App storage growing

[mfirst]

I got a new macbook pro from Christmas. My wife is an awesome lady!

I'm getting around pretty well. I understand most of the operation, getting used to the file structures and where things get put. I've added a few programs and pretty well have left things alone for the last few days or a week.

What I'm noticing is that my "Apps" category in my storage report is growing. It's grown a gig or so over the last week or two, but it seems to be creeping up. I'm not worried about my hard drive space yet, I have plenty, and I'm using some NAS storage at the house. I was thinking app caches will cause some growth in that area, but it seems high to me.

Like I say, i'm not concerned about space yet, but I don't want to see this stat steadily increase a little at a time without understanding where things are being added/stored, and how to clean it up. Any advice appreciated.

 

[Dysfunction]

Well, it depends on the apps really. An application isn't a single file, it's actually a directory structure. So, what programs, and how big are we talking about?

 

[MacInWin]

And, are you leaving the apps running or properly closing them when done? Pushing them out of view and not closing them may cause them to continue to grow cache.

 

[mfirst]

And, are you leaving the apps running or properly closing them when done? Pushing them out of view and not closing them may cause them to continue to grow cache.

I've been typically closing stuff when I'm done with it. Safari, messages and mail usually are left open.

I can't really say for sure which apps grow. I suppose I could use something like app cleaner that finds the directory structure for each app and start to look for cache files that are getting large. For now I'm going to continue to monitor it. Perhaps the volume of the "apps" stat varies with use.

 

[mfirst]

I think I see where my app storage is increasing. I'm talking about the number in the storage information under About this Mac. My Apps storage just increased a few gig after running pages and numbers. I was doing some updates to some documents. After quitting the apps and restarting the Apps data was still much higher than it was just an hour ago or so. Do those apps create a lot of cache?

 

[pigoo3]

I think I see where my app storage is increasing. I'm talking about the number in the storage information under About this Mac. My Apps storage just increased a few gig after running pages and numbers. I was doing some updates to some documents. After quitting the apps and restarting the Apps data was still much higher than it was just an hour ago or so. Do those apps create a lot of cache?

Make note of these numbers. Then restart the computer (don't open any apps)...and see what these values are after the restart/reboot.

- Nick

 

[vansmith]

Some applications store old versions around which grows the application bundles. For example, Chrome stores one old version in its app bundle which just about doubles its size (from approximately 170MB to 350MB). I don't know of many that do this but even just a few will grow that size.

 

[mfirst]

Make note of these numbers. Then restart the computer (don't open any apps)...and see what these values are after the restart/reboot.

- Nick

I see where you're going with that. Perhaps a temporary use. The numbers do not revert after a reboot. That was the first thing I checked. I tried that a couple of times.

 

[pigoo3]

I see where you're going with that. Perhaps a temporary use. The numbers do not revert after a reboot. That was the first thing I checked. I tried that a couple of times.

Ok. I didn't see it mentioned as something tried already...so just checking.

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

You might get Onyx from the developer site and run the cleaning routines (leave defaults). It will clean up caches and logs and other stuff that gathers.

 

[mfirst]

I ran Onyx. It cleaned up some stuff, but it did not touch the app data size in the storage data. It stayed the same as it was before. I'm sure that the iWork programs are not actually using that much space and I can understand the stats growing while they are open, but this seems strange to me. I've not changed anything, it's pretty much out of the box. I'm a little surprised that I haven't found anything on this topic. Any advice still appreciated. Thanks for the posts and suggestions so far.

 

[johnodd4]

This is what is going on..

Mac os x yosemite and maverick actually have applications that are a part of the operating system these additional apps do use hard drive space a lot of times.

And yes app sizes are increasing look at garageband for instant where garageband solo is only 2.86 gig's however once the app installs and you download all of the additional instruments your installation can grow to as much as 16 gig's it does honestly happen.

And if you think thats bad look at video game consoles that are basically x86 processors and are downloading games that are 53.6 gigs plus talk about a three day installation anyone.

App sizes are getting out of control.

Even with microsoft there apps are insane.

 

[Slydude]

I'm still a bit confused about exactly what you are seeing happen. Two questions occur to me:
1. How many applications have you added?
2. Have the a[[ storage space numbers changed since the last time you added a program?

 

[MacInWin]

And along with Sly, let me ask a really fundamental question: What "storage report" are you using? Activity Monitor doesn't have a storage section, About this Mac does report App storage on the display, but I find that total number differs from what I see in my own Application folder, because applications installed for all users go into a separate Applications folder at root on the drive. And what is on the About this Mac report seems to be a summation of the two.

 

[vansmith]

About this Mac does report App storage on the display, but I find that total number differs from what I see in my own Application folder

Not to mention, on top of this, that it represents apps as one monolithic whole which doesn't help in pinpointing out of control apps (it is great, though, for a quick overview if you need one).

mfirst, take a look at something like DaisyDisk which provides a nice granular overview of content on your HD.

 

[pigoo3]

Just a thought. If this "app storage growing" size doesn't continue to grow…maybe (as I think was mentioned earlier in the thread)…that it has something to do with initial setup of certain apps during the initial launching & use of the app. And once this happens…the "app storage size" would stabilize.

Of course this "size info" shouldn't be confused with the installation of new apps…or the generation of files from those apps. Since these activities would of course cause things to get larger (growing in size).

- Nick

 

[vansmith]

I did a little test a la MacInWin's post. About this Mac says 83.38 GB total while "du -hs" (Unix-speak for those who thought that I just strung some letters together ) gives me 10GB and Finder says 14.2GB for /Applications. I'm a little confused here as to what it's calculating as an "app."

 

[MacInWin]

Do you have applications in ~/Applications? Every user has an Applications folder for those apps installed only for them. The apps for everyone go in /Applications.

 

[pigoo3]

Do you have applications in ~/Applications? Every user has an Applications folder for those apps installed only for them. The apps for everyone go in /Applications.

WHAT THE HECK??? My head is spinning after I read that post!!!lol

Sounds like you said..."The thing...in the thing...in the thing!"

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

Note the difference between "~/Applications" and "/Applications". One is in the home directory of the user, the other is at the root of the drive.

That help?