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Question Profile
| DATE | Apr 22, 2007 |
| TICKET | #334051 |
| STATUS | Closed |
| SUBJECT | Cleaning up the hard drive |
| CAT | Computers, Operating Systems, Applications or Connected Devices |
| TYPE | Computer Hardware (RAM, Drives, Video Cards, Motherbaord, CPU, etc) |
| DESC | Memory |
| DESC | |
| PLATFORM | Apple Macintosh (PowerPC G3,G4,G5) |
| MODEL | PowerBook6,3 |
| PROC | 800 MHX PowerPC G4 |
| RAM | 640 MB DDR SDRAM |
| DRIVE | 133MHZ |
| NAME | Tom |
| USERNAME | tjaf64 |
| TECHNICAL | Beginner |
| ISSUE | Stumped |
Question Details
TICKET ARCHIVE -> Cleaning up the hard drive
tjaf64 - Apr 22, 2007 - 9:38 pm
I have over 40 GB on my hard drive with 5.49 GB free. How do I clean up to get more space? I am familiar with Microsoft, but not Apple.
vinko - Apr 23, 2007 - 12:41 am
Dear Tom,
My name is Vinko and I will attempt to assist you.
The answer to your question depends on whether you have organized your content by utilizing the applications within your Mac. Also are you using Mac OS X on your PowerBook?
I will assume that you are using Mac OS X.
Please note that unlike Windows OS, Mac OS X is based on an Unix operating system and it does its own clean up periodically on its own. When it does so depending on which Mac OS X you are using.
There are a few settings I always recommend people to use on their Macs.
Allow iPhoto to manage all your photos on your hard drive. To do so, you have to ensure that the "Copy files to iPhoto Library folder when adding to library" checkbox is checked in the Importing section within the "Advanced" pane of the iPhoto Preferences.
That option within iPhoto will allow iPhoto to manage the location of all photos. So when you import or drag a photo into your iPhoto library you can then delete the source of the photo.
This will make backing up your iPhoto library much easier also. The default iPhoto Library is store within your "Pictures" folder within your Home directory. So, to back it up all you have to do is just to backup the "iPhoto Library" folder.
So if you did not do the above, you may have photos referenced by iPhoto through out your hard drive. My suggestion is to reimport these photos into iPhoto, but that will depend on how much you have utilize iPhoto to associate descriptive information (Meta data) to each photo. As reimporting will delete all these information you had entered.
The next thing is to allow iTunes to manage all your audio files in your hard drive. To do so, you should ensure that the "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" checkboxes are checked. You can find these checkboxes in the "General" tab of the "Advanced" pane of the iTunes Preferences.
If you had not previously had the above setting chosen, you can enable one of them; "Keep iTunes Music folder organized", by using the "Consolidate Library" menu item within the "Advanced" menu.
Unfortunately, like in iPhoto, if you did not have the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option set prior to importing your audio files you will have to reimport them and doing so will also delete the Meta Data that you had associated with each respective audio file.
If you had done all of the above, you can manually clear the caches for your browsers. But to accomplish that will depend on the brand of browser you are using. So I will wait for you to reply before I describe how to accomplish that.
The last thing you can do to have a better picture of what are stored on your hard drive is to use a 3rd party utility like, "Disk Inventory X". It gives you a visual representation of what is on your hard drive. You can then identify the large files on your hard drive and archive these files or delete them.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
-- Vinko
Thank you for using MacOSX.Com's free Mac support.
My name is Vinko and I will attempt to assist you.
The answer to your question depends on whether you have organized your content by utilizing the applications within your Mac. Also are you using Mac OS X on your PowerBook?
I will assume that you are using Mac OS X.
Please note that unlike Windows OS, Mac OS X is based on an Unix operating system and it does its own clean up periodically on its own. When it does so depending on which Mac OS X you are using.
There are a few settings I always recommend people to use on their Macs.
Allow iPhoto to manage all your photos on your hard drive. To do so, you have to ensure that the "Copy files to iPhoto Library folder when adding to library" checkbox is checked in the Importing section within the "Advanced" pane of the iPhoto Preferences.
That option within iPhoto will allow iPhoto to manage the location of all photos. So when you import or drag a photo into your iPhoto library you can then delete the source of the photo.
This will make backing up your iPhoto library much easier also. The default iPhoto Library is store within your "Pictures" folder within your Home directory. So, to back it up all you have to do is just to backup the "iPhoto Library" folder.
So if you did not do the above, you may have photos referenced by iPhoto through out your hard drive. My suggestion is to reimport these photos into iPhoto, but that will depend on how much you have utilize iPhoto to associate descriptive information (Meta data) to each photo. As reimporting will delete all these information you had entered.
The next thing is to allow iTunes to manage all your audio files in your hard drive. To do so, you should ensure that the "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" checkboxes are checked. You can find these checkboxes in the "General" tab of the "Advanced" pane of the iTunes Preferences.
If you had not previously had the above setting chosen, you can enable one of them; "Keep iTunes Music folder organized", by using the "Consolidate Library" menu item within the "Advanced" menu.
Unfortunately, like in iPhoto, if you did not have the "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" option set prior to importing your audio files you will have to reimport them and doing so will also delete the Meta Data that you had associated with each respective audio file.
If you had done all of the above, you can manually clear the caches for your browsers. But to accomplish that will depend on the brand of browser you are using. So I will wait for you to reply before I describe how to accomplish that.
The last thing you can do to have a better picture of what are stored on your hard drive is to use a 3rd party utility like, "Disk Inventory X". It gives you a visual representation of what is on your hard drive. You can then identify the large files on your hard drive and archive these files or delete them.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
-- Vinko
Thank you for using MacOSX.Com's free Mac support.
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