Why do I have so little free space on my MacBook Air?

[iMore Question]

I deleted all my files and almost all of my programs. All I have left is Microsoft Office (I deleted Outlook and PowerPoint) and Google Chrome. I even deleted Pages, Numbers and Keynote. I don't have any music in iTunes and I deleted all of my device backups. I don't have any photos.

My hard disk, according to System Info, has 121 GB of space, yet I only have about 15 GB free. I would do a clean reinstall, but I'm not sure how without a CD/DVD drive.

Any ideas what's going on?

 

[Just_Me_D]

If you have OS X Mavericks:

http://www.imore.com/how-use-mac-recovery-system-restore-mavericks

If you have OS X Yosemite:

http://www.imore.com/how-downgrade-os-x-el-capitan-back-os-x-yosemite#downgrade

 

[muchospanish]

I resolved this. I erased my hard disk and reinstalled Yosemite. I now have 104 GB available. Does this thing get junked up over time? I don't know why this happened.

 

[muchospanish]

Thanks. I figured it out. I was being lazy. Google and the first result were the instructions. I didn't even have to open the link.

 

[Just_Me_D]

I resolved this. I erased my hard disk and reinstalled Yosemite. I now have 104 GB available. Does this thing get junked up over time? I don't know why this happened.

I suppose it could, but I've never run into a situation like that. Besides, I don't do as much on my MacBook anymore because I'm able to do almost everything I need to do on my iPhone.

 

[HankAZ]

I resolved this. I erased my hard disk and reinstalled Yosemite. I now have 104 GB available. Does this thing get junked up over time? I don't know why this happened.

If you are diligent about monitoring your storage usage, you should not have a problem. I have a 750GB SSD on my 2012 rMBP (bought the day it was released in 2012), and I am using less than 160GB, including over 14GB of photos and almost 55GB of music.

 

[muchospanish]

Thanks, everyone. I'm not diligent about it. I mostly use my iPad Air 2 at work, and the MacBook Air whenever I run into the iPad limitations.

 

[Jaguarr40]

Good post and question and good answers.