Q: After restore from Time Machine MacBook Pro displaying all of my Photos, Documents etc as 'Other'

If you are using the display from 'About This Mac', be advised that there is a bug in the program that generates it and should not be relied upon.  Sometimes, but not always, a Spotlight reindex will correct it:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

If you want accurate information regarding data on your HDD,  download from the Internet OmniDiskSweeper and Grand Perspective (both free) and open them. They will show all of your files and the respective sizes.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

Ciao.

No. Although it's a bit worrying that Apple still hasn't found a way to make this feature more reliable.

AberUniStudent wrote:

 

I just tried the Spotlight reindex and the problem is still happening, should I be worried about this?

No.  Just understand that it is giving you incorrect information.  This is fairly common with El Capitan.

Ciao.

Did you try OmniDisk Sweeper as OGELTHORP suggested? I expect his will show you something more accurate (It could also be that that is accurate). Omnidisk will let you know that that other actually is. I use DaisyDisk which can help you explore these files better as well.

The only thing that you should keep in mind is that the information displayed is NOT accurate.  Note how small all of the categories are with the exception of OTHER.  That should be a clue that there is something wrong.  Note the display from my MBP:

It appears to be 'normal' and may very well be accurate, but since I do not use that display, it is irrelevant for me.  But note the HDD display  (COMMAND + I on the Mac icon) which shows the amount of data on the SSD and the available space, both are identical with the first display so I suspect that the first one is probably accurate:

Bottom line, just ignore the display.

Ciao.

This is a diagnostic procedure. It makes no changes and therefore will not, in itself, solve the problem.

I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. That's what I suggest you use, even if your preferred browser is something else.

The instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Step 1

Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

{ mdutil -as 2>&-; echo; mdimport -L 2>&1; echo; syslog -F \$Message -k Sender mdworker -o -k Message Rne Norm -k Sender mds -o -k Sender sandboxd -k Message Seq mdutil | tail -100 | sort | uniq | tail -50; } | pbcopy

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any one 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 the key combination command-V. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.

The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear.

The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message. 

The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.

If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.

Step 2

Launch the Console application in the same way you launched Terminal. In the Console window, look under the heading DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION on the left for crash reports related to Spotlight. If you don't see that heading, select

          View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar. A Spotlight crash report has a name beginning in "mds," "mdworker," or "mdwrite," and ending in ".crash". Select the most recent such report, if any, from the System and User subcategories and post the entire contents—the text, please, not a screenshot. In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)

Please don’t post any other kind of diagnostic report, such as hang logs—they're very long and not helpful.

When you post the results, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

If you have an account on Pastebin, please don't select Private from the Paste Exposure menu on the page, because then no one but you will be able to see it.