So my hard drive is reaching that point when it feels like I'm stuffing the socks inside the jars to save space. Performance is degraded, typing is slow, and you want to get rid of the useless big files. What do I do? I try to remember where the big files are, and go looking for them sequentially. What if I can't remember about those 200 useless YouTube videos I downloaded that one time, or about that music folder a friend passed me through his USB key and I never listened to? Wouldn't it be nice if the computer could tell you: "Hey, there's this 10Gb bunch of files you haven't used in 2 years - maybe you'd like to clear THOSE up?"
Well, now you can! On Mac OS X finder, anyway. I'm sure this feature's been around for ages, but it's only been a few months since I figured it out, and though it's not handy every day, when it is it saves you a LOT of time.
Finder can show you the size of entire folders. It takes some time to compute and some space to store, I'm sure, but oh yes it can. Steps:
Well, now you can! On Mac OS X finder, anyway. I'm sure this feature's been around for ages, but it's only been a few months since I figured it out, and though it's not handy every day, when it is it saves you a LOT of time.
Finder can show you the size of entire folders. It takes some time to compute and some space to store, I'm sure, but oh yes it can. Steps:
- Go to Finder.
- View -> Show as List (Or WeirdClover-2)
- View -> Show View Options (Or WeirdClover-J)
- Check checkbox "Calculate all Sizes", and if unchecked, also check "Size".
- Done!
Now you should see the aggregate digital space consumed by everything inside it. Isn't it nice? Sort by the "Size" column, and you should start to free up space really quickly by deleting that folder at the top of the list that takes of 15% of the hard drive (Zipf's Law).
And, enjoy!
