USB Drive On Mac OS X Full - No Files On Drive

I had a situation the other day where I had a 32GB USB Flash Drive that was "empty," but when I tried to copy a 3 GB file to the drive, I received an error that the drive was full or there was not enough space. How is this possible when there are no other files on the drive?

It has to do with the way MAC OS handles "trash." The other day I deleted 27 GB worth of files from the drive, and while your Trash bin remains full on the OS, the files are not actually deleted from your thumb drive, but rather moved to "hidden" or  .Trashes status - hoarding all of your free storage. 

There are a couple of ways to remedy this: Empty your Trash bin, manually delete the hidden files, or Format the drive (this will erase everything on it).

To manually delete the hidden files you may use the Terminal application or a 3rd party application to show these hidden files.

Click here to learn about showing hidden files from Terminal.

Click here to read about apps that show hidden files.

To Format your drive on MAC OS, follow these instructions.

Mac Mail & G-mail Drafts Duplication Problem

Having problems with tons of duplicates being created in OS X Mail App? Here is a fix to the issue:

1) Quit Mail.app.

2) Log into Gmail in your favorite web browser.

3) Click on the gear menu and select "Settings".

4) Click on the "Labels" tab.

5) Under "System Labels", next to "Drafts", click on "show if unread" and uncheck the "Show in IMAP' box.

Now disable "Store draft messages on the server":

6) Launch Mail.app.

7) Select Mail > Preferences...

8) Click on the "Accounts" button in the toolbar.

9) Click once on the account name and then click the "Mailbox Behaviors" tab.

10) Uncheck the "Store draft messages on the server" box.

11) Close the window and opt to save your changes when prompted.

A few other Gmail / Mavericks Mail.app discoveries:

* You must enable the "Show in IMAP" option for the "All Mail" label in Gmail if you had it disabled before. (Google this tip for explanations and ramifications.)

* Mail.app now seems to automatically map the Sent, Junk, Trash and Drafts folders, i.e. you can't use this menu command anymore: Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Drafts / Sent / Junk / Trash

* I used to add the "[Gmail]" prefix under the "Advanced" tab of my mail account to eliminate it from the IMAP view, but it doesn't seem to be necessary any more, and might even have been causing some weirdness.

Thanks to this site for the advice: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5468664?start=15&tstart=0

What Is MobileSync & Why Is It Taking Up So Much Memory - Mac OS X

After running Disk Inspector I have discovered that a folder named "MobileSync" is taking up 40GB of data. This is the folder where iTunes stores backups of your mobile devices, such as iPad and iPhone. iTunes has a bad habit of keeping multiple copies and you need to clean out the old backups. This can be done in iTunes under iTunes >> Preferences >> Devices. Then Delete the old backups.

Find The Library Folder in Mac OS X Mountain Lion

Have files that are using up all of your had drive on your Mac? Check the Library Folder for large files. In my case the Library Folder consumed over 80GB of HDD space. To view the folder - from a Finder window choose View >> Show View Options. Then looks down towards the bottom of the dialogue box and check the Show Library Folder box.