I have a 500 gig hard drive. The folders I have created contain 180 gig. My application takes up another 40 gig. Other than the system, what would be using the rest of the over 250 GB of memory? This is a screenshot of my Disk Utility. It's not showing any sort of breakdown of where the memories being used.
Thanks,
Pat
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)
So I also noticed that I had 40 gigs of storage taken up by podcasts. I didn't realize the computer was storing any podcasts, since I only listen to them on my phone and not on the computer. I went in and deleted hundreds of podcasts episodes, but it still showed 40 gigs of space taken up by podcasts. I then deleted the trash for the second time today. When I did that the system storage went down to almost nothing. Apparently, the "system storage" must've been all those podcast that I did not know I had stored on the computer. I now have over a hundred gigs of space on my computer.
I have to pay attention to how many podcasts are being stored on my computer. Hopefully there's a way to only download them to my phone and not to the computer.
So I also noticed that I had 40 gigs of storage taken up by podcasts. I didn't realize the computer was storing any podcasts, since I only listen to them on my phone and not on the computer. I went in and deleted hundreds of podcasts episodes, but it still showed 40 gigs of space taken up by podcasts. I then deleted the trash for the second time today. When I did that the system storage went down to almost nothing. Apparently, the "system storage" must've been all those podcast that I did not know I had stored on the computer. I now have over a hundred gigs of space on my computer.
I have to pay attention to how many podcasts are being stored on my computer. Hopefully there's a way to only download them to my phone and not to the computer.
First, I should point out that you are speaking about storage, not memory. Memory is what RAM provides. The storage is used by the Mac's operating system which and shown as The other Category. While it can be cleaned, doing do makes no significant difference. The following information may be useful to know.
The Other Category should not be altered, modified, move or deleted since it is part of the Mac’s operating system. Doing so would corrupt the OS and render the OS inoperative requiring a Wipe and Re-Installation.
The Other category is a potpourri of files which 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
• Fonts, plugins, extensions
• 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.
Also, if your OS becomes too full your computer will stop functioning. This may be a good time to seriously consider adding an external drive for storage. Then you can move files onto it and then delete them from your HD to clear needed space. Easy to do and problem solved.
several utilities are mentioned in this article, that can help you identify BIG items and think about what to do about them, none of these utilities removes ANYTHING automatically, just points out what is big.
What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how… - Apple Community
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OK, I remembered that the storage breakdown is in under "about this Mac." In there it tells me the system is using the 220 Gig. Is there nothing I can do about that? That's almost half my computer's storage space.
Thanks for the reply. I already have multiple external drives storing years of photos, movies and documents. The contents of those external drives comes from folders on my desktop that contain my working files. Those desktop folders currently use about 180 gig of storage. When those folders get too full, I transfer the data over to one of those external drives.
I also realize there's files that I can't delete that are part of the system (I referenced that in my original post). What I'm trying to figure out is why so much storage is being used by things I don't know where they are. They're not in one of the folders on my desktop.
And yes, and I'm completely aware that if my OS gets too full my computer will stop functioning. Which is part of the reason I want to clean out the storage. But as stated previously, those files are hidden. Or perhaps my computer is duplicating them without my knowledge.
Is it possible my computer is duplicating files and then storing them somewhere? If so I want to find them so I can delete them.
Thanks
I don't think the computer is unnecessarily duplicating files. We cannot control how the computer's operating system does its things. As I see it, all that can be dome is to either delete files which are no longer needed to clear space, or increase the storage space to accommodate future needs. Maybe you could replace one or the external drives with one of greater capacity.
Thank you. I will take a look at that link. I'm sure it will be helpful.
What is using my MacBook Pro's memory?
