Mac help needed

[Lory]

I'm trying to free up some space on my HD and I've moved all the 'obvious' stuff to my external drives.. all the photo's, movie's and documents etc
And I'm still short of space I do have a lot of stuff in my applications, some of which I really don't know if I need or not?

One of my questions is, I've got Microsoft word installed and I can see its got spell check, thesaurus and special symbols for languages I'm never likely to use... can I just delete them?

Also, is there anything else, not so obvious that I might be missing?

I've got a programme "Tidy up" that finds all duplicates and I'm pretty sure I've not got many, if any, left.

I think the most likely things that are filling it up, are my programmes, which i believe have to be stored on my HD to work?

Any advise would be welcome

[philsmove]

AS you know I dont use a Mac but


Some programs eg Lightroom keeps on making lots of backups, with out deleting the old one

lightroom and can use a lot of space creating thumbnails, not sure if CS 3 does the same

[DavidY]

I do have a lot of stuff in my applications, some of which I really don't know if I need or not?

One of my questions is, I've got Microsoft word installed and I can see its got spell check, thesaurus and special symbols for languages I'm never likely to use... can I just delete them?

I'm another non-Mac user... but the version of Office I have doesn't use up that much space as a proportion of the my total hard disk, and I don't think the things you mention will take up much space. How big is your hard disk?

[Lory]

Some programs eg Lightroom keeps on making lots of backups, with out deleting the old one

lightroom and can use a lot of space creating thumbnails, not sure if CS 3 does the same

No, it only saves what you save, so if you change the original and just 'save' you've lost the original for ever, unlike iPhoto or LR, plus, I've used 'Tidy up' which you can programme to find 'duplicate', or similar images and lots of other parameters, which will eventually dig out any copies, or edited versions, plus, I try very hard not to store any photo's on my HD

I'm another non-Mac user... but the version of Office I have doesn't use up that much space as a proportion of the my total hard disk, and I don't think the things you mention will take up much space. How big is your hard disk?

Only 4GB Therefore I'm trying to get rid of 'any' excess baggage, as Photoshop, and iMovie don't like it when your running low on space!

[djtrev]

I have the same problem on my PC,so much so that I havent been ablle to complete a back up for some time.
The trouble is,as with you,I dont really know which to keep and which to remove.

[philsmove]

Only 4GB

?????

that must be RAM

how big is you hard drive

[DavidY]

Only 4GB

?????

that must be RAM

Or perhaps the amount you currently have free? But your actual hard disk must be bigger than that given the sort of photo/ video work you do.

how big is you hard drive

On a PC there are utilities you can use to work out where the most space is used on your disk - for example at work we have something called TreeSize which I note has a free version for PCs (may be helpful for djtrev). This lets you see which folder has the most space used, and you can then drill down to the subfolders to see which of those uses most space, and so on.

I imagine there are similar things for a Mac but I've no idea which ones are safe/ good.

[djtrev]

On a PC there are utilities you can use to work out where the most space is used on your disk - for example at work we have something called TreeSize which I note has a free version for PCs (may be helpful for djtrev). This lets you see which folder has the most space used, and you can then drill down to the subfolders to see which of those uses most space, and so on.

I imagine there are similar things for a Mac but I've no idea which ones are safe/ good.

Thank you David.
Downloaded this morning and just about ready to see if I can understand it.
The chances are pretty slim I'm afraid.

[Tiggerbabe]

Try this, Lory.

[DavidY]

Thank you David.
Downloaded this morning and just about ready to see if I can understand it.
The chances are pretty slim I'm afraid.

Unfortunately it won't tell you which files or folders are safe to delete. However it will show you which folders have the most disk usage. If you want to save space the easiest way is to only consider the folders with the biggest usage.

So for example - I've just run it on my hard disk.

