| Through a built-in control panel, Mac OS X provides an at-a-glance measure of how much space you've used on your iDisk and how much is available for you to store movies, pictures, Web pages, and other files. Your .Mac account comes with 250 MB of online storage space, and both your iDisk and .Mac Mail count toward that 250 MB limit. By default, this storage is divided between your iDisk and your e-mail account at 125 MB each, but you have control over how that space is allocated. If you find that either your iDisk or your e-mail account needs more space, you are free to change their storage allotments. If you're running up against the 250 MB limit, and both your iDisk and e-mail accounts are full, you have two choices: reduce the amount of data you have stored on your .Mac account, or buy more space. While conservation is laudable (even storage-space conservation), sometimes the only thing for cramped quarters is to get a bigger place. You can increase your .Mac storage space to 1 GB for $49.95 per year. To check iDisk usage 1. | From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
The System Preferences window opens.
| 2. | In the Internet & Network section, click the .Mac icon.
The .Mac preferences pane opens.
| 3. | Click the iDisk tab.
The iDisk preferences pane opens. At the top, it displays a gauge that indicates how much iDisk space you've used and how much you have available (Figure 3.55). It also attaches numbers to these figures in the form of megabytes currently used and total capacity of your iDisk.
Figure 3.55. The iDisk preferences pane is a handy way to see at a glance how much storage you've used. 
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To reallocate .Mac storage 1. | Go to www.mac.com and log in to your .Mac account (Figure 3.56).
Figure 3.56. To make changes to your iDisk allocation, you first need to log in to .Mac using a Web browser. Type your .Mac member name and password in the respective fields. 
| 2. | In the lower left corner of the page, click the Account link (Figure 3.57).
Figure 3.57. Click the Account link to access your .Mac Account Settings page. 
The Account Settings page opens (Figure 3.58).
Figure 3.58. Your main .Mac Account Settings page contains entry points to let you change personal information, credit card information, and password settings, and to manage accounts. You can also change the allocation of iDisk storage. 
| 3. | In the lower right corner, click the Storage Settings button.
The Storage Settings page opens.
| 4. | From the Manage Your Storage pop-up menu, choose a ratio for dividing your storage between Email and iDisk (Figure 3.59).
Figure 3.59. You can choose new allocation amounts by selecting from the "Please select a new level of service" pop-up menu. 
The divisions are in 10 MB increments (5 MB for e-mail and 5 MB for iDisk more for one, less for the other).
| 5. | Click Save.
Your e-mail and iDisk storage allotments automatically reflect the adjusted settings.
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Tips The Storage Settings page shows you at a glance how much mail and iDisk storage are being used. The e-mail allocation can never be smaller than 15 MB, and the iDisk allocation can never be smaller than 55 MB.
How to Choose Allocation Amounts Your .Mac account comes with 250 MB of space, which you can divide between your iDisk and your e-mail account. How should you divvy up this space? It really depends on how you use your e-mail. If you use POP as your e-mail protocol, you probably don't need a lot of storage space for e-mail, so you can set it for 15 MB or so, and see how that works. Remember, with POP, when you connect to your e-mail account, you download all of your mail to your computer, freeing up that space. If you use IMAP as your e-mail protocol, you should start with something beefier, depending on how much mail you intend to store. Try dividing it at 125 MB for e-mail and 125 MB for iDisk, and if you're bumping up against the limit in your e-mail, give it more space. If, after a month or so, you find that you're not using all of that space, you can reduce your allocation. In the end, it's not critical how you divvy up this space after all, if you run out of e-mail space or iDisk space, you can always reallocate how the space is used. And if you're really needing to stretch out, you can always purchase a full gig of storage for $49.95 per year. |
Buying More iDisk Storage So, you've outgrown the relatively generous 250 MB of online storage provided with a standard .Mac account? To add some digital room to your iDisk, you can open the .Mac pane of System Preferences, click the iDisk tab, and then click the Buy More button. This opens your Web browser, taking you through a three-step upgrade process in which you indicate that you want to buy more iDisk space, provide payment (the system remembers the credit card you used to subscribe to .Mac), and confirm your purchase. Your new iDisk space should be available within a few minutes of making the purchase. |
Keeping Your Storage Svelte If you're like most people, you have a lot of junk on your hard drive that you'd never miss if it were to disappear. The same probably goes for your iDisk. While 250 MB is a respectable amount, you can eat that up pretty quickly with movies, music, and pictures especially if your e-mail account is IMAP-based. Here are some tips for reducing your online storage usage: Reduce your mail If you're using IMAP, you can save on storage space by getting rid of unwanted messages, especially those with attachments. Compress iDisk files Use a compression utility to compress files on your iDisk. Mac OS X comes with the Zip archive ability, which is accessible by Control-clicking a file and selecting Create Archive from the contextual menu that pops up.
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