Where are all the files on my iMac

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nightshadow
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Where are all the files on my iMac

Post by nightshadow » April 10th, 2013, 4:43 am

My 1TB Mac HD shows 975GB used. When I go to the "Favorites" sidebar and total all of the categories set by OSX 10.8.3 they do not add up to that number.

The categories "shown" are : 1. All My Files, 2. AirDrop, 3. Applications, 4. Desktop, 5. Documents, 6. Downloads, 7. Movies, 8. Music, 9. Pictures.

All of these categories only total about 471 GB. That means there are appx 504 GB are "Not counted" in these categories. I thought that All My Files" would logically included a reference to all my files on this computer or hard disk. Another place where don't assume logic and programming follows any common sense?

I am an avid amateur photographer and I have thousands and thousands of photos and some are in the "Pictures" category but many are not, because I first import all photos onto my general HD and then, as I work on them, I determine how I will catalog them and where I will place them. (I DO NOT USE AND I DO NOT LIKE IPHOTO) Then there is also the problem of backups and copies of copies, etc, so it is a nightmare trying to determine how many of each photo I really have. (I haven't found anything yet that really finds them all...

I have the RAW originals, then the RAW backups, then the RAW working files and then TIFF's and JPEG's in different configurations for screen (internet) and for hard copy printing. and on and on and on...

Are all these and other files just scattered throughout the HD or is there a way to combine them into 1 area? I need to move files to another external disk (I have three external drives) that include many of these same files but I am not sure which ones... and if I delete... then that will surly be the "important file" that I must find...

What do you suggest? How can I make sense of all this chaos?
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Turboladdade
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Re: Where are all the files on my iMac

Post by Turboladdade » April 10th, 2013, 7:27 am

nightshadow wrote:What do you suggest? How can I make sense of all this chaos?
Why are you not using photo management software such as Aperture or Lightroom, or even iPhoto? These applications exist for a reason. The Finder is NOT a digital asset management solution. If you take photography seriously you'll invest in the time to learn to use the proper tools at your disposal.

Forget about the "favorites" section of the sidebar. From the Finder, choose Computer from the Go menu. From there you can access the root level of your hard drive and actually find/see all of your files.
I am now telling the computer exactly what it can do.
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unknown1
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Re: Where are all the files on my iMac

Post by unknown1 » April 12th, 2013, 11:25 pm

I don't really understand why 10.8 hides the actual file structure there, I am really used to the old way and it just adds another layer to the confusion.
Russell - Unknown1 - Idaho, USA
iMac 2008 20" 2.6 GHz
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Turboladdade
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Re: Where are all the files on my iMac

Post by Turboladdade » April 13th, 2013, 10:02 am

I think they're trying to move toward a system where apps manage their own documents from within themselves, similar to iOS apps. I've seen talk like that in developer materials.
I am now telling the computer exactly what it can do.
pham
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Re: Where are all the files on my iMac

Post by pham » May 5th, 2013, 10:39 am

I have noticed a similar problem with the external storage appended to my Mac Mini the storage device shows less available space that I really have.
pham
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