Calling all Apple Experts!

[Claire]

Time Capsules. Do you have one? More importantly, Do I need one?

I'm routinely getting the message "you're start up disk is nearly full yada yada yada".

[Keith]

Time Capsules. Do you have one? More importantly, Do I need one?

I'm routinely getting the message "you're start up disk is nearly full yada yada yada".

WELLLLLLLLLLLLLL They provide an easy way to back files up that's true which may help with your housekeeping but it sounds like you've got a lot of files on your machine and there's going to be no way round really deleting some old data (or backing it up then deleting)

Time capsule will give you somewhere to backup but it wont do the deleting and freeing of space for you

[Claire]

I seriously don't know why it's so full Keith. Could I back up all my music to it, delete it and still play it on my Mac?

[catrancher]

Could I back up all my music to it, delete it and still play it on my Mac?

Sorry! That won't work. Time Capsule only is a backup mechanism. It's not like extra storage. The only way you can play your music is if iTunes can find it on your disk.

Just out of idle curiosity, tell us how much space you're actually using. In any Finder window, on the left hand side at the top should be your devices. Your startup disk should be in that list. Right click on your startup disk, choose "Get Info" and in the window that pops open look for the "Capacity", "Available" and "Used" numbers. What are they? That will tell us how short of space you really are.

Tom (... empty the trash too!)

[Claire]

Hi Tom

Is start up disk the same as Macintosh HD as I don't have start up disk on the list?

[catrancher]

Hi Tom

Is start up disk the same as Macintosh HD as I don't have start up disk on the list?

Yep, that'd be the one.

Tom (... we'll get there!)

[Claire]

Ok, here are the figures -

Capacity 111.47 GB
Available 866.6 MB
Used 110.62 GB (118,489,152 Bytes)

Just as an aside, my itunes shows as being 24.26 GB but when I open the itunes folder in finder it shows as being twice the size.

[catrancher]

Ok, here are the figures -

Capacity 111.47 GB
Available 866.6 MB
Used 110.62 GB (118,489,152 Bytes)

Just as an aside, my itunes shows as being 24.26 GB but when I open the itunes folder in finder it shows as being twice the size.

Oh my! You certainly are running out of space. So.... we know your iTunes library is taking about 1/4 of the space (roughly). Where are you getting the 24.26 GB size from. Is this from the bottom of the iTunes window? If it is, you're probably only seeing the size of your "library" or whatever you've got highlighted on the left hand side of the iTunes window. It's not cumulative. Each of those things; Library, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, etc. show their individual sizes when you highlight them. So, what you're seeing in the finder could be accurate if you've got a lot of stuff other than music.

Other than that, do you empty the trash? If you delete files and never actually empty the trash, that could use a lot of space.

Finally, you may want to try something like Grand Perspective. This little utility will give you a graphic overview of your disk and show you graphically what's taking up the most space.

Or... you may need to consider a bigger disk drive.

Hope this helps!

Tom (.... space... the final frontier! Oh... not that space!)

[Claire]

Thanks Tom. I've installed Grand Perspective and it's fascinating. It seems the biggest culprit is my iTunes. It looks as though it's taking up about a ¼ of my disk. I'm going to take it into my nearest Apple Store and see if I can book an appointment with one of their experts to see if he can advise me on what can be deleted and what can't. One thing that has helped is I've uninstalled The Sims and freed up about 2GB!

Forgot to say I empty the trash every day.

[catrancher]

Something else you may want to consider. You could get an external hard drive and move your main iTunes library off to it. Then create a new iTunes library on your main drive and just keep the music you use regularly there. Just a thought. If you don't know how to setup and use multiple iTunes libraries, just go to the iTunes help menu and search on "multiple libraries".

Tom (... now where did I put that song?)