Freeing up memory

[John Fitzgerald]

Hi
I have a rMBP with 128ssd and I want to free up some memory.
In my HD folder under Admin I have a User folder which contains 18Gb, but when I look at each folder therein there only appears to be 3Gb.
Where and what is the missing 15Gb, please?
Many thanks, and aplogies if, after 10 years of Macs, I should know this!!
John

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

There remaining GBs are probably in the hidden Library folder in your user folder.

-How much free space does the SSD report?
-Are you having slowness issues?
-Do you have a lot of email saved?
-Do you have additional GarageBand content installed?
-Do you backup multiple iOS devices to your Mac via iTunes?

Those can all take quite a bit of space in the Library folder.

C

 

[John Fitzgerald]

Thanks for the reply, Gary.
Answers:
How much free space does the SSD report? - Just under 30Gb
-Are you having slowness issues? - No
-Do you have a lot of email saved? - No
-Do you have additional GarageBand content installed? - No, don't use Garage band and have less than 1 Gb of music
-Do you backup multiple iOS devices to your Mac via iTunes? Nothing backed up other than Samsung Galaxy S5 sync'ed via Syncmate.

Lastly, there is no library folder under Admin, it is in a folder under the HD folder. It has 9Gb of memory used.

John

 

[Cory Cooper]

Thanks for the additional info.

There are actually at least three Library folders on your Mac:

Macintosh HD > Library
Macintosh HD > System > Library
Macintosh HD > Users > your Home folder > Library (actually one in each user's home folder)

The last one is the hidden one that I mentioned earlier. You can only see it by holding down the Option key, clicking on the Go menu in the menu bar in Finder, then clicking Library halfway down the list, just under Home. That is your user Library, where preferences, temporary files, Mail, and other files are stored.

That is probably where the "missing" GBs are, unless you have a runaway log file in one of the hidden System folders.

C