IMac has almost ground to a halt! HDD 95% full (2014 running macOS 10.15)

[mickyvolt]

No idea why disk space has been eaten up.
Cannot find any big files.
Used space was about 10-20 % full 6 months ago.
I suspect *something* has eaten up my HDD space.....?
SEE SCREENSHOT BELOW FROM ONYX - USER-data volume is 94% full

 

[TonyAguila]

No idea why disk space has been eaten up.
Cannot find any big files.
Used space was about 10-20 % full 6 months ago.
I suspect *something* has eaten up my HDD space.....?
SEE SCREENSHOT BELOW FROM ONYX - USER-data volume is 94% fullDo D

Do you have a Time Machine backup? Have you emptied trash? The first thing you can do is go through your data and start deleting files that you are sure you can afford to lose. But I suggest not getting rid of apps since they have a lot of other files connected to them and it can be problematic removing those after you have deleted the app.

Also, in case some, if not much, of the space on the drive is being used by snapshots or cache files, try rebooting into Safe Mode. (Reboot and immediately hold down the Shift key.) Even if the Mac might feel sluggish in Safe Mode, this would be a good time to trash even more files. After emptying the trash, run Disk Utility again to see what effect was done to your available space.

If you gained space, hopefully a lot, reboot again and see if the Mac is running better.

 

[mickyvolt]

Do you have a Time Machine backup? Have you emptied trash? The first thing you can do is go through your data and start deleting files that you are sure you can afford to lose. But I suggest not getting rid of apps since they have a lot of other files connected to them and it can be problematic removing those after you have deleted the app.

Also, in case some, if not much, of the space on the drive is being used by snapshots or cache files, try rebooting into Safe Mode. (Reboot and immediately hold down the Shift key.) Even if the Mac might feel sluggish in Safe Mode, this would be a good time to trash even more files. After emptying the trash, run Disk Utility again to see what effect was done to your available space.

If you gained space, hopefully a lot, reboot again and see if the Mac is running better.

Yes have emptied trash, caches, downloads.
When I list my files sorted by size, there are none larger than 10 Gb.
My biggest folder is my photos about 50Gb.
How would I look for big files?
Totally at a loss here..

 

[TonyAguila]

Yes have emptied trash, caches, downloads.
When I list my files sorted by size, there are none larger than 10 Gb.
My biggest folder is my photos about 50Gb.
How would I look for big files?
Totally at a loss here..

You may want to try DaisyDisk.app to analyze all the files on your disk. It costs about $10, but they have a trial version available.

DaisyDisk, the most popular disk space analyzer

Get a visual breakdown of your disk space in form of an interactive map, reveal the biggest space wasters, and remove them with a simple drag and drop.

daisydiskapp.com