Possible Resource for Inclusion in the Comm, and a Question

[jazzyjj]

Hi everyone. Subject line pretty much sums it up. This comm hasn't been updated in awhile, and I'm wondering if the mods could include http://www.applevis.com as a possible resource? This is a website that discusses Apple's accessibility features for those of us who are visually impaired. I registered on there a year or so ago and have found it to be very good for the most part. Not everyone on there uses a Mac though, which I suppose is a bit of a drawback. Additionally, there's a certain user on there who says she wants to help out but her spelling is atrocious. She's actually posted stuff on there before with no errors, which makes me think she is being careless. Nobody in this comm though.





To that end I also have a question. I've been experiencing an issue on my MacBook where the amount of free disk space has decreased rather drastically. When I first got this computer as a Christmas gift in 2013, it had 120.11 gb of free space. I got a SuperDrive about a year ago for Christmas, which I was using to import my vast CD collection into iTunes. That whole process went very well, but once everything was complete I noticed something a bit odd. That is, the amount of free disk space had gone down to about 6 gb. I deleted some things on here in hopes of getting more free space back, including some voices used for the on-board screen reader. That seems to have helped a bit, and now I'm at about 27 gb free. In addition, I noticed a few days ago that the maximum on here is now 120.12 gb. I think I'm finally going to try and bite the bullet and take this machine into my local Apple store, if and when someone can go with me at a time that works for everyone. But I'm wondering if anybody here knows of any other tricks I can try. Someone mentioned audio formats as a possible cause of the memory decrease, but I can't figure out a way to verify that or anything. I do still have all or most of my CDs handy, so I could always re-import them if I had to. This is a mid-2013 MacBook Air running the latest build of OS X El Capitan.

Comments

[foxfirefey]

Man, I wish I knew how accessible DaisyDisk was--it's a good way to see where the heck all the space on your disk is going to. :(

[msilverstar]

For disk usage checking, I like the free OmniDiskSweeper, and the Disk Map app from Fliplab.

I discovered that there were huge files backing up the old iPhoto package when it switched to Photos.

Also, iPhone/pad/pod backups are pretty huge (replace the "m" with your user name): /Users/m/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup.

[jazzyjj]

Thanks for your replies. I actually had one of my tutors look at my Mac earlier this evening, and he and I took a look under Storage in "About This Mac." It seems that a lot of the audio on here is eating up the memory. But I don't have any podcasts or movies on here, so something might be a bit off with that but I'm going to check out the memory storage on a sister's Mac this weekend when I'm home for my birthday. She has been importing her CD's into iTunes as well, and we might be able to compare notes. My tutor also suggested an external hard drive, and we priced some out online. But other than that, my Mac is performing very well.