Comments on: What takes up space on my computer?

Question: What takes up space on my computer?

howgenerica — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 06:10:51 -0800

The memory on my Macbook is apparently completely full, but I don't know what could be taking up so much space. What can I do or download to find out?

By: smorange

smorange — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 06:32:07 -0800

Probably a log file. See here for suggestions about how to identify it.

By: Cat Pie Hurts

Cat Pie Hurts — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 06:38:59 -0800

I'm assuming you mean disk space? Try out Disk Inventory X.

By: fatllama

fatllama — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 07:21:11 -0800

I recently found Grand Perspective useful for this problem.

By: Fuzzy Skinner

Fuzzy Skinner — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 07:28:45 -0800

Let's eliminate the obvious first: Have you emptied your trash?

By: olecranon

olecranon — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:55:13 -0800

My favorite for this task is OmniDiskSweeper.

By: ewingpatriarch

ewingpatriarch — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 09:15:55 -0800

Just in case someone else who's reading your question has the same problem but is on Windows: WinDirStat will solve exactly that problem (again, on Windows).

By: contraption

contraption — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 10:20:24 -0800

If you actually did mean memory, Activity Monitor (found in Applications/Utilities) will give a breakdown of every process that's running and how much memory it's using.

By: vsync

vsync — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 10:33:53 -0800

JDiskReport is nice and works everywhere. Consistent behavior and interface across platforms, which is nice. Don't know how it handles HFS+ forks or NTFS streams though.

By: ijoyner

ijoyner — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:30:33 -0800

I'd recommend you run Monolingual and delete out the unnecessary languages. OSX ships with these preinstalled and you can clear up quite a bit of space.

By: kimota

kimota — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:28:44 -0800

Don't run Monolingual if you're running Microsoft Office (at least with 2008; I don't know about prior versions). Their updater software isn't smart enough to handle the absence of the unused localization files and will keep you from being able to patch Office (unless you reinstall the application suite). If you don't have to deal with that boneheadedness, Monolingual can free up as much as 3-4 gigabytes of hard drive space.

By: carmen

carmen — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:30:38 -0800

And to add to the obvious, if you have file vault turned on, you have to empty the trash *and* log out to recover the space (I always forget this, and end up over-trashing my media files to make more room before I remember...)

By: tzikeh

tzikeh — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:13:58 -0800

Get Whatsize. It's free, it's tiny, and it lists every single thing on your computer, in order of filesize. If a folder is several gigs, you can click the folder and it will show you what's inside of it by size, etc. etc. My favorite program for keeping things fast and clean on my PowerBook.