macbook pro almost full

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My macbook pro is almost full. Where can I navigate to, to see where most of my storage is used. and, how best to store data and empty out my computer?
Thanks,

fenton
 

pigoo3

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...and, how best to store data and empty out my computer?

Get an external hard drive...and unload all the files, music, videos, photos you really don't need on a daily basis.

- Nick
 
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And keep a minimum of 15-20% hard drive space free for the drive to work anywhere near its peak performance. Otherwise hangups, beach balls etc.
 
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I recently had a 500 GB HDD in my MBP that was almost full. Don't have any music on it but a lot of video in iMovie. Moved all of that to an external HDD...but the internal was still full (doesn't help that in the About this Mac under Storage the color coding for Movies and Backups is nearly identical to my eyes).

Found out that Time Machine was taking hourly snapshots and it was eating up all my space. Here is the page from Apple about it: OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs

Found out how to delete that freed up enough space to put all the video back on the internal and still have more than the 20% free space.

If you are running Time Machine regularly then check that out maybe.
 

Slydude

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Time Machine will gradually remove those local snapshots when the computer gets reconnected to the external drive that was designated for Time Maine. If I recall correctly it we'll also "eat" those backups if more space is really needed.Not sure if it does that just to create the swap files though. I think it is just when space is ended to save files.
 

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If I recall correctly it we'll also "eat" those backups if more space is really needed.

Yummy! Put some wasabi on mine!;)

- Nick
 

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LMAO. I'll settle for a little Salsa.
 
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It may munch on the backups but those local snapshots were taking up about 80 GB and my machine was getting sluggish. I guess my Time Machine wasn't too hungry then.

I used to leave the external HDD plugged in and let TM do its thing, but now I plug it in, do a backup, and unplug the HDD. The snapshots are now only 20GB.
 

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