Massive amount of Storage Space being used up - help!

[DesignBloke]

Help! I am having major issues with my MacBook Pro and what look to me like cache files taking up huge amounts of space. This has only been an issue for the last week or so.

I've cleared out what I thought was the usual culprit in Microsoft Outlook Archive but it's made no difference.

My documents folder uses 240GB of data, but only shows as 30GB on the storage calculator in About this Mac.

When I click to Manage the storage on Macintosh HD, documents show as Zero KB in the list on the left hand side.

So, the only thing it looks like it can be is cache, but I can't work out what I can delete safely, or even how to do it.

Anyone any ideas?

All of my work files are backed up in timemachine, and on two separate external drives.

My Mac is plugged in, but today has been draining battery.

 

[Ray2]

If you are using TimeMachine, it’s the snapshots. If you are backing up externals in TM you have a full copy of those on your internal thanks to the dumbest implementation of a backup regime implemented by who knows best, for the dumbest of users.

They are supposed to be cleaned out, I believe monthly. I have a series of them, 2 over a year old, so much for that working correctly, let alone the entire concept. The never ending move to APFS. Another example of why Apple should consider hiring some technical strength instead of more and more marketing types.

It shows up in Disk Utility, at the bottom of the page, start at the internal volume and keep going down (containers) and the details will show up at one of those levels. Forget which, I’m not around a “modern” Mac.

 

[DesignBloke]

Solved! It turns out it was actually After Effects Cache from 2 years of occasional animating of logos etc. Shambles of a system. i've regained 500GB!