"Other" items filling umps internal SSD

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Level 1

9 points

"Other" items filling umps internal SSD

My 2018 Mac Mini running 10.15.2 has a APFS formatted 250GB internal SSD. Using both the Finder and "About This Mac" I have just found out that it has only 3.22GB of free space. 170GB of the used space is by something called "Other" "Other" seems to be a form of Dark matter it occupies space but cannot be seen. I could just reformat and install from a backup, but this seems almost prehistoric. Does anyone have a better solution?

Thanks

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Jan 28, 2020 7:37 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 28, 2020 8:12 PM in response to cooked_mini

Hello, cooked_mini.

Sorry to know you're having this issue with your Mac.

It is not uncommon for a drive to have issue similar to this so we can probably help.

Before doing anything prehistoric, please try this: reboot your machine in safe mode and let the OS run its cache purging and system housekeeping routines. It may be helpful – or not – but it's worth a try to start. It may take 10-15 minutes to boot into safe mode, so please be patient. Here's a link to a support doc regarding safe mode:

Use Safe Mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

If this doesn't seem to help resolve the issue, come back to the thread and let us know. There is lots of smart peoples here with gud idears. 😉

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Answer 2

cooked_mini Author

Level 1

9 points

Jan 29, 2020 2:59 PM in response to D.I. Johnson

Well I ran out of application memory (I guess no room for the swap file) so I had to reboot. This reclaimed some space but not all so I reformatted the drive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Answer 3

Jan 29, 2020 9:24 PM in response to cooked_mini

Well, that's one way to get your drive space back. 😄

I hope all goes well with your restore, if that's where you're headed.

Drop back in here if your run into problems.

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"Other" items filling umps internal SSD

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