand that you bought a computer with an extremely small hard drive? There's very little that you can do to free up more space. Just deal with it or get an external drive.

 

[Heavenkittykat]

When will you guys finally understand that you bought a computer with an extremely small hard drive? There's very little that you can do to free up more space. Just deal with it or get an external drive.

Didn't you read the OP's post. He used to only have 40 GB hard drive space left and he was able to free up approx 10 GB. To tell you the truth I have still have a lot of hard drive space left in my macbook air. I am a light user and I don't need to store massive amounts of data and media in my computer also I place high priority on portability, that's why I bought macbook air. I do understand the limitations of my MBA and you are not in any position to say otherwise. I just want to free up some amount hard drive space "just because".

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Didn't you read the OP's post. He used to only have 40 GB hard drive space left and he was able to free up approx 10 GB. To tell you the truth I have still have a lot of hard drive space left in my macbook air. I am a light user and I don't need to store massive amounts of data and media in my computer also I place high priority on portability, that's why I bought macbook air. I do understand the limitations of my MBA and you are not in any position to say otherwise. I just want to free up some amount hard drive space "just because".

It looks like it's you who needs to read the OP's posts. They were having an issue with hard dive space disappearing not with not having enough space.

 

[Heavenkittykat]

It looks like it's you who needs to read the OP's posts. They were having an issue with hard dive space disappearing not with not having enough space.

Ha! The OP specifically said that he/she is trying to use the monolingual software to free up some disc space. Also I want to point out that you made a comment that there is nothing I/(WE) can do to free up a significant amount of hard drive space on our macbook air that is why I redirected you to the OP's post which states that he/se freed up to approx 10 GB on his MBA. I did not state that OP is having trouble with having enough space.

 

[alphaod]

Don't forget the hibernation file that's 2GB in size.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Ha! The OP specifically said that he/she is trying to use the monolingual software to free up some disc space. Also I want to point out that you made a comment that there is nothing I/(WE) can do to free up a significant amount of hard drive space on our macbook air that is why I redirected you to the OP's post which states that he/se freed up to approx 10 GB on his MBA. I did not state that OP is having trouble with having enough space.

If you've read the thread you would know that the OP and some others were having issues with space simply disappearing, seemingly not taken up by anything. If you want to use monolingual then do it. It's a great program and it helps out a lot (except for when it breaks some apps). Maybe you should just wait for Snow Leopard since it will take up less space than Leopard.

 

[dashford]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, Filevault Protection is on. Are you suggesting I should not be using Filevault or that I need to turn Filevault off, reboot and then turn Filevault on again? Cheers, D.

OK, "ayeying" set me on the right track ... thank you! I rebooted several times and eventually Filevault ran ... and it ran ... it ran for ages ... but when it finished, it did what I wanted. I now have over 45GB free space which is what I was expecting.

So, in summary, for the benefit of everyone else ... if you remove loads of files but don't see the free space going up then it is probably coz Filevault is on and has not yet run.

Thanks to "ayeying" for helping me ;-)