Mac volumes problem, 50GB "Other" storage

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Mac volumes problem, 50GB "Other" storage

Hello,

I have an older Mac with little storage and I was going through it trying to clear it up, when I noticed I have about 50GB of "other" storage. I think it's an issue related to the following:

Output after typing "diskutil list" in terminal:

diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk1⁩         121.0 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +121.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩                 283.0 MB   disk1s2
   2:                APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩                626.4 MB   disk1s3
   3:                APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩                      2.1 GB     disk1s4
   4:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD - Data⁩     86.9 GB    disk1s5
   5:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD⁩            22.2 GB    disk1s7
   6:              APFS Snapshot ⁨com.apple.os.update-...⁩ 22.2 GB    disk1s7s1

Does anyone know what is wrong with my computer, and could you tell me how to resolve it please?

Many thanks,

Martina

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.6

Posted on Dec 27, 2022 3:50 PM

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Answer 1

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PRP_53

Level 10

91,411 points

Dec 28, 2022 2:21 AM in response to martina-t

Firstly thank you for the " diskutil list " information

What is showing in your above is all ok and normal looking.

The Issue is the Size of your Internal Drive.

It is the smallest drive Apple offered >> 128 GB Capacity

IMHO that size drive should have never been offered as it is very difficult to do an meaningful work with that drive size.

The good start would to follow the suggestions in below links to find out what is Occupying space on this computer

That and Purchase and External Drive and move as much Music, Photos, Videos and other files that are not needed Off the Internal Drive and onto the External Drive

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

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

Free up storage space on your Mac

OmniDiskSweeper Safe to use

GrandPerspective

How to delete Time Machine snapshots on your Mac

See used and available storage space on your Mac

Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

The final word from Apple on Managing the " Other/ System Data “ Category

Other / System Data: 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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