Q: 147 GB being taking up by "Other" on macbook air?!
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Aug 2, 2016 9:30 PMby Kappy,What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It?- Apple Support Communities
Please ignore the About This Mac storage display as it is not reliable, and the categories are mostly of little use. Other is just a category for whatever can't be put in one of the other existing categories. Furthermore, the reliability is entirely dependent upon how recently the Spotlight index has been rebuilt: Spotlight- How to re-index folders or volumes - Apple Support.
How to Free Up Space on The Hard Drive
- You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
- Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
- Also, see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
- See Where did my Disk Space go?.
- Be sure to Empty the Trash to recover the space.
- Replace the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
- Use OmniDiskSweeper or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.
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Aug 2, 2016 10:23 PMby Hannah 0,I wen't and deleted some things from /Volume and now the chart looks totally different. Other is taking up way more room, but Movies is now taking up just a small portion. I bought my computer with at least 100 GB in "Other" so I am wondering if something is wrong with it.
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Aug 2, 2016 10:36 PMby Kappy,The only thing wrong is whatever you are doing. You are deleting files with knowing what you are doing or why. I can tell you did not read what I provided in my previous post.
Do you know if you can boot the computer? Did you allow the Spotlight index to rebuild before looking at the storage picture in About This Mac? I mentioned that until that was done the information was unreliable. There is no use for that information except to confuse you.
I don't know what is on your computer, so I can't help you much. But I have given you some information from which you can learn what to do. Or, take it to your local Apple dealer and pay them to sort it out for you.
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Aug 2, 2016 11:07 PMby Hannah 0,Yes I did rebuild the spotlight, and I read the articles you provided. I also read other articles and I did not mean to reply to you, I just meant to add another comment to this post. Do you possibly know where I can see reliable storage information on my Mac. I am sorry if I frustrated you. Thank you for your help, and I may contact my Apple Dealer.
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Aug 3, 2016 1:23 PMby Kappy,Select the Desktop drive icon. Press Command-I to open the Get Info window. In the top panel, you will see drive information reported: Capacity, Used, and Available. That information is reliable and not determined by Spotlight indexing. If you wish to find what is on the drive: Use OmniDiskSweeper or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.
Is your computer still re-bootable? When you re-indexed did you wait until that process was completed before using About This Mac again? It could take several hours before re-indexing is completed given how much data are on the drive.
I'm not frustrated by you, I just don't know how to help you more.
