The space is most likely being occupied by the various files and folders in /Library, which is hidden by default on OS X. You can show the Library folder by navigating to your home folder in Finder, pressing ⌘J and showing the Library folder.
| Click here to return to the 'Remove hidden core dump files to restore drive space' hint |
If you add 'limit coredumpsize 0' into your ~/.tcshrc or ~/.cshrc file, it should eliminate those files
If you want to have the core files for debug purposes, I'd rather delete them with this command in the crontab:
/usr/bin/find -name /cores/core.* -ctime 1 -delete
This only deletes core files older than 24 hours.
Um, either you or some other program must have turned that on. Apple's default is for core dumps to be limited to 0 bytes, which means you should have none. What were the dumps for?
I'm the author of this 'hint'. I have no idea on what these were for. Have you an idea on how to turn this feature off? I don't remember having turned it on any time, but i try many utilities, so i might have done that by accident. It happened again, though since i deleted that gigabyte.
Ya, I didn't have any at all, and I do recall reading or seeing somewhere that cores were supposed to be eliminated by default with the OS install. I'm not sure how they would get turned on by accident, but on two machines I found none at all.
I found nothing in my cores directory. Seems to be empty. I'll take that as a good sign, although I'm always looking for ways to gain more HD space..
You can check your current limits with the 'ulimit -a' command in bash (type 'help ulimit' for more info) or the 'limit' command in tcsh.
The core should be zero. I did some basic hunting and didn't find any obvious setting in /etc, although you could also check the files /etc/csh.* or /etc/profile* and /etc/bashrc to see if there is a limit command in there that something or someone put in.
The place to look for is in /etc/rc.common, at the end of the file, here's the relevant snip :
# Enable coredumps if requested.
##
if [ '${COREDUMPS:=-NO-}' = '-YES-' ]; then
ulimit -c unlimited
fi
To make sure there is nothing wrong with your defaults you should grep all files involved in startup (etc/rc*, StartUpItems..) for ulimit.
My /cores directory was completely empty and I like it that way :-)
Wow, I don't know how this escaped my 'grepping' :)
Anyway, just to complete the thought for those that don't like tinkering that much, placing this line in your /etc/hostconfig file will **enable** core dumps:
COREDUMPS=-YES-
Make sure it's either not there (the default) or is set to -NO- if you don't want them.
One file, hidden (named with . previous to characters) and less than 4K in size. Good spot to watch, and investigate for missing space, but not applicable here.
Personally, my big drive-eater is all the legacy apps and OS versions I've been maintaining on my system until recently. Three partitions on my OEM drive ate up 10 GB of space for old proggies and systems. I've recently used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone those to disc images on my new Maxtor (for back-up purposes, in case I actually need something) and re-formatted the whole thing.
<sarcasm>That gave me lots of space back.</sarcasm>
<brag>Now I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with the 30 GB of space free on my OEM drive. I've got that in addition to ~40 GB free space on my new Maxtor, and am sure I'll fill it up soon but *hate* to think of that much junk. And it's always junk.</brag>
'In my case, about 30 files of weights ranging from 30 to 70Mb were present.'
Thirty core files? Bud, you've got some significant issues.
Kinda reminds me of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
--Richard
I found my cores file empy, but I found another hidden file
at /private/cores.. what is this file for?
It has two files in it called 'cores.199' and 'cores.200' date from 5/2002 and 6/2002.
BF
Well, I found 30 some files at 2.42 Gb. For some reason, removing them restored slightly over 3 Gb to my system.
This is something I'll be keeping an eye on in the future.
Hi:
Just came across your post about core files. I'm learning about them as well in my Unix book for OS 10 by Dave Taylor. I did a find for all my core files and found these:
/Applications/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.debug.core
/Applications/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.jdt.core
/Applications/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.pde.core
/Applications/eclipse/p2/org.eclipse.equinox.p2.core
/Users/chrislandalusa/Documents/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects/Chapter03_Listing01/org.eclipse.jdt.core
/Users/chrislandalusa/Documents/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects/first project/org.eclipse.jdt.core
/Users/chrislandalusa/Documents/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects/ShowAFrame.java/org.eclipse.jdt.core
/Users/chrislandalusa/Documents/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.debug.core
/Users/chrislandalusa/Documents/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.jdt.core
/Users/chrislandalusa/Documents/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.mylyn.bugzilla.core
/Users/chrislandalusa/Documents/workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.team.cvs.core
/Volumes/WINDOWS/Documents and Settings/Chris/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.jdt.core
/Volumes/WINDOWS/Documents and Settings/Chris/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.debug.core
I don't think, given the locations, that theses are core files from a crashed program (unless I'm reading them wrong). Are they? or are they files for my eclipse application that also have a .core extension?
I went to the /core folder on my mac and found nothing there.
With time, your Mac may get inundated up with multiple files: video, audio, pictures, documents, etc., thereby gradually eating up disk space. If necessary action isn't taken to clean up the clutter, it may ultimately lead to a warning message: Your startup disk is almost full. Don't worry, this is normal and can be rectified.
Let's cruise through the top 10 methods to clean your startup disk. Having gone through the steps, you may learn more about your Mac and also discover a few new ways to fix the issue.