• The biggest folder contains music and some videos (iTunes etc.).
• The next biggest is a folder called "Documents and Settings" which is Windows XPs name for the various user folders - where your data is stored and also data which applications store for you
• The third biggest is a folder called Windows. I'm not messing with that at all because it's system stuff
• Fourth is "12 Files" which is not a folder at all - it refers to files in the top level folders on my hard disk. Looking there, almost all the space in there is used by two system files (Pagefile and hiberfil). Again I'm not messing with them.
• Fifth is "Program Files". Maybe worth a look here to see if there are any applications which are hogging lots of space, in which case I'd consider uninstalling them, but in my case I'm already at a folder which only takes 5% of my disk space, so I'm never going to save more than 5% even if I uninstall *everything*.

So in my case I need to focus on the first two. Music files and especially video files take up a lot of space. Occasionally iTunes and the like have free videos, and there are some video podcasts and free iTunesU videos (TED talks) that I have. Do I really need these?

The second one is probably trickier. I can drill down to see which folders within that are taking most space.

One of my favourite space savers in this area is
"C:\Documents and Settings\David\Local Settings\Application Data\Spotify\Storage"

Obviously yours won't say "David" in that path, and I think later Windows versions would look more like:
"C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Spotify\Storage"

Early versions of Spotify kept adding and adding to this folder - I've no idea if later versions are any better. It has lots of sub folders with two letter codes which are cached bits of music it's about to play. I've deleted all files from that folder (probably best to exit Spotify first) with no ill effects.

But unfortunately your folders will be different. However Treesize may make it easy to spot a folder with some big files that you recognise and don't need any more.

Back to Lory's query: I also found this link http://lifehacker.com/5835082/five-b...pace-analyzers which also recommends a Mac utility called DaisyDisk (not free but it still seems reasonably cheap). No idea if it's any good or not though.

[DavidY]

Try this, Lory.

I also found this link http://lifehacker.com/5835082/five-b...pace-analyzers which also recommends a Mac utility called DaisyDisk (not free but it still seems reasonably cheap). No idea if it's any good or not though.

Ha! Cross post.

[philsmove]

Music files and especially video files take up a lot of space. .

Correct. Video can take up a lot of space

individual mp3 music files are normally not too big

I think Lory does video and this is probably were she should look

[Lory]

Thanks guys!

Try this, Lory.

I've just downloaded this and on my initial scan THIS IS the pie chart i've got
Screen shot 2012-03-31 at 07.41.09.png

[Lory]

I can't believe it....... a shed load of it is old MAIL! What a relief though!

Yes and sorry, 4gb is all I had left, 'after I'd cleared our what 'I' thought was causing the problems!

This programme is ACE and only £6-99 from the app store!

[Lory]

I'm still in shock... who'd've thought ALL that green was old mail, I'm still hovering over the delete button, as I actually 'can't' believe it, even though i've looked and looked.. I think I'm going to go back to bed for an hour and look again, incase I'm about to make a huge mistake!

But this is what it looks like, now that all the mail has been 'collected'

Screen shot 2012-03-31 at 08.13.35.png

[David Franklin]

Can't you copy the mail somewhere external, just in case? It's only about £20 of HD space, after all.

[Lory]

Can't you copy the mail somewhere external, just in case? It's only about £20 of HD space, after all.

That's what I did, before I pressed the delete button, just in case I suddenly found that it had taken something 'vital' with it but 2 days on and the only difference is my Mac is now working a whole lot faster!

[Franck]

That's what I did, before I pressed the delete button, just in case I suddenly found that it had taken something 'vital' with it but 2 days on and the only difference is my Mac is now working a whole lot faster!

Nice, I use Daisy Disk as well, to clear clutter Got rid of a few Gb at the week-end, mostly videos that I had converted to iTunes, but forgot about the original...
I'm assuming the size of your mail folder was due to many large attachments?

I prefer using Dropbox or Sugarsync for sharing large files now.

[Lory]

Nice, I use Daisy Disk as well, to clear clutter Got rid of a few Gb at the week-end, mostly videos that I had converted to iTunes, but forgot about the original...
I'm assuming the size of your mail folder was due to many large attachments?

I prefer using Dropbox or Sugarsync for sharing large files now.

Yes, I had a job where I had to send many many large files by email and I 'thought' I'd deleted them but obviously not!

Yes, i much prefer Dropbox and use that all the time now but some people still don't want to use it and it take 2 to tango!