# freeing space on startup disk



## benponte (May 21, 2008)

I keep getting messages to free space on my startup disk and would like to know the best way to this? I have a emac hard disk running mac os x 10.4 10


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## VirtualTracy (May 22, 2008)

What size HD do you have?  AFAIK, around 15% free space is needed on a HD.  Do you know roughly where all the space has gone?  By that I mean do you store a large amount of photos/mp3/movie files?  

Firstly you're going to have to free at least 15% up and you might need to purchase an external HD which isn't such a bad idea as nowadays they have come right down in price and come in very handy.

I recommend you download and run a maintenance app like OnyX, and have it clean out all your caches and the clean up might free up *some* space ... here's the link for O_nyX Ver 1.8_5.  The Tiger version is the 3rd from the top.

You haven't said which model eMac you have so I can't recommend much but I at least know that depending on which model you have, you'll have from between 40GB to 160GB as that's the range of capacity unless the original HD has been upgraded, which brings me to my point .... you could consider putting a larger capacity HD in ... I haven't checked but it might be do-able. 

I know Mac OS X has a Language Packs which take up some space and there's apps like GarageBand, iMovie, iDVD etc that you could uninstall. 

If you have the original install discs you can always reinstall them later on if need be.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (May 22, 2008)

There is only one way to "free up" space on a hard drive: delete stuff.  That is your only option.  What is the "best" stuff to delete is completely subjective and would vary from user to user -- obviously, it wouldn't be wise to dive into the "System" folder and start deleting stuff (this could render your whole operating system unbootable).

Look for files you have (like music, movies, etc.) that you can copy somewhere else and then delete from your hard drive.

The short answer is pretty simple and sweet, though: delete stuff.


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## PBear (May 22, 2008)

Some tips on Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.


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## VirtualTracy (May 22, 2008)

iPhoto and iMovie have their own Trash so check there just in case ....


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## Yellowbeard (May 31, 2008)

Yep that is exactly what I am in the process of right now.  House cleaning.  Everything gets moved to my External FireWire HD, that gets full I burn to DVD-R keeping 1 on site and 1 off.

My Powerbook has a measly 60 GB HD which I backup with SuperDuper every night to half of the same FW HD and the other half is the aforementioned storage.  It is amazing how much crap I keep on my start up disk that I don't need on hand at all times.


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