Lost 16+GB

Realised my MBP was running out of room - well it has a 160GB hard drive and I have only 34GB available. Yes it is running a bit slow at times.

Now I use Aperture - BUT have a dedicated 500GB external Drive for its library - so it's not the piccies on there that are using up all my internal HD.

I have , but don't actually use, iPhoto - and it had 5000+ pics on it [ I believe about 16GB worth.]

I've exported all of them to the new 1TB external Drive BUT I have not reclaimed that 16GB onto the internal HD .I deleted all the Photos and also the several folders of projects from iPhoto. I've also put a number of Documents and stuff I still need, and actually access regularly , onto the 1TB drive.

How do I find where all these things have left bits behind on the MBP ? it now says I have 38.7GB available and I've used 120.49GB.

I need to reclaim some empty room on the internal HD.

Any ideas for this techno-idiot ? Please - pretty please

Couple of obvious questions- is the Trash empty? Have you run Repair Disk?

Assuming "Yes" to both, maybe some hidden files somewhere... from terminal, the command:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true

then re-starting Finder will allow you to see hidden files (replace "true" with "false" to hide them again).

Otherwise... can't think of anything

Install Grand Perspective, that will show you exactly where your space has gone

Ah - repair disk - now there's a thought

ETA - says disk is fine - and I now have 39GB available

I do not feel capable of messing about in the depths of terminal etc

Edited by goldenoldie (Tue 05-Mar-13 10:41:20)

Neat little app that, thanks for the link

In reply to a post by goldenoldie:

I do not feel capable of messing about in the depths of terminal etc

Fair enough- I'm usually the same, but to avoid disaster I copy/paste that instruction rather than typing it, and it's never caused me a problem (yet ).

Edited by billford (Tue 05-Mar-13 11:25:30)

You can download an automated version of that, just double click the script to toggle between on and off - can't remember where I got it from though...

How much memory in the machine and are all the ram components visible in About This Mac.

Also do you know if you can increase the memory of the machine to that supplied by Apple

MacTracker application will tell you.

RAM is maxed out to 8GB and has been for over a year

When you were copying things over to the HDD did you create a back up or anything (using CC or similar)? Could there be a redundant archive/ dmg somewhere?