Brand New MacBook Pro M1 uses 17 GB "Other Storage" - Big Sur

The About This Mac> Storage section is known for being incorrect, sometimes this can be

remedied by rebuilding the Spotlight index.

Open System Preferences> Spotlight> Privacy, drag the icon of the Macintosh HD into the Privacy panel.

Quit System Preferences and open it again now highlight the Macintosh HD icon and click the minus button.

This will force Spotlight into reindexing, to check click on Spotlight in the menubar and type in a word

if Spotlight is reindexing then you will see a progress bar.

Omnidisksweeper gives an accurate account of your macs storage.

See used and available storage space on your Mac

Excerpt from above link

• Other: Contains files that don’t fall into the categories listed here. This category primarily includes files and data used by the system, such as log files, caches, VM files, and other runtime system resources. Also included are temporary files, fonts, app support files, and plug-ins. You can't manage the contents of this category. The contents are managed by macOS, and the category varies in size depending on the current state of your Mac.

What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how can I clean it out?

How to free up storage space on your Mac

If the Internal Drive is, am guessing here, 256 GB in size, need to inventory what data under your direct control is kept o the drive. Meaning, Photo, Music, Podcasts, Videos, iPhone Backups etc and get an external drive and move unneeded things off the drive to the external. A cautionary note - for the OS to function properly, you need to keep at least 15 GB of Empty Space available at all times. Less than that and the computer will struggle all the time. Also, letting the drive reach the " Warning the Drive is full " pop-up message from the OS - there is the real chance the computer will stop Booting at All.

Mine says it is using 199GB of "other" storage space - we really can't clear any of that up? That is practically my whole storage. Any thoughts on what I should do?