Containers File Folder Size

[zachlegomaniac]

Hi there,

I downloaded Daisy Disk because I can't figure out for the life of me what they heck is taking up all the space on my ssd. After the scan it shows the 'Containers' folder as taking up 50 GB. Could someone help me understand what this is and if there is anything I can do to reduce the size. I have very minimal photos, music and other media on the late 2013 rMBP. It just seems to accumulate data on the ssd the older it gets. I have gotten rid of old mail attachments and taken as many steps as I can via some basic google research.

One thing I'm also not sure of is how to disable shared iCloud photos on the Mac only (not on my iPhone or other Macs).

Running Mojave 10.14.3.

Any help would be great!

Thanks,

ZLM

 

[Dave Braine]

In your first screenshot, I think you'll find that 46.8 is the sum total of all the others.

 

[zachlegomaniac]

In your first screenshot, I think you'll find that 46.8 is the sum total of all the others.

Oh yeah. Duh. I do know that but you can't see the hover over of my mouse in the screen shot. I shared that so you can see what the 46.8 GB consists of. A better question is why does com.apple.mail take up 27 GB? Like I said, I got rid of all the attachments that had built up over the years as per some of the stuff I read on Google. Also, any idea how to photos shown there (in iCloud) without turning those services off for the rest of my devices?

I brought this into an Apple Store nearby and the Genius told me to download Daisy Disk to get a better idea of what was taking up the space. Then he looked at it with me and said he didn't know - so hoping someone here can help with those two questions.

Thanks!

Edit: Nix the Photos part. Figured that out. Just the com.apple.mail if anyone knows and is willing to help.

Edit 2: So if anyone else is trying to understand why com.apple.mail is taking up tons of space check out this link. I feel like a bozo to have had this issue for so long only to come here and post and finally figure it out myself, but hey, sometimes it happens I guess.

 

[cruisin]

Mail will make a local copy so all this is likely everything it has downloaded over the years. If you are using something like Gmail you can delete your email account from Mail and it should get rid of the old stuff from your computer, then just add the account back and give it a bit to download your recent emails.

Under Settings > Accounts, your account should have an option to control attachment downloading (always/recent/never) so you can select never if you have decent internet.