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User profile for user: MacProInProgress
MacProInProgress Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

"Other" Storage in Mac OS Big Sur: Can I delete Application Support files?

Dear all,


Main Problem:

I have been dealing with the well-known "other" storage problem, a mac that overheats quickly for seemingly no reason and some other trouble (won't connect to wifi unless I deconnect the external monitor and turn of bluetooth and tons of issues with the Mail-app [although this might be connected more to the mail servers I'm using not playing nice with apple...]).


Context:

Hardware: MacBookPro14,1 - Dual-Core Intel Core i5 - 2.3 GHz - L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB - L3 Cache: 4 MB- Memory: 16 GB

Software: Mac OS BigSur 11.4


I bought this mac in March 2019 and did not have the other storage problem until I installed BigSur. To install it, however, I had to make space and went through all the classic steps, such as deleting trash bins, caches the downloads folder and what not. I did also use CleanMyMac at some point (which seems to be a point where opinion divides, according to my research).

Anyway, after I did the backups, made the space and so on (took me a day as I'm such a newb) and then installed BigSur I found myself with the "Other Storage" - and lots of it (82GB to be exact). Since yesterday I went through all sorts of steps again and I am now down to 66 GB. In that process I read about Google Chrome being an issue (kernel task and subtasks are taking up a lot of my CPU% which led me to an entry saying that might be due to Chrome) and so I deleted that too.

Right now I am going through BlazeApple 's tipp in this thread (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252063494?answerId=252063494021#252063494021) and looking for things to delete in my Library folder (inside my user folder). Which brings me to my current question:


To my current question about the Application Support files:

  1. May I delete some of the folders inside this folder:

/Users/username/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources

it contains over a dozen folders that seem to be very similar. All named something like "69C2B89C-D5AB-440B-9284-01E54B932552" and containing two folders , "images" & "metadata" and some other files.

The "Sources" folder is 53 MB and 19 of them are in that first folder. I am assuming that the others are older copies and hence I would like to delete them. Also because some of them have not been modified in a long time.

Is this ok?


2.May I delete some of the folders inside this (Firefox):

I do use Firefox. Here the big space taker is right here:

/Users/elena/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles

and the folder is called "ph7dwww6.default-release" and taking up 55mb


3.May I delete some of the folders inside this (Knowledge):

/Users/elena/Library/Application Support/Knowledge

No idea what this is supposed to be, but it's taking up 23MB with "knowledgeC.db", "knowledgeC.db-wal" and "knowledgeC.db-wal-shm". Can I delete this, too?


Outside of this the big space takers in "Library" are the following (folders):

" Group containers" 18.84 GB

"Mail" 14.78 GB

"Containers" 638.6 MB

"Metadata" 281.3 MB

"Messages" 117.7 MB

"Caches" 193.4 MB

"Safari" 80.7 MB


Is there such a happy coincidence as that there may be any known folders in there that I can safely delete?


Thank you very much for any help and my apologies if this question was not asked in an efficient way (it's my first). I would be happy to share a "etre report" if that helps (tbh, i'll find out how to do it and then do it), as this seems to be something that a lot of people do :)


I speak German (native), Italian (fluent) and Portuguese (fluent) and I work with wine. Hence I'd be happy to repay your kindness in any of those areas if any apply.


Have a great day!



Posted on Jul 20, 2021 4:08 AM

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User profile for user: PRP_53
PRP_53
User level: Level 10
91,723 points

Posted on Jul 20, 2021 4:21 AM

Immediately declare " Opinion Divide " regarding " CleanMyMac " Any Third Party Applications that will interfere with the normal operation of the OS, alter, modify, remove or delete or attempt to do so is an invitation for disaster and may require a Reinstallation of the OS.


Although it ( CMM ) may be offered on the Apple Apps Store due diligence on the after affects of using this application is proven time and time again to be an invitation for disaster.


Should CMM still be installed IMHO - strongly suggest doing at Time Machine Backup now. The perform a Clean Installation of Big Sur and only migrate User Account and nothing else. Yes, will have to reinstall all applications and setup as new. But stay away from this insidious and invasive application.


  • See used and available storage space on your Mac and the Final Word on the " Other Storage " management from Apple 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.



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User profile for user: PRP_53
PRP_53
User level: Level 10
91,723 points

Jul 20, 2021 4:21 AM in response to MacProInProgress

Immediately declare " Opinion Divide " regarding " CleanMyMac " Any Third Party Applications that will interfere with the normal operation of the OS, alter, modify, remove or delete or attempt to do so is an invitation for disaster and may require a Reinstallation of the OS.


Although it ( CMM ) may be offered on the Apple Apps Store due diligence on the after affects of using this application is proven time and time again to be an invitation for disaster.


Should CMM still be installed IMHO - strongly suggest doing at Time Machine Backup now. The perform a Clean Installation of Big Sur and only migrate User Account and nothing else. Yes, will have to reinstall all applications and setup as new. But stay away from this insidious and invasive application.


  • See used and available storage space on your Mac and the Final Word on the " Other Storage " management from Apple 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.



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User profile for user: etresoft
etresoft
User level: Level 9
50,974 points

Jul 20, 2021 4:32 AM in response to MacProInProgress

To answer your questions..

No.

No.

And no.


Also, you have neglected the one, absolutely critical piece of information. How big is your hard drive?


You mentioned EtreCheck. Maybe go to the Tools menu in EtreCheck and use the Storage tool. That will tell you where your storage is being used. It will show you in grey those folders where you should stay out of, like those that you mentioned. It will also show you how much “unknown” storage you have and will help you delete any local snapshots to try to reduce that. However, deleting local snapshots is only a short term fix. You need to free up more storage and/or get an external hard drive to archive those files that you don’t need to have always available. You may be able to use iCloud Drive to do this too.

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User profile for user: Barney-15E
Barney-15E
User level: Level 10
116,710 points

Jul 20, 2021 5:05 AM in response to MacProInProgress

  1. Folders in Sources in AddtessBook are individual accounts in Contacts (or should be). Images are the contact photos and metadata are the raw contacts cards in XML format. Why you have dozens of accounts I don't know.
  2. No idea. I don’t use it.
  3. Here is some info on what is in that database: http://www.mac4n6.com/blog/2018/8/5/knowledge-is-power-using-the-knowledgecdb-database-on-macos-and-ios-to-determine-precise-user-and-application-usage

Containers are the app sandboxes. Depending on what you used to determine the used space, it may not be accurate. The containers have symlinks to many of the same locations on disk, such as the Library. Whatever you are using to calculate the storage taken may be adding up each copy of the symlinked folders. I don't know if even the Finder does it correctly. A Group Container that large seems excessive to me, but it would depend on what apps you use and how much information the app stores in its container. But, again, whatever is telling you that it is that large may not be correct.


Mail would be dependent on how much email you have, especially those messages with attachments. All of your email is stored in that folder.

You should not mess around with the data in the Libraries. It is possible that it could have some orphaned storage, but not likely.


Looking for large chunks of storage I find easier with GrandPerspective since it displays the storage as graphical blobs.

You need to be looking for your data and move (archive) it somewhere else--don't forget to back that up.

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User profile for user: MacProInProgress
MacProInProgress Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Jul 21, 2021 4:48 AM in response to etresoft

Dear etresoft,


thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions.


My harddrive is 250MB. It is not that I need more space, but just that this large portion of other storage appeared very suddenly and out of nowhere and it seems my mac is just not running smoothly.


I will check out the EtreCheck now, but after that I will just go for the reset at this point...


Thank you and have a great day

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"Other" Storage in Mac OS Big Sur: Can I delete Application Support files?

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