'Other' storage on iMac?

[shaunbowers]

So I've had Yosemite for a while now (including the developer version) and I just realised that 'Other' is taking up 300gb of my hard drive (1 TB). I have checked Time Machine which is off, deleted some files but seems to not shrink. Tried googling but most suggestions are just 'Cleaners' which just remove internet data (already done that).

I'm just wondering what it is? And can it be cleared?

Would love to have an extra 300GB

 

[X-X]

It's the system itself + any files that OS X doesn't recognise, like DMG, weird video formats and stuff like that.

300 GB is perfectly normal.

 

[Weaselboy]

So I've had Yosemite for a while now (including the developer version) and I just realised that 'Other' is taking up 300gb of my hard drive (1 TB). I have checked Time Machine which is off, deleted some files but seems to not shrink. Tried googling but most suggestions are just 'Cleaners' which just remove internet data (already done that).

I'm just wondering what it is? And can it be cleared?

Would love to have an extra 300GB

Other is everything that does not fall under one of the remaining listed categories in that graphic. 300GB does sound high. Mine is around 20GB.

I know some of the earlier Yosemite versions had troubles with that graphic showing incorrect data and a Spotlight reindex fixed it.

Try running the command below in Terminal and wait for Spotlight to complete a reindex then take a look at the graphic again to see if that fixed it.

sudo mdutil -E /

That graphic gets its data from Spotlight and if the index is corrupted the numbers will be off.

 

[shaunbowers]

Other is everything that does not fall under one of the remaining listed categories in that graphic. 300GB does sound high. Mine is around 20GB.

I know some of the earlier Yosemite versions had troubles with that graphic showing incorrect data and a Spotlight reindex fixed it.

Try running the command below in Terminal and wait for Spotlight to complete a reindex then take a look at the graphic again to see if that fixed it.

sudo mdutil -E /

That graphic gets its data from Spotlight and if the index is corrupted the numbers will be off.

I just did that and now it's made it worse, my whole thing is Blue (Other now) at 530.8GB! And all my photos, movies etc are now only like 20MB

 

[shaunbowers]

Other is everything that does not fall under one of the remaining listed categories in that graphic. 300GB does sound high. Mine is around 20GB.

I know some of the earlier Yosemite versions had troubles with that graphic showing incorrect data and a Spotlight reindex fixed it.

Try running the command below in Terminal and wait for Spotlight to complete a reindex then take a look at the graphic again to see if that fixed it.

sudo mdutil -E /

That graphic gets its data from Spotlight and if the index is corrupted the numbers will be off.

It's still indexing, will let you know what it comes out as. Right now its still all blue