[wludavid]

I was just exploring my hard drive to find out where all my disk space had gone, and tracked it to my home directory. When I do "get info" on my home directory, it shows up as 5.6 GB large. But then when I go into the home directory and highlight all the folders inside and do "get info", it returns, 8 folders, 3.6 GB. What happened to the other 2 GB?
I'd appreciate any light that can be shone on this mystery.

David

[NSUser]

Can't help you with what the exact cause might be, but you may want to give Omni DiskSweeper a try. It's a bit easier than traversing your directory structure using just the Finder and "Get Info" window, and will show the amount of space consumed by each file and folder (including hidden ones).

If you're comfortable with the command line, you can also fire up Terminal.app, and do an "ls -lR | less" in your home directory. This will list all the files in, and below, your home folder. Look for files and directories with names starting with a period ("."). This is a special naming convention used by Unix systems - these files won't show up in the Finder.

[CharlesS]

.

[boma]

Or download Cocktail (download link) or an equivalent application.

In cocktail click the "Extras" tab. Show Finder & Dock customization. Click Show invisible files on.

Log out and in. Go to Home directory. Show as list. Sort by size. See what you find.

[wludavid]

Thanks! I didn't know osx put my user's trash files in my home directory. I haven't emptied my trash (ever) so it was quite a large file. Mystery solved.

[macmike42]

Originally posted by wludavid:
...I haven't emptied my trash (ever)...

ROFLMFAO! (There is no emoticon for how funny that is.)