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Other storage (mac doing sneaky stuff)

So other storage is taking up 19gb. the biggest is "movies" with 26gb. I move the movies folder to my iCloud Drive (2tb) so I can remove some of the files I don't need, and MAGICALLY other storage becomes nothing in "about this Mac." since It duplicates, I delete the duplicates I don't need, in iCloud Drive and Movies. other storage is still gone. but when I empty the trash, it comes back!!!!! at the same 19 gb. if I move these files to an external drive, "other" still stays.

How do I fix this?????

2019 MacBook Air

128GB SSD

iCloud Drive 2 Terabytes (shared with family, about 1.5TB available)

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Dec 8, 2020 9:28 AM

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

210,913 points

Posted on Dec 8, 2020 2:53 PM

The Other category is a potpourri of files which can include:

• System temporary files

• macOS system folders

• Archives and disk images (.zip, .iso, etc. - often found in the Downloads folder)

• Personal user data

• Files from the user’s library (Application Support, iCloud files, screensavers, etc.)

• Cache files: browser, Mail

• Mail messages & attachments

• Fonts, plugins, extensions

• Safari reading list

• iTunes backups

• Crud resulting from jailbreaking your iDevice

• Game data

• Saved data files

• Call history

• Notes

• Media

• Voice memos

• Other files that are not recognized by a Spotlight search

• Media files that cannot be classified by Spotlight as a media file because they are located inside of a package

They can be located anywhere on your hard drive. The files that you have control over are located in the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Movies folders. You can use either of these two free apps, GrandPerspective or OmniDiscSweeper, to find the largest files on your drive so you can determine if they can be deleted or moved to an external HD for storage.

Note: you can empty the Downloads folder after the apps and/or updates that were downloaded have been installed or applied. Many users have found a couple of Gigabytes of files in their Downloads folder which are no longer needed.

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Other storage (mac doing sneaky stuff)

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