1. Empty out the Trash
In Mac OS X, almost every deleted file or document heads to the Trash Bin. Bypassing Trash is often not possible when deleting files permanently. Trash Bin files could either be individually deleted or emptied at once by right-clicking the Trash icon. However, some of the erased files may still leave their footprints. Follow these steps to delete the files completely:
2. Clean up your Downloads, Movies and Music folders
It's important to frequently check and clean up your download, movie and music folders. Most download files aren't needed or used after some time. You can move the downloaded files to an external hard drive or the Documents folder. Before cleaning up the contents, organize the space by Date Last Opened or Date Modified. This will help you locate files that haven't been used much since their download.
The Movies folder is where you probably have a few hundred gigabytes of digital content. Click the Movies folder and press Command-I. Look at the pop-up that shows up at your window's top right to find out the folder's space consumption. Clean up the space or move the files to an external hard disk. The same process applies to cleaning the Music folder too.
DYLDLIBRARYPATH is not a hack. It is an environment variable provided for a specific purpose. It works the same post El Capitan as it did before - except for protected system processes. The behaviour above under PyCharm is caused by MacOS using different environments for shell and gui applications. Aug 28, 2013 Question: Q: How to set DYLDLIBRARYPATH on Mac OS X Mountain Lion? I doubt you need to do anything with DYLDLIBRARYPATH. What you need to do is set ORACLEHOME to the path to your Oracle directory. On Linux, this is something like /pkg/oracle/10.2.0. I'm sure it will be different on your machine. Mac dyld library not loaded.
3. Clean your Desktop
Having the desktop cluttered with multiple apps and files will slow down your Mac. The reason being every icon consumes some RAM.
However, the solution is pretty straightforward. Clean up the desktop and don't store files there. If you need to store temporary files, create a dedicated folder.
4. Remove unnecessary applications
Safely and permanently remove or uninstall apps and their preferences, components, log files, etc. Sending them to the Trash Bin isn't mission completed. To uninstall, choose an application.
This is a disk cleaning aspect with which CleanMyMac 3 will come quite handy. To get the job done, launch the application, hit Uninstaller, choose the application to be removed and click Uninstall.
5. Delete old iTunes Library backups
Recent iTunes versions generate existing iTunes Library file's backup each time the iTunes app is updated. Once you're happy with the performance of a current iTunes update, delete the old files by heading to the previous iTunes folder.
6. Clean up your iPhoto library
The iPhoto app has its dedicated recycle bin. To get started, choose files you'd like to get rid of. These may include bad or inadvertently clicked photos. Service copies also must be booted out. These are copies of original images that were altered. The original image is copied and stashed away safely. Needless to say, these copies eat up considerable disk space.
The folders Master, Original, Modified and Preview must be checked to determine if there're copies. To access the folders, open the Finder window and head to the Pictures folder. Press Ctrl and click the iPhoto library and choose Show Package Contents. You must now manually go through the folders and find out copies with altered original copies.
This could be cumbersome if you've got a huge photo repository. With CleanMyMac 3, the cleaning will be safer and faster. The cleaning app scans the library and only gets rid of the duplicates. CleanMyMac3 is highly recommended during such scenarios since critical or wrong files once cleaned up cannot be recovered.
7. Get rid of localization files
If you chose the option Easy Install during Mac OS X installation, several localization files for different languages get installed. The files allow the OS X interface to show up in multiple languages. To delete them:
Now, head to Resources under Contents and locate files ending with .lproj. There's a specific language prefix before the file name. For instance, German language files will show up as de.lproj. Delete the unwanted language files.
You could easily get rid of these files using a third-party alternative like CleanMyMac 3. You'll only require a click and no surfing through multiple folders to get the job done.
8. Remove old iOS backups
Backups can consume excessive space. You could locate and eliminate them by:
Clean up all the outdated, old backups.
9. Clean up cache files on your Mac
Caches are non-permanent files that help increase the speed of specific tasks. However, with time, the files could get bloated.
To get cleaning, click the Finder application. Then, long press the Option key and hit the menu bar's Go option. This should expose the typically hidden Library folder. You would find your caches folder in the Library folder.
Also, there are several third-party applications, such as CleanMyMac 3, which help make the cleaning process much simpler and hassle-free.
10. Remove old iOS device backups
iOS-based devices automatically backup certain settings and files to a Mac every time they're hooked to a computer. The backups are saved in the Backup folder: Home/ Library/ Application Support/ MobileSync/ Backup.
CleanMyMac 3 is a long-term, automatic cleaning solution that keeps the startup disk spotless. It can clear several gigabytes of space within a few minutes.
The biggest disk space-hogging element on your Mac is always those huge multimedia files and documents. These could be cumbersome to clean if done manually. However, a software application like CleanMyMac 3 will carry out the task within minutes. Moreover, the software will also warn you whenever the disk space is nearing exhaustion, helping you stay on top of space utilization, always.
To make accessing and monitoring the software features easier, a fresh menu bar is available that keeps track of memory usage, free space, and existing trash size. Customer alert standards can be set in software preferences, which notifies you whenever disk space is extremely low or the bin size is too high. This is a helpful feature for people with limited disk space on their Macbooks.