Mystery of full Mac HD

[rjmc]

Problem solved. I'll keep the post in case it may help others.

Perhaps someone can offer some insight on why a large mass of hidden files has occupied my hard drive. Keeping in mind that I'm far from being knowledgeable of Mac, here's the mystery.

Clicking on "finder" reveals groups of files and their sizes:
- Document 145 MB
- Desktop 200 MB
- Applications (doesn't give total size but adding the separate apps is an estimated 15 GB)
- Downloads 48.7 GB
- Music 4.63 GB
- Pictures 45.13 GB
- Movies 236.07 GB

Total is 375 GB. But clicking on the "get info" option on the Macintosh HD desktop icon shows that the 1 Terabyte drive is populated with 835.91 GB. That's a whopping 460 GB of hidden files.

As background, I recently updated the OS from El Capitan to Sierra and then installed the latest version of FCPX. Deciding that I needed some additional training before diving into the new version of Final Cut, I restored the entire hard drive using Time Machine. It's suspected that restoration is the reason why the hard drive contains more than twice as many files that were on the drive previously.

What steps should I take to further unravel the mystery and ultimately remove the unnecessary files on the hard drive? Any advice would be appreciated.

Bob

 

[pm-r]

Maybe try using GrandPerspective.app or one of the "Similar Software" equivalents and see what you really have via:

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/19515/grandperspective





- Patrick
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[rjmc]

Thank you, Patrick. I'll install and see what it reveals.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Perhaps someone can offer some insight on why a large mass of hidden files has occupied my hard drive.

There are a number of free utilities to help you see exactly what is on your hard drive. You may want to download them all, as they all are a bit different. You can decide which one(s) is/are most helpful:

DiskInventory X (free)
http://www.derlien.com/

GrandPerspective (free)
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

OmniDiskSweeper (free)
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/

jdiskreport (free)
http://www.jgoodies.com/downloads/jdiskreport/

Once you have done that, you can visit:
http://Pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html
for the mother of all suggestions on where your hard drive space may have gone.

 

[rjmc]

Randy, thank you for the suggestion and software links.

Using both DiskInventory X and Grand Perspecive, a massive folder was discovered on the hard drive, a copy of the drive from an earlier backup. A result of my ignorance. After deleting that folder, the files have been reconciled with the hard drive space.

Fortunately, it was an easy fix.

Your and Patrick's help are appreciated.

 

[pigoo3]

Congratulations on figuring it out!

- Nick

 

[pm-r]

…
Using both DiskInventory X and Grand Perspecive, a massive folder was discovered on the hard drive, a copy of the drive from an earlier backup. A result of my ignorance. After deleting that folder, the files have been reconciled with the hard drive space.
…. …

I'm not sure there was any actual ignorance on your part as I had come across the same problem on several client's Macs several years ago due to Time Machine creating its backup on their boot drive. But that was also many old OS X versions ago.




- Patrick
======

 

[pigoo3]

...I had come across the same problem on several client's Macs several years ago due to Time Machine creating its backup on their boot drive. But that was also many old OS X versions ago.

Was that before they discovered gold in the Yukon??

- Nick

 

[pm-r]

Was that before they discovered gold in the Yukon??

- Nick

No actually, it was quite a bit later Nick. ;D

Speaking of which I agree with many writers and would suggest that Time Machine, even in its latest version should not be relied upon as the only backup, especially if one's data is critical or important.

And God knows how many posts there have been posted here with problems all dealing with TM.

This is a typical article I'd agree with and some users may want to read and digest and maybe change their backup straggly and TM is still not updated and always working for all users.

Have a read:
https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/why-apples-time-machine-utterly-fails-user-needs





- Patrick
======

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Using both DiskInventory X and Grand Perspecive, a massive folder was discovered on the hard drive, a copy of the drive from an earlier backup. A result of my ignorance. After deleting that folder, the files have been reconciled with the hard drive space.

Yep, I'd say that a false clone is the number two most common reason that I've seen for someone's drive filling up quickly and unexpectedly.
http://osxdaily.com/2011/09/28/disable-time-machine-local-backups-in-mac-os-x-lion/
http://www.pondini.org/TM/30.html

The number one reason tends to be a (usually minor) system or application error that the user doesn't know about, so the error message gets written to a log file over and over endlessly until the log file becomes huge.

I'm glad that you were able to get it figured out so quickly. Sometimes tracking down this sort of problem can be a real pain.

 

[pm-r]

Yep, I'd say that a false clone is the number two most common reason that I've seen for someone's drive filling up quickly and unexpectedly.

Thanks Randy, and regardless of some questioning my comments, in all the cases I came across (about three, maybe four,) I think, all were fairly new iMacs to the users, not Mac portables.

I would not have discovered the problem I don't think without the use of GrandPerspective.app or whatever app I used that had just been recently released at the time or at least when I finally discovered it. And yes, all done well after the Yukon gold rush, but hey, it's still on, and my eldest son is enjoying it in Whitehorse and as the Apple authorized dealer/service for there and the whole Yukon area.

The New Gold Rush: How the Yukon became Canada’s most reality-TVed jurisdiction
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...became-canadas-most-reality-tved-jurisdiction

PS: By comparison, how many down south techs travel 500 miles or more to do a Mac service call???




- Patrick
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