8/7/2023 0 Comments Space gremlin windowsSo an entry in “lost+found” will be created in case someone comes looking for it. The same is true of a file system: Remove the directory listing and the number and file contents can still exist, but they’re no longer usable.Ī standard file system check (which Mac OS X will perform on its own sometimes on boot) will sometimes fine a “lost” inode and file with no directory information. If you have an unlisted phone number, it still exists but can’t be found in the directory. There are three essential items: The logical name and location, the unique number, and the contents. Modern file systems use a system of pointers to connect directory information to file contents. It’s a bit like a phone book: The directory links the file name and location information to the underlying data. Now that you’ve gone through that, here’s a bit of background on what this is all about.įirst, let’s talk about “lost+found”. It’s really up to you! Here’s what my Mac OS X Mountain Lion install image looked like! A Bit of Background Or you could check and see if they’re that novel or precious family photo you thought you lost. There could be lots of other orphaned files in lost+found, and you could probably delete them. You just reclaimed 4-6 GB of precious SSD space!.But if it’s an xar archive in lost+found you can probably safely delete it without checking: You can be absolutely sure by mounting it in Disk Utility and seeing what it says. If it reports that the file is an “xar archive” there’s a very, very strong chance that it’s a leftover Mac OS X install image.Use the “file” command to find out what kind of file it looks like: If you found a large file (more than 9 digits in the size field means gigabytes in size) from a while ago, it might be a leftover install image.That combination of flags on the ls command will sort by file size, from smallest to largest, so the install image should be at the end of the list. There could be all sorts of stuff in there, most of which is junk.Type the following to see what’s in the lost+found directory:.Here’s how to find out if you have such a leftover image, verify that it’s not needed, and remove it: And Mac OS X upgrades apparently often leave a copy of the install image in just this state. Most UNIX file systems, including HFS+ in Mac OS X, have a special directory called “lost+found” for disassociated data found during file system checks. Although you may not have this issue, it’s not unusual! Leave a comment and let me know if you find something like this. In a brief DuckDuckGo search, I discovered that it’s fairly common for a Mac OS X upgrade to leave behind a large (4-6 GB), useless image file. But many people are finding 5 GB wasted for a years-old leftover Mac OS X install image! Here’s how to reclaim that space if you’re missing it… Since most MacBooks are SSD-only, one would think Apple would be careful about leaving junk around on the drive.
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