Huge, empty folders?

[sikk]

Hello everyone. A few months ago, for whatever reason my computer reverted to factory settings and all of my data got stored in the "Users" folder in Mac HD. I got everything I wanted at the time from the folder and basically started fresh. But I still have 2 folders in the "Users" folder, which are Shared. and <MyName>. These folders are both entirely empty, or so I thought. The one labeled <MyName> is 7.8 GB, but it's empty. I'm assuming it has some old videos in it, along with some old documents and other things. Is it still possible to take any of these things out, or should I just trash the folder for extra HD space?

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Hello everyone. A few months ago, for whatever reason my computer reverted to factory settings and all of my data got stored in the "Users" folder in Mac HD. I got everything I wanted at the time from the folder and basically started fresh. But I still have 2 folders in the "Users" folder, which are Shared. and <MyName>. These folders are both entirely empty, or so I thought. The one labeled <MyName> is 7.8 GB, but it's empty. I'm assuming it has some old videos in it, along with some old documents and other things. Is it still possible to take any of these things out, or should I just trash the folder for extra HD space?

The "reverted to factory settings" reminds me of when I played around with ShapeShifter and changed some themes. I ended up losing all my email as Mail.app suddenly reverted to default.

Also if you change your User Shortname you can end up with the same result as you mention about all of your data ending up in the "Users" folder in Mac HD.

The 7.8GB may be hidden stuff which you can possibly make visible so you can see if it's safe to trash.

Show hidden files using the Terminal.

Open the terminal. At the command prompt type 'defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true' (without quotations) then press enter. For the changes to take effect, either log out then log back in again, or relaunch Finder (this can be done from the Force Quit Window or by typing 'killall Finder' in a Terminal window).

To hide the hidden files again:
Open the terminal. At the command prompt type 'defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool false' then press enter. Log out then back in again, or relaunch Finder

If this doesn't work and your using Leopard you can substitute yes/no for true/false...

Another option is to download WhatSize and have a look at its report about what is taking up what amount of space on your Mac.

WhatSize is a simple tool that allows the user to quickly measure the size in bytes of a given folder and all subfolders and files within it.​