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I put 30GB of files on Mac, but it says 53GB has been used. iTunes seems to be duplicating my music files?

I'm trying to get my MacBook Air, which is less than 2 months old, to show the correct used space. I've only stored 13.5 GB of music, 15.5 GB of videos, and less than one GB of pictures and documents on it, but Disk Utility and Storage Management show 53GB of used space. Also, in Storage Management, I find iTunes is taking 14GB of storage, but there are no files appearing when I select it, although there are when I open iTunes. Note that my music files are saved in the Documents folder. It looks like there's a copy of them in my iTunes as well. Another suspicious one called System is also using 13GB of data.

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Jenny Zeng

Jenny Zeng

Answered on Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Let's discuss the iTunes folder and the System folder one by one.

Why is iTunes making copies of your music files?

iTunes duplicates music files when "Copy files to iTunes folder when adding to library" is enabled in the Advanced tab of iTunes Preferences. That said, when you add a song to iTunes, it'll be copied to the iTunes library folder. If you don't delete the song from its original place, you'll have two copies on your Mac.

So, to free up space on your Mac, you can delete the songs from the Documents folder, disable the option, or add your music files into the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder.

What's in the System folder on Mac?

The System folder in Storage Management contains your operating system and other purgeable space on your internal hard drive. To reduce its size, you can delete the purgeable space on your Mac.

If you want a better picture of your Mac's space usage, you can use iBoysoft DiskGeeker to analyze the disk space. It'll list all the files on your Mac, sorted by size. This way, you can easily spot and delete the unwanted files.

 

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