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Hard Disk space occupied by "Other Volumes in Container"

Others Volumes in this Containers, I have an issues with this on my MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017), the Macintosh HD has 73.4 GB used by other volumes and Macintosh HD Data is 15.44 used. I have tried some thing like rebooting in safe mode disk utilities, first aid but nothing work Please help


MacBook Air

Posted on Dec 28, 2021 11:00 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 28, 2021 11:23 AM

he 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

• Files created and modified by other user accounts on your Mac.


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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3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 28, 2021 11:23 AM in response to CMatheso

he 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

• Files created and modified by other user accounts on your Mac.


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. 


Dec 28, 2021 12:58 PM in response to CMatheso

You reinstalled the OS onto your old Data volume instead of the System volume. The old System Volume is an orphan

Use Disk Utility to remove the Macintosh HD volume that has been orphaned--it will be in the same container, but not have a little > next to it.

While there, you can select the Macintosh HD - Data volumes and Rename it--it should be the first entry under the container and has a little > to the left.


The "Other Volumes in Container" is your Data (Macintosh HD - Data), Preboot, VM, Recovery, Update. VM should be at least as large as the amount of RAM installed. The others are small.

All storage in an AFPS container is shared by the Volumes in the container.

Hard Disk space occupied by "Other Volumes in Container"

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