I have about 14 GB available and used 304 GB. I decided to get WhatSize after playing with the trial version a bit. Now how do I tell what files are needed and what aren't. For example, do I need previous systems.localized? There are at least 4 Libraries in different places. Are they all needed? Any advice on how to sift through all this info?
Thanks!!
Read this whole thing - twice - before you do anything below.
I would strongly encourage you to backup your hard drive prior to doing anything.
After you empty the trash, downloads folder... and are using WhatSize or one of the other similar apps.
When you are running out of space on a drive, removing stuff that takes up MB of data does not help you - removing localization files that take up 1 GB of space does not help you. You need to get rid of 50-80 GB of stuff.
Quit looking at system data - if you don't know what it is - you are
not going to touch it
And besides that, by the time you have a full drive, none of it takes up the amount of space you need to free up.
You are going to have to delete personal data that "you" installed and know what it is...
e.g. unused applications, games, movies, music, documents, etc.
If you bought the newest version (6) of WhatSize, use the "Browser" view and head for the folders with the most space being used. In mine I can find WoW taking 30 GB, a couple of Steam games taking over 50 GB, a guitar lesson app taking 10 GB, GarageBand taking up 17 GB... Because I have well over 120 apps installed, I could probably find at least 10 apps taking 1 GB each that I haven't used in the past year.
Also head for the lock at the top right of the Window and click on that, put in your password and have it run as administrator instead of user - you may need to click on the 'remeasure' button after doing so.
Need to look in the root "Applications" folder and in your home folder...
Applications
Movies
Music
iTunes library
Documents
There are a few applications that install their data into the home folder/Library/Application Support
Steam is the biggest culprit I've found of doing this, but, there are others.
I will occasionally look at, but I do not use the cleaner, delocalizer nor the duplicates finder in WhatSize nor in any other app (except OnyX) that does those things - you are only asking for problems with your system at some point in time by using them.
If you have no personal data you want to get rid of - then it is time for you to purchase a new larger drive to install in your computer.