Cannot Use 150 gb on my MacBook pro. Its labelled as "other" in storage in "About this Mac".

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AlanMac1 Author

Level 1

12 points

Cannot Use 150 gb on my MacBook pro. Its labelled as "other" in storage in "About this Mac".

Hello.

I have a MacBook Pro 15 inch from 2018, and it seems to have a lot less memory than what I purchased.

It is a 500 Gb model, but I seem to only have access to 310 Gb.

While checking in the storage section in "About This Mac"... 141 Gb is greyed out and labelled as "other".

I found this out this weekend, to my surprise that I ran out of disk space, and tried everything to delete old work / remove unused dropbox files and folders, but still this mysterious 140 Gb of "other" data still stayed the same.

I did some "Googling", but with no resolve;

I used a disk expert analyzer to try and access "other" data.. but I simply could not access nor delete it, it described the "other" data as inaccessible disk space, and for some reason it is 155 Gb that is inaccessible, rather than 140 Gb as described in the "About this Mac" section ?

I also downloaded Omni Disk Sweeper, but this application only seemed to think my Macintosh HD drive is 311 Gb large.. so obviously wasn't recognizing this mysterious "other" data.

How do I access / delete this "other" space so that I can use it for meaningful usage ?

Kind Regards, and many thanks to whoever is out there :)

Alan.

MacBook Pro 15”, macOS 10.15

Posted on Feb 3, 2020 1:11 PM

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Answer 1

Teddy_B

Community Specialist

Feb 6, 2020 7:45 AM in response to AlanMac1

Hello AlanMac1,

If I'm understanding you right, you're seeing a large amount of storage on your Mac being taken up by a category labeled "Other", and have been unable to sort out what is causing it. I know how important it is to get the most out of the storage space you have on your Mac. I'm happy to help you out with this.

"Other" can consist of various files and downloads and basically is all other data on your Mac that didn't fall into any of the other categories. As far as decreasing that category, I recommend first making sure your Mac is running the most recent version of the macOS version you use: How to update the software on your Mac. Keeping your Mac updated will help ensure it runs as smoothly as possible and can help resolve disk space issues as well.

Next, take a look at this support article: How to free up storage space on your Mac. There you will find some great information and guidance on freeing up space. Also, if you take a look at the following support article, you can see some information about viewing storage on your Mac and what is included with each storage category: See used and available storage space on your Mac.

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.

Take care.

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Answer 2

Feb 6, 2020 7:56 AM in response to AlanMac1

From the terminal.app you can

File size, and missing GB— list the items in the home folder with the sizes, including invisible items.

sudo du -h -d 1 ~/

File size, and missing GB —will list the items in root with the sizes, including invisible items.

sudo du -h -d 1 /

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Cannot Use 150 gb on my MacBook pro. Its labelled as "other" in storage in "About this Mac".

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