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mollywood · Jun 2, 2007, 08:04 PM

my computers being really slow lately, and i need to know how to free up some space! I do have alot of pictures and stuff, should i burn these on discs and delete them off my computer? Anyway to run a program to clear up space i dont know about?
help!

Andhee · Jun 3, 2007, 04:05 PM

A system defragment might help - works best when you use it frequently (monthly?).

variozin · Jun 4, 2007, 04:14 AM

I never knew that OSX ever need defragmentation......!!!!!

tomrock · Jun 4, 2007, 08:43 AM

This may help you see what is taking up the space on your disk -- The Omni Group - Applications - OmniDiskSweeper

peeb · Jun 4, 2007, 11:11 AM

How big is you disc?
How much free space do you have?
Another drive (external or internal, depending on what machine you have) might help.

StickClicks · Jun 4, 2007, 08:19 PM

You could turn off Safe Sleep (The Mac equivilant to Hybernate on the PC)

This is that pause between when you close the lid when that light stays on until when it pulses.OS X is writting all the RAM data to the hard drive incase power to the computer is cut off. I personaly never use this feature as I prefer to shut down my machine if I will not be using it for more than a few hours. This means (Depending on the amount of memory you have..most likley 1GB-2GB in the Macbook/Pro's) you have a file holding up that amount of space on the hard disk space. Every gigabyte helps <.< Especialy in my 80GB Macbook. If you want to disable this feature and delete the large, hard drive bloating file. . . .

To do this...
1. Read this and fallow the directions.
2. You then need to delete the /private/var/vm/sleepimage file.
*I had trouble locating this file in spotlight or the finder so I used an app called GrandPersctive. Scan your boot disk and look at the larger blocks until you find the sleepimage file, then click reveal and delet it.

Yup, all that for 1-2 measily gigabytes (it was worth it for me). It will also speed up you sleep/wake times.

Also what peeb was getting at I think was you should have at least 5GB if not more (10%-15% of the boot disk) free for Paging in and out. Im sure you knew that. Also a reboot every week or so might help. Slow downs due to lack of disk space happen when your down to the last few gigabytes. If this isn't the case with yours, maybe a RAM upgrade??

Hope this helps!

One last thing.. is this THE Molly Wood, proud mother of geek baby

???
Either way BOL ROOLZ!

ghporter · Jun 4, 2007, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by variozin

I never knew that OSX ever need defragmentation......!!!!!

OS X will handle fragmentation of smallish files. However, fragmentation still occurs and can eventually impact performance, especially if the drive is nearly full. Big files and heavy fragmentation require a third party defragmenter like iDefrag.

frankthetank966 · Jun 5, 2007, 10:44 PM

have you tried using Onyx? It could free up some files that are hard to find.

peeb · Jun 6, 2007, 04:41 AM

hpw much free space do you have?

mollywood · Jun 7, 2007, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by StickClicks

One last thing.. is this THE Molly Wood, proud mother of geek baby

???
Either way BOL ROOLZ!

ahah! nope! Im definitely not anyones mother, as I am only 16! My last name isn't wood, I just have "mollywood" because of "hollywood"

amazing · Jun 7, 2007, 01:40 PM

You should definitely backup your photos and tunes by burning them to DVD-R. Whether or not to delete some of them is up to you--but at least you'll have them backed up.

Some ways to save space:
-You can delete the extra language resources by running DeLocalizer or Monolingual (search on versiontracker.com)
-delete printer drivers you don't use
-if you don't use Garageband, or iMovie or iDVD, these have humongous support files that you can delete. you can always reinstall from the iLife install disc. Or you can burn the support files to DVD, and just move them back when needed.

peeb · Jun 7, 2007, 02:03 PM

How much free space do you have?

Trin · Jun 8, 2007, 03:51 PM

If somebody could help me out and remind me where on the finder these files are... there's a bunch of .temp files that can be deleted but I can't remember where. I'm on a PC right now but when I get home I'll look more... anybody else know what I'm talking about? I think it's in prefrences or something...

ixus_123 · Jun 9, 2007, 09:44 AM

Since the OP wont answer how much free space he has, it should be noted that you should have at east 2gb free for the os to 'breath' (swap, store temp files etc).

To speed things up you might want to look into disabling spotlight as it constantly indexes

littlevish · Jun 9, 2007, 02:01 PM

I used Delocalizer (Bombich Software: DeLocalizer) the other day, and it took off about 7 GB from my HD. It says it's only tested with 10.2, but it worked perfectly on my 10.4 Intel Mac.