Disk Usage

[bg]

hi, i have a macbook pro but am new to macs.

Of my 80gigs of memory I am apparently using all but 6 but can't find out where exactly, in order to deleat duplicated or unwanted files. In the activity monitor it tells me how much space is used but i cant find a breakdown.

[hayne]

The 3rd-party utilities "OmniDiskSweeper" or "Disk Inventory X" or "GrandPerspective" or "JDiskReport" will help show you where the disk space is going.

Alternatively, open a Terminal window (Terminal is under /Applications/Utilities) and enter the following command:
sudo du -x -h -d 1 /
Look to see which sub-folder is taking up the most space and repeat with that folder. If you have trouble interpreting the results, just copy & paste them back here and we can help.
(This method will work in cases where the above 3rd-party utilities fail to show where the disk space is going - i.e. the case where the files are in folders that you don't have permission to read. Note that the 'du' command may take several minutes to finish, so be sure to wait until you get the prompt back.)

[trevor]

Note that memory is where applications are temporarily loaded while you are running them.

Hard drive space is where applications are stored semi-permanently, including when the computer is switched off.

You have 80 GB of hard drive space.

You can find out how much memory you have in the Apple Menu > About this Mac > Memory. This is a completely different item than hard drive space.

Activity Monitor shows memory usage, not hard drive space usage.

There is something called virtual memory, which blurs the lines between memory and hard drive space, but to keep this explanation simple, I'll leave research on that up to you.

Trevor