# Mac -- missing drive space?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2014, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-missing-drive-space/694433 "2014-07-30T18:27:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![filmyak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@filmyak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmyak)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-missing-drive-space/694433/1 "2014-07-30T18:27:30Z")
Mac tech question. Wife has a Mac book pro. Maybe 4 years old. Internal had is just over 300 gb. She has about 2 gb of free space on the drive. Not good. I ask her to bring it home from work so I can clear it out a bit, but I can’t figure out where the massive files are! She’s got a solid 30gb in photos folder. But everything else I checked comes to maybe 100 gigs total. I checked downloads, documents, movies… Tbere are apparently some giant files I just can’t find. Any suggestions? ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-missing-drive-space/694433/2 "2014-07-30T19:00:43Z")
I’m going to assume you aren’t familiar with OS X. Apologies for the “no duh” directions if you are. 1. Open a Finder window (click on Desktop anywhere and command-N). Put it in list view (command-2). 2. Click on “Macintosh HD” or whatever the computer icon at the top of the sidebar is called on her computer. 3. Open View Options (command-J). Check the “Size” and “Calculate all sizes” boxes. Just keep going from there. ---
**Author:** ![filmyak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@filmyak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmyak)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-missing-drive-space/694433/3 "2014-07-30T19:03:47Z")
I did that manually, folder by folder. But let me try that approach, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-missing-drive-space/694433/4 "2014-07-30T19:26:39Z")
Download [Grand Perspective](http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/) and have it do a scan of the drive. It will show you visually where the large files are hiding. ---
**Author:** ![filmyak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@filmyak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmyak)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-missing-drive-space/694433/5 "2014-07-30T19:47:36Z")
Ah! Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![filmyak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@filmyak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmyak)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-missing-drive-space/694433/6 "2014-07-30T23:10:32Z")
Ha! Mystery solved! 200 gigs of “recovered mail” from aol. I did mention it’s my wife’s machine, right? Yeah. She’s still using aol mail. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-missing-drive-space/694433/7 "2014-07-30T23:38:13Z")
Holy shit, how the hell can you have 200 gigs of email?! ---
**Author:** ![filmyak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@filmyak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmyak)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mac-missing-drive-space/694433/8 "2014-07-30T23:42:28Z")
Fixed at her work. They used a program called disc inventory x. And there were 1 million copies of 1 email from 2011. How? No clue. How she didn’t notice it? Again, no clue. Pure luck I used her laptop yesterday and noticed the hard drive had 2 gigs of free space. Now it has 208 gigs of free space. Go figure.