Mac HDD (Macintosh HD) Filling for no reason

[kieferrodriguez]

Hey guys, pretty urgent matter, as we speak my HDD is filling up, I cannot figure out why, I went from 100gb space, to 0kb space today, without a single download, I upgraded to Yosemite from Mavericks yesterday and only noticed today - I am rather freaking out now, as Im new to Mac.

 

[kieferrodriguez]

Model Name:MacBook Pro

Model Identifier:MacBookPro11,2

Processor Name:Intel Core i7

Processor Speed:2.2 GHz

Number of Processors:1

Total Number of Cores:4

L2 Cache (per Core):256 KB

L3 Cache:6 MB

Memory:16 GB

Boot ROM Version:MBP112.0138.B14

SMC Version (system):2.18f15

 

[kieferrodriguez]

http://postimg.org/image/kg2wsdl63/ --- My current activity monitor. kernel_task is using much more than any other process. leak?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Several things can cause the disappearing disk space issue - a runaway log file, Gmail - notorious for downloading all mail multiple times, Time Machine local backups to your internal HD, Spotlight indexing going crazy, etc.

Since you are only running Notes, Google Chrome, Steam, and Activity Monitor (in the Dock) in your screenshot, I would lean towards a log file. I also see that you have updates available for Adobe Creative Cloud in the menu bar.

The multiple instances of Google Chrome Helper are normal. Chrome launches an instance each time a new tab/window is opened so that if one window crashes, it doesn't take down Chrome as a whole. So, you can ignore that, and/or use Safari instead.

I suggest downloading, installing, and running an app called GrandPerspective. It will analyze your HD and show you a visual representation of all of the files on your HD by file size. We can then identify which file(s) are eating up your free space and go from there.

C

 

[kieferrodriguez]

Thank you Cory for your response, I shall try GrandPerspective now and report back, Im still struggling for space, Ive kept myself afloat by deleting much-loved movie's and music albums tonight..

 

[kieferrodriguez]

Shall I upload the gpscan file, or a screenshot? Im assuming file, I shall post a link momentarily.

 

[kieferrodriguez]

http://www.megafileupload.com/194K/HddScan0.gpscan

HDD Is still filling up, I must admit, I am a level headed guy - But I am freaking out now, This mac is 2 weeks old - My first ever Apple Product.

^ Thats a full scan of my entire HDD.

 

[Cory Cooper]

I woud just upload a screenshot or look at the result and see what the largest file is.

C

 

[Cory Cooper]

***NOTE: In GP, if you open the drawer, click on the Focus tab, then click on a file, it will display information and the path to the file. That will let us know where to focus our attention.

C

 

[kieferrodriguez]

Doing now, screenshot + file in moments! Thanks again Cory!

 

[kieferrodriguez]

So the largest files I can see, are to be expected (GRID 2 App, Android SDK for dev, etc) there is a 1gb /private/var/vm/sleepimage file, which stood out. I have saved a copy of the scan file if your able to load it up and visualize? Nothing to hide on my system, happy to show you my file structure.

 

[kieferrodriguez]

Screenie - http://imgur.com/g8GgKGz

 

[Cory Cooper]

The sleepimage is a normal system file. It is what your Mac writes the contents of memory to if you put your Mac to sleep, so it can wake up faster and to where you were without having to do a full startup.

Than scan file you uploaded earlier will not load in my copy of GrandPerspective...must have gotten corrupted in upload/download.

The larger the box, the larger the file. What are are the two files locals with the blue arrows pointing to them?

C

 

[kieferrodriguez]

Top one is Applications/XCode.app (5.34gb) - Bottom one is Grid2.app (10.2gb) - I shall try re-upload now!

 

[kieferrodriguez]

Ive chucked it into a .zip - Hopefully that works! http://www.megafileupload.com/19dA/ScanData01(plus_Image_of_Scan).zip

Thanks again Cory!!

 

[Cory Cooper]

Strange...the GP scan file still errors out. It gets to about 6356 folders then quits GP with the following error:

Anyway, the GP scan isn't showing a huge runaway log file, so maybe it is hundreds/thousands of little files in a folder. So, maybe we should try OmniDiskSweeper instead of GrandPerspective. It does the same thing, but in a text-based list format. It may be easier to track down the folder that is eating all the HD space:

OmniDiskSweeper

C

 

[kieferrodriguez]

No worries (That is odd!) - will DL and UL now!

 

[kieferrodriguez]

Slightly unsure how to save a snapshot, I can see all my main file-structure headers, with size usage (/Applications, /Users, etc) - Sorry, how can I get this to you? Haha Sorry! (I havent felt so noobish in yeaaaars! its slightly nostalgic!)

 

[Cory Cooper]

This app doesn't save a snapshot file like GP. You can simply see the sizes of all the folders and drill-down on the largest one to find the larger files in the HD.

If it is a runaway log file, then the Library folder should be huge.

C