Huge Amount of Storage Showing by Other Users!

Hi there

Please try this

The "Other Users" category in macOS Monterey storage is often a mislabeled catch-all for hidden system caches, data shared across the entire computer, or Time Machine local snapshots. You are on the right track—this issue is rarely caused by actual stealth user accounts. Instead, when the system can't confidently categorize data to your main profile, it lumps it into "Other Users & Shared". 

Your instinct about the Time Capsule or Time Machine is highly accurate. Even if your external backup drive is disconnected or defunct, macOS continuously saves temporary backup points called local snapshotsdirectly onto your iMac's internal drive. If you recently deleted a massive amount of files or if backups were interrupted, these hidden snapshots hold onto that data so you can "undo" changes, resulting in hundreds of gigabytes of locked storage.

Follow these sequential procedures to uncover where the storage is hiding and reclaim it safely:

Phase 1: Clear Hidden Time Machine Local Snapshots

Turning off automatic backups is the easiest way to force macOS to instantly delete these local snapshots. 

1. Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner and open  (System Preferences > Time Machine). 
2. Deselect "Back Up Automatically" (or toggle the switch to Off).
3. Leave your Mac completely alone for 5 to 10 minutes. During this idle time, macOS will automatically clean out and purge the old local snapshots. 
4. Return to your storage menu to see if the "Other Users" figure has dramatically dropped. If you still want to use Time Machine going forward, you can turn the automatic checkbox back on. 

KnitNannyRuth wrote:

I am in the process of ordering a new Mac Mini6. I wanted to understand what my present Storage use was on my iMac. I looked and it shows 376.64GB of Other User storage.

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/b201bad8-81a1-48b0-beef-3fd75c507593

You may be getting low on Free storage space. Your screenshot is showing 123GB "Available" so there is a good chance your actual Free space could be even less. Ignore the very misleading "Available" storage value shown everywhere in macOS since it is not synonymous with Free. In fact, the only accurate & most important storage value is the Free space value which unfortunately is only shown in Disk Utility.

Ideally people should keep at 20% of Free space at all times. Once people get below 80GB of Free space that space can disappear very quickly with seemingly simple & light workloads.

From what we've been seeing with the release of macOS 27 Golden Gate, the system may actually end up requiring even more storage space due to Apple Intelligence which cannot be disabled and currently with no method of managing storage related to Apple Intelligence. Perhaps the issues we are seeing at this time are due to people upgrading their current systems to Golden Gate. Many people are seeing macOS report about 40GB on average associated with Apple Intelligence. So based on everything I've mentioned here regarding your storage, you may need to invest in a 2TB internal SSD or figure out a way to relocate some of your larger files to external media.