Finding Video Files (to free memory)

[Rupert]

Hi, This might sound stupid, but I'm struggling to locate around 100gb of unwanted movie files on my Macbook Pro. I have deleted all the movie files from iTunes (they are still on iCloud), and I have searched everywhere else I can think of but found nothing.

There are possibly about 60gb of movies in iPhoto, as my system profiler shows that my picture volume is 220gb, but my iPhoto library is 280gb. The profiler shows 160gb of movie files, and so I figure that leaves about 100gb unaccounted for.

I want to free-up space, so wonder if this is possibly an issue that has already been solved.

I look forward to any help that is available!

Thank you.

 

[honestone]

Do you happen to know the names of any of the unwanted files? Also, for the "wanted" movie files, is it possible all of your movie files are in the same folder?

 

[Rupert]

Hi, no I don't unfortunately. As far as I can see, I have deleted all of my unwanted movie files (from iTunes), and I've manually looked through all of my main folders in an attempt to determine where all these files might be located, but to no avail.

It's extremely frustrating, and the system profiler doesn't seem to be able to identify where these files are, just that the storage breakdown shows 160gb of 'movies'.

 

[honestone]

That is a perplexing issue. Movie files have various "endings" to their names: .mpeg, .avi, etc. So, trying to search by any of those "strings" might not be successful. This link explains that in more detail:

http://www.macxdvd.com/mac-dvd-video-converter-how-to/best-video-format-for-mac.htm

I wonder if any of those files are hidden from your view. You could try and follow the information in this link for revealing hidden files:

http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-revealing-hidden-files-in-os-x--mac-48663

 

[Cory Cooper]

The directions in that link will allow all the invisible files to show, but be VERY careful. If you move or delete the wrong file(s) you could render your Mac unbootable. I don't recommend doing anything in Terminal unless you have experience. Make sure you have a current Time Machine or other backup before proceeding.

-When you deleted the video files from iTunes, how did you do it?
-Do you have an iPhone or iPad? If so, do you back it/them up to the Mac?

C

 

[Rupert]

Hi, thank you for the input. I don't think I will do the whole 'finding hidden files' thing, as I will inevitably render my Mac useless if I do that.

In order to delete the movies from iTunes I selected them and chose 'Delete', so they now show up in iTunes as files that are downloadable from iCloud, but not actually currently 'in' the iTunes application.

I have an iPad and iPhone, both of which are backed-up to the Mac.

 

[Cory Cooper]

OK.

-When you deleted from iTunes, did you also choose to move the files to the Trash? If not, they are still in the iTunes Library, but don't show in iTunes movies list.
-The iPhone and iPad backups can take a lot of disk space, and there may be movies in the backup that were taken with those devices.

C