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Spring clean your Mac with smart folders

by Cory Bohon May 4th 2009 at 10:30AM


Call it what you will, but "Spring Cleaning" is just as important on your Mac as it is in real life. From cleaning out old files to organizing music/movies/TV shows that you "threw" into iTunes over the past few months, spring cleaning is a necessary evil.

One way to find large files that might be eating up space on your Mac is with a smart folder; it's easy to set one up right from the Finder. To create a smart folder that will find large files on your hard drive, simply follow these directions:
  1. Open a new Finder window and select File > New Smart Folder.
  2. In the resulting window, select "Other" from the first drop-down menu (the default selection is "Kind), and search for the key word "size." If you wish this item to remain in the menu, select the "In menu" check box. Select the OK button once you select the "Size" item.
  3. Select "is greater than" from the next drop-down menu.
  4. Type in the size that you would like to search for files. I would suggest searching using 1 GB, but you can use any size you wish.
Finder will immediately begin searching your Mac for any files that match the description that we just specified. When you are ready to save your smart folder, select the "Save" button from the top right of the Finder window. You will then be asked to specify a save name and location. Now whenever you want to look for large files that might be hogging space on your system, just open this smart folder, and let the search begin!

Beyond this tip, if you are looking for utilities that can help you keep your storage lean and free of bloated, legacy files, you may want to check out GrandPerspective, WhatSize or OmniDiskSweeper.

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Call it what you will, but "Spring Cleaning" is just as important on your Mac as it is in real life. From cleaning out old files to...
 

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Chad

I use FileSpot for this... an advanced Spotlight search interface, and you can add any columns you want to the results, including File Size! Duh! Apple!

May 05 2009 at 3:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
KennyB

Terminal anyone?

May 05 2009 at 6:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Eric M.

Another feature that seems to have disappeared in Leopard is the ability to limit to a specific volume, such as searching only an external hard drive or a USB drive. While setting search options, there is a line near the top that says "Search: This Mac". Is there a to add a volume to this list?

May 05 2009 at 1:20 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
snoozy

Seems a bit dumb you can't add a file size column to this view...

May 04 2009 at 7:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to snoozy's comment
David Pickavant

This is something that has really annoyed me. It makes this whole smart folder worthless if you can't sort by size.

And what's crazy, you could add the size column in tiger!

I just stick with WhatSize now.

May 04 2009 at 8:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nonsanity

My favorite tool for quick cleanups (as in: I need to save a big file NOW, but don't quite have the room... What can I throw away?) is Disk Inventory X ( http://www.derlien.com/ ). It uses a tree-view display for your whole disk and makes is easy to see what is taking up all all your precious storage space. And it's free, too!

May 04 2009 at 5:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
William

Are there any apps for the Mac that will scan a folder [including subfolders] and allow you to remove duplicate files? Ideally, it wouldn't look at just the filename or filesize, but actually look at the file itself. I know there are a couple of free PC applications for this, but I don't have a PC handy to use for this task.

May 04 2009 at 1:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to William's comment
dblanchard

I was looking for something to replace the Classic program "DupLocator", and found it in a shareware program called TidyUp! (The exclamation mark is part of the name.) It's GREAT!! It is from Hyperbolic Software, and the programmer is very good at support. He's the one who suggested the use of smart folders as a means of refining a search in TidyUp!, and it does everything it sounds like you'd like, plus more. You can find all duplicates, or programs greater in size than X, or even find duplicates that have different names (by comparing the data fork and resource fork). It's worth every penny!

Dave

May 30 2009 at 12:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
KennyB

Somebody embarrassed of all their porn videos or something?

May 04 2009 at 1:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to KennyB's comment
NoAndThen

Maybe, but remember the other journalist who got fired for reviewing a pirated copy of wolverine? Probably more like that.

Or maybe just privacy.

Not that I care; gotta save your job.

May 04 2009 at 3:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dave M.

When I want to clean up my hard drives, I open up my favorite tool for the task: OmniDiskSweeper. http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/

Now a free program, it scans your hard drives and shows you a list of all your directories and how much space they are taking up. This allows you to focus on places in your hard drives that take up large amounts of space.

For whatever reason Apple decided not to show the size of the files when searching using SmartFolders. Or at least SmartFolders that look for files that are greater than a specific size. OmniDiskSweeper focuses on sizes, so it only shows sizes and file names/extensions.

When I first got my Mac's, back in 2006, both of them came with OmniDiskSweeper already installed. I made sure to upgrade them to the latest versions even though that cost me since this program is well worth it. Now, OmniGroup has changed their sales model to focus on more professional programs so that utilities like DiskSweeper, OmniWeb, OmniDazzle, etc... are all free. It's well worth checking out.

May 04 2009 at 11:51 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Dave M.'s comment
oliver hart

Disk Inventory X FTW

May 04 2009 at 5:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Lumi

I use jDisk to see where the bulk of my space is going (usually my torrents), this is nice and visual (pie-charts! Macs have them!)
And indeed, lot's of ISO and DMG files. So I burn those, and throw them away (the files, not the disks).
And applications, of course. I mean, if you delete those, and it turns out you need a certain app, chances are a newer version is out there. So that's two stones with one bird! Or... the other way around.

P.S.
People don't tend to put their uh, 'porn', in iTunes, as far as I know. So it might be smart to like uh, check that too, first. (and check the 'hide from search' option :P)

May 04 2009 at 11:04 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gordon Swaby

Ok no worries, i found it, apparently you have to show search criteria

May 04 2009 at 10:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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