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How do I find out how much disk space a program such as Skype occupies?

My SSD is getting full, and I want to see what can be deleted.

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9 Answers 9

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If you want to find out how much space an Application and it's associated files are taking up (not just the .app bundle), AppCleaner works great for that. As you can see in this screenshot for Chrome, it shows the application itself, as well as preferences, caches, etc. all nicely totaled up.

enter image description here

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    Excellent answer, I love DaisyDisk and have used the others but they only visualise usage by folder.
    – user3117
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 3:07
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Daisy Disk

It's a killer app for analyzing disk use on a Mac. It'll scan all your drives and shows you disk use broken down by customizable buckets: file types, programs, tags, etc. It can show you all the disk space used by a program like Skype if you like and more.

Showing Skype Use on my Machine

Edit: it's also on sale right now for $10.

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  • It seems to be perpetually "on sale". I bought it 6 months ago when it was "on sale" for $10.
    – Kyle Cronin
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 2:56
  • I have never understood why anyone buys this, when there are utilities like Grand Perspective and Disk Inventory X that are easily as good or better, and free!
    – Fake Name
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 6:37
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    @FakeName aesthetics matter.
    – Ian C.
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 10:31
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Disk Inventory maps out your disk usage graphically. Easiest way.

enter image description here

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Grand Perspective is an open-source application that is free. Similarly to Disk Inventory, it uses a tree map for visualization of the file system. The bigger a block, the bigger the file.

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Alternatively, if you want to use the command line and (looking at the 2nd part of your question) you're just interested in which files are taking up the most space, I often use the find command.

find ~ -size +50M

will find all files within your home directory (~) greater than 50MB.

You can modify the size descriptor after the number like so (see man find)

k       kilobytes (1024 bytes)
M       megabytes (1024 kilobytes)
G       gigabytes (1024 megabytes)
T       terabytes (1024 gigabytes)
P       petabytes (1024 terabytes)
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  • "Applications" are just folders full of files, so the find command will recurse into them, and unless they have resources individually larger then 50M, this will not show them.
    – Fake Name
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 6:38
  • du -h --max-depth=1 is much more useful. It prints the size of every item in the current directory, including the total size of every folder.
    – Fake Name
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 6:41
  • @FakeName I guess I was focussing more on ordinary files that are taking up space as opposed to applications - that might also be useful to the OP if he's trying to free up space. Also, your du command line just gives me du: illegal option -- -
    – binarybob
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 7:04
  • hmmm. I tried it on linux, assuming they hadn't messed with it too much. I know there is a way to do it on a mac (because I've used it on a mac). Hold on.
    – Fake Name
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 7:16
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    Ah, it's: du -h -d 1 on mac. Freaking Cent-OS. I guess that's what I get for assuming there is some consistency in the GNU coreutils.
    – Fake Name
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 7:16
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I am using OmniDiskSweeper. It shows you a nice overview of your used diskspaced and which directory is taking how much space.
It can also erases the data.

enter image description here

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I hate to spoil the party, but I understand the idea is that the disk is getting too full? so why installing an extra application when a simple 'get info' would do the trick?

For Skype:

Showing how to Get info for an App

followed by:

Skype App size

will tell you how big an App is without need for extra space taking software.

In addition, a second alternative is to use the Terminal typing:

du -sh /Applications/Skype.app/
  53M   /Applications/Skype.app/

The differences in size between what the Finder gives and what du gives are due to the fact they calculate size in base 10 (the Finder) and in base 2 (du). See also this link on the matter:

du -sh vs Finder file size

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Late answer but I have never regretted buying an app called "What Size" for my IMAC... its great for finding out whats taking up so much space... and you view everything all at once, not piece by piece. Very user friendly, no reading required, best $10 bucks I spent. Maybe I would have tried the free ones first though if I had known about them, but I'm still very happy with "What Size"

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  • Welcome to Ask Different! Thanks for your answer, Sue! Can you please add a link to the software you mention in your answer? It is always helpful to add a link to help the OP to find the right software. Thank you.
    – daviesgeek
    Commented Jun 26, 2013 at 5:36
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If you're looking to clear up space, Skype logs and the occasional text file will no effect.

If you want to make a substantial cut on space without making your mac bulimic, I suggest Monolingual (free and open source), which deletes unused language support (which is usually around 500 MB to 2 GB) and redundant app binaries.

Most Mac apps are "universal," meaning they support both Intel and (the older) PowerPC processor architectures, by having every application contain a binary compiled for each. If you're running an Intel Mac, monolingual can be used to delete the unused app binaries, saving 1-2 GB

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