Get rid of "other"

[xchellz]

Hi everyone! So I am trying to update my OS to El Capitan and I was told I don't have enough space. I go to look at my storage and see this:

First off, I hate that the newer models had a lower amount of storage but secondly, what is all of this other?! It really bothers me that it takes up majority of my space. How can I find a safe way to get rid of a lot of it?

TIA

 

[Shirasaki]

If you are sure your file on Mac is not that much, then you can boot to recovery partition and perform a first aid of your Mac partition. I have seen this before, too. And I fix this through disk checking.
BTW, I envy your 256GB flash storage. I only have half of yours!

 

[fisherking]

what about storing some files on an external drive? for example, you've got almost 68gigs of movies... do they all have to be on the drive at all times? easier to sort thru the larger files (ie movies), than to start looking for lots of smaller files to delete... just a suggestion.

if you've got an sd card slot, you can do what i did: get a card holder (on amazon, for example) that sits flush with your mac, and a micro-sd card (up to 200gb!; i have the 128gb one), and keep your movies stored on that.

for example: http://smile.amazon.com/BASEQI-alum...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s03

and

http://smile.amazon.com/SanDisk-mic...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00

 

[Weaselboy]

Hi everyone! So I am trying to update my OS to El Capitan and I was told I don't have enough space. I go to look at my storage and see this:

First off, I hate that the newer models had a lower amount of storage but secondly, what is all of this other?! It really bothers me that it takes up majority of my space. How can I find a safe way to get rid of a lot of it?

TIA

Other is everything that does not fall into one of the remaining categories. The thing is that storage graphic is completely wrong most of the time, particularly under Yosemite and El Capitan. That readout gets its data from the Spotlight index and that index gets corrupted over time and causes this issue. You can reindex Spotlight by running the command below in Terminal and it will be more accurate for a while, but you can count on it drifting off again. Give the reindex a half hour or so to complete.

sudo mdutil -E /

Also, it looks like you have Time Machine turned on and that uses some space in a hidden folder for what are called local snapshots.

Run this command in Terminal to show space used by each of the base folders, including hidden and system folders. You can post up the results here for us to take a look. Give the command a minute or so to complete.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

 

[NoBoMac]

Download and run a disk analysis progam, to show you where the heavy hitters are.

For example, I use the following. Others have been mentioned on other threads on the board:

https://www.omnigroup.com/download/latest/OmniDiskSweeper

 

[Gregg2]

Don't delete anything unless you are absolutely sure you know what it is and absolutely sure you know what it does, and absolutely sure you don't need it. You've been warned!

 

[xchellz]

If you are sure your file on Mac is not that much, then you can boot to recovery partition and perform a first aid of your Mac partition. I have seen this before, too. And I fix this through disk checking.
BTW, I envy your 256GB flash storage. I only have half of yours!

How would i go about doing that?

 

[Weaselboy]

How would i go about doing that?

What he is referring the is rebooting while holding the command and R keys at the same time. That will boot to a recovery utility. Once there launch Disk Utility and select your internal drive then click he First Aid button in the toolbar. That will check your disk for errors. Once that is complete, reboot and see if there is any change.

Disk corruption can cause this and that is what Shirasaki is getting at. IMO it is more likely the issue I described, but doing a disk first aid can't hurt anything and is worth a try.