OSX HDD is full

**josh.p.** · 28-03-2013, 11:55 PM

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone could shed some light on this. I have an Apple Macbook Air. I use it for web browsing and I have 5gb of music on it.

Other than my music I have maybe 3/4 PDFs. On top of this I have firefox, adobe reader and open office installed.

Everything else is stored 'in the cloud' on Dropbox. Now, my question is.. why do I keep getting this 'HDD is full' message when I hardly have anything stored on it? I know it's not meant to be used as a heavy-use laptop and is just for web surfing and odd bit of word processing. But is there some application that I should know about storing things in a system folder somewhere?

According to 'About this mac' I have 5.4gb of music (which I can account for given that my iTunes library is about that size), but 8.29gb of pictures?!?!

I don't have any photos stored on it, not even a desktop background. What is going on?

Josh

**Keith** · 29-03-2013, 12:01 AM

have a look here Josh
http://www.chriswrites.com/2012/02/1...e-in-mac-os-x/

Apps CAN store a load of temp files. Photoshop is a bad one for saving huge files for example. If you ever plug in camera cards, they can be autouploaded..

dont forget stuff like dropbox syncs to your desktop/laptop so its not JUST stored in the cloud, its on your device as well taking space

**josh.p.** · 29-03-2013, 12:05 AM

Originally Posted by Keith

have a look here Josh
http://www.chriswrites.com/2012/02/1...e-in-mac-os-x/

Apps CAN store a load of temp files. Photoshop is a bad one for saving huge files for example. If you ever plug in camera cards, they can be autouploaded..

dont forget stuff like dropbox syncs to your desktop/laptop so its not JUST stored in the cloud, its on your device as well taking space

DOH!!!! I didn't realise DropBox did that!! There's hundreds of photos in my drop box. Is there any way you can make it just cloud-based and not syncing?

**josh.p.** · 29-03-2013, 12:07 AM

Now I have actually just checked and I have 1.5gb of photos in there, so it's still only really a maximum of 15gb that I have in stuff actually stored on the HDD.. do you know if Apple Mail stores all the attachments somewhere random, too?

Josh

**Keith** · 29-03-2013, 12:08 AM

Originally Posted by josh.p.

DOH!!!! I didn't realise DropBox did that!! There's hundreds of photos in my drop box. Is there any way you can make it just cloud-based and not syncing?

yeah you can, kinda, use selective sync

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/05/2...elective-sync/

**josh.p.** · 29-03-2013, 12:23 AM

Originally Posted by Keith

yeah you can, kinda, use selective sync

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/05/2...elective-sync/

That's slightly better. I think what I am going to have to do is invest in a NAS drive, or a wireless hard drive any recommendations? I'd quite like one of the new 'cloud' integrated ones that allow you to access it away from home, too.