Hard drive full, don’t know why?
Back when I used Windows I had this fantastic tool called WinDirStat that would let me visualize graphically my hard drive usage. It helped me find and delete huge video files I no longer needed and the like. When I switched to Mac, I found a port of it called Disk Inventory X , but it seemed to be really slow and hog resources. Then recently I heard about GrandPerspective . It’s native and really fast. It’s not as pretty as WinDirStat, but it’s got it where it counts.
March 10th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
I’ve always been a big fan of OmniDiskSweeper
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/
I like the way that it presents the results. I’ve never really understood the various graphical depictions as much as this.
March 11th, 2007 at 10:23 am
There is another tool called OmniDiskSweeper, from the fine people at OmniGroup. It is not free, but is a great tool.
March 11th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
OmniDiskSweeper is alright, and the rest of Omni’s stuff is amazing, but it doesn’t present the information relationally. When you present the information graphically and in comparison to the total size of the disk and other files, you can really get a sense for what is taking up space.
March 25th, 2007 at 3:07 am
In terminal window: du -hd 1
This will show directory sizes in human-readable format (Mbs etc) down one level. Level can be increased by changing the number.
Mac OS X is a Unix, therefore it has this tool
March 25th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Unix tools are great, and for quickly getting a directory size du is the way to go, but it does not do it visually, and it only does it for the current directory. In order to find problem files you would have to manually drill down and du every single directory. What could potentially take half an hour with du, takes 20 seconds with GrandPerspective.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:14 pm
These are great tips. I also have found that iTunes caches photos, assuming that you want to sync with an iPod - which essentially doubles the size of your iPhoto library. I recovered 6 GB instantly by deleting that folder.