I have a MacBook Pro and my storage is running perilously low. I notice that "Other Users and Shared" is hogging 117GB of data space. The irony is that there are no shared groups in my machine (please see attached image). How do I delete files from "Other Users and Shared"? Please help.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.2
“System Data” (or “Other”) storage is an amalgam of files that don’t easily fall into the defined categories of “Audio" “Movies” “Photos” “Apps” and “Backups”.
You can’t directly manage the contents of this category. That is done by macOS. The category varies in size depending on the current state of your Mac.
What you can do…
• Empty the Trash in the Dock.
• Empty the trash in the Photos app.
• Delete unused and unneeded application installers from your downloads folder and desktop.
• Reboot your Mac at least weekly.
• Transfer files that you don’t use daily to an external drive and then delete them from the startup drive and empty the trash. Files that take up the most room are movies, images and music.
• Force Time Machine to delete local snapshots:
About Time Machine local snapshots - Apple Support
• Use Disk Utility to delete APFS snapshots:
View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support
This from Apple on the subject of storage management
Free up storage space on Mac - Apple Support
The very bottom line is that you have to care and be diligent about what you download, save and keep on your computer.
“System Data” (or “Other”) storage is an amalgam of files that don’t easily fall into the defined categories of “Audio" “Movies” “Photos” “Apps” and “Backups”.
You can’t directly manage the contents of this category. That is done by macOS. The category varies in size depending on the current state of your Mac.
What you can do…
• Empty the Trash in the Dock.
• Empty the trash in the Photos app.
• Delete unused and unneeded application installers from your downloads folder and desktop.
• Reboot your Mac at least weekly.
• Transfer files that you don’t use daily to an external drive and then delete them from the startup drive and empty the trash. Files that take up the most room are movies, images and music.
• Force Time Machine to delete local snapshots:
About Time Machine local snapshots - Apple Support
• Use Disk Utility to delete APFS snapshots:
View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support
This from Apple on the subject of storage management
Free up storage space on Mac - Apple Support
The very bottom line is that you have to care and be diligent about what you download, save and keep on your computer.
Have you looked in the /Users/Shared folder?
Be active when it comes to file storage and management.
Also this: Ways to organize files on your Mac desktop - Apple Support
How do I delete Files from "other users and shared" storage on MacBook Pro
