Mellielondon

Q: My start up disc is full. How can this be? I have hardly anything on my macbook air. The storage is showing more than half the bar in blue, which is 'Other'. What is 'Other' and how can I delete some of it to make space?

My start up disc is saying it's full. How can this be? I have hardly anything on my macbook air (see attached photo). The storage is showing more than half of the bar in blue, which is 'Other'. What is 'Other' and how can I delete some files to make space? Apps, Audio, Photos, Movies and Backups is less than half the storage. Can anyone help?

 

Storage image.png

MacBook Air (11-inch Late 2010), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Sep 10, 2015 4:08 AM

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Q: My start up disc is full. How can this be? I have hardly anything on my macbook air. The storage is showing more than half the bar ... more

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  • by dominic23,

    dominic23 dominic23 Sep 10, 2015 5:19 AM in response to Mellielondon
    Level 8 (41,531 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 10, 2015 5:19 AM in response to Mellielondon

    About “Other”:

     

    http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202867

     

    Go step by step and check.

     

    1. Start up in Safe Mode.

     

        http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212

     

    2. Backup your computer.

     

     

    3. Empty Trash.

     

        Finder

     

        Click on an empty spot on the Desktop to activate Finder.

        Click “Empty Trash” to empty Trash.

     

       Mail

     

        Click Mailbox in the  in the Mail menu bar.

     

        Erase Deleted Items > In All Accounts

        Erase Junk Mail

     

       Photos

       File > Recently Deleted > Click the “Delete All” button at the top right corner

     

       iPhoto

       iPhoto > Empty iPhoto Trash

     

       https://support.apple.com/kb/PH13806?locale=en_US

     

     

     

    4. Disk space / Time Machine / Local Snapshots

      Local backups

     

       http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878

     

     

    5. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.

     

        iTunes > Preferences > Devices

        Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.

     

        http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

     

     

    6. Re-index Macintosh HD.

     

        This will take a while. Wait until it is finished.

     

        System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy

     

        http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

     

     

    7.Try OmniDiskSweeper. This will show the storage size details of the items.

     

       https://www.omnigroup.com/more

     

       Select Macintosh HD and click  “Sweep Selected Drive” at the bottom.

       Be careful. Delete only the files that can be safely  deleted. If you are not sure about any file, don’t touch it.

  • by Linc Davis,

    Linc Davis Linc Davis Sep 10, 2015 6:00 AM in response to Mellielondon
    Level 10 (207,926 points)
    Applications
    Sep 10, 2015 6:00 AM in response to Mellielondon

    For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.

    Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:

              iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash

    In Photos:

              File Show Recently Deleted Delete All

    Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then restart the computer. That will temporarily free up some space.

    According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation—not the mythical 10%, 15%, or any other percentage. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.

    When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as  Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.

    See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.

    You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.

    Deleting files inside a photo or iTunes library will corrupt the library. Changes to such a library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.

    Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.

    ODS or GP can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.

    Back up all data now.

    Install the app in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.

    Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

    For ODS:

    security execute-with-privileges /A*/OmniDiskSweeper.app/*/M*/* 2>&-

    For GP:

    security execute-with-privileges /A*/GrandPerspective.app/*/M*/* 2>&-

    Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

    ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

    ☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

    ☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

    Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. You'll be prompted for your login password.

    The application window will open behind other open windows. When you scan a volume, the window will eventually show all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.

    I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.

    When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

  • by thomasag,

    thomasag thomasag May 21, 2016 2:06 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Notebooks
    May 21, 2016 2:06 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Hi, everyone...

    This may be kind of a dumb question since these devices are soooo incredibly amazing, but, if I dont plan on spending money and time every few months 'discovering' where 59.65GB of storage space has gone on a computer that has only 60gb of space that I have no movies on, no data on, etc., should I just sell this laptop and get a $300 pc laptop for my classes? and I dont mean to be sarcastic, really, I dont, but I LITERALLY cant AFFORD to spend this much time in the middle of EVERY SEMESTER following the directions on these boards in order to extract a few GB of space, then, eventually (after several days) end up COMPLETELY REINSTALLING os10, just to start-the-heck over.

    I just dont know what to do, man, I am so incredibly ******. I have a huge, cheap dumb non-apple laptop from walmart that I dont even think I paid 200 bucks for, and Ive never had to remove HIDDEN files from it. If i could bring 900pound laptops that dont fit in my book-bag to school, then I would, at this point....every single day people complain about this issue on the forums and the same solutions come up...we do them, and the same problems persist.

    yeah, if I had money to buy more and more and more and more memory all the time, then, sure, I wouldnt have an issue, but, come on......I get the reasoning for ease of use, quick retrieval of files, blah, blah,blah....but does everyone need these features??? I need to do assignments...I need to save books on my HD, I need to take online tests and quizzes....thats about it...I dont want my youtube to be faster, I dont want my movies to stream at lightning speed in hd, I dont need my facebook to sync with my phone and my laptop, .....

    disk cleaners=band aid

    uninstall=incomplete solution, ie, a joke

    searching for duplicate 'photos'= yeah, right

    searching for duplicate movies=if you watch movies while studying, youre a 'tard

     

    BTW, I would love, love, loooove it if I was, like, some 'pornophile' who was, constantly corrupting his laptop with crappy files and spam, and whatever else....., or, like, a nuclear physicist overclocking the crap out of my computer with complex algorythms and saving and deleting them all over my HD.....or some Kim Kardashian wannabee with selfies , tweets,and justin beiber videos all over my poor macbook......I WISH one of these was the case, because at LEAST then, I could blame something for this ! Im a less than interesting dude with no life who does his homework and thats it......***

     

    AAAAAARRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    i feel a little better now