[GameGURU]

Is there some kind of tool that I can use to check the amount of space that I have left on my hard drive?

Also, anything that can tell me what kind of programs or folders are taking up most of that space?

I have ~ 20gb already used on my 3 day old mac...I dunno where I am getting all of this stuff from. Not enough videos and pics for all of that.

[Vybuni]

I think you can select the hard drive and use the "get info" command (Cmd + i). That should tell you how much you have used. You can do the same thing to folders to see how big they are.

[mac_mogul]

Yeah, just right click or control click on your HD icon on the desktop and it will give you total capacity, amount used, and amount remaining.

[GameGURU]

Goodness, I have 23.86gb used already...is OSX really that big?

[Brtnboarder495]

So you havn't installed any applications of any kind, or have any kind of media? (movies, files, music, photos). OSX shouldn't eat up that much. You will find that most HD's have actually 5-10GB less space than advertised, and OSX and the pre-installed applications probably eat up the rest.

[horndude]

open terminal and type free to show free swap,memory, and disk space

type du to show disk usage, type man du or man free for syntax and options

works on any unix system including OS X

[GameGURU]

Hmm, well I have installed: Microsoft Office, Photoshop CS2, about 2GB of songs, MSN Messenger...thats about it.

[horndude]

du (directory) will give a list of disk usage in that directory
example "du /usr" will list all apps and sizes of them with a final total in the /usr directory---good for finding out whats using what space wise

[mac_mogul]

Originally posted by GameGURU
Hmm, well I have installed: Microsoft Office, Photoshop CS2, about 2GB of songs, MSN Messenger...thats about it.

Don't forget iLife '06(iTunes, iMovieHD, iDVD, iPhoto, GarageBand, iWeb, iCal, iChat AV, etc) plus ALL the other goodies that Apple includes with every new Mac: AppleWorks, QuickTime, Safari, iSync, Address Book, DVD Player, Quicken, OS X Mail, etc.. Plus all the Utilities programs, Classic support files and applications, etc etc etc...

Add to that everything you have, and thats definitely a HUGE chunk of memory.
When I first got my 60gb iBook, I never saw it with more than 47gb available.

Also, you have to remember: The larger your hard drive, the more its overrated for marketing purposes. A 150gb HD may only actually have a 140gb capacity. My 60gb only has a 55gb capacity. My old iMac's 20gb had an 18gb capacity.

Its normal usage, you shouldn't have to worry about it.

[GameGURU]

Right on, thanks. It's still a huge improvement over my 60GB old school hard drive.