what is classed as 'other' on lion about this mac storage?

Documents, system files, .zip and .rar files, swap space - basically, anything that doesn't fall into any of the named categories.

In my view, this way of presenting hard disk usage isn't very good for a desktop. It's based on the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch approach, where video.audio/phto content is primary. But a desktop user might well be using a mich greater variety fo file types.

67GB here 😟

I've got about 140GB

I'm interested in the second part of his question: Any help so i can clear it out would be great!

When I look through my documents, everything looks so small in size, and I try to move large files to an external drive on a regular basis, but it seems like there's no room for anything relevant to me on my Mac. Is it my massive amounts of Mail? That doesn't seem right, because... well, it just doesn't; I don't have 100,000 emails.

I am keen to get the "other" portion of my drive cleaned out. 33GB of my computer is audio, video, apps and photos, but 77GB of my computer is "other!" I purchased the 128GB SSD with my 2011 MBP.

I get nervous because I begin throwing out bath water to keep my machine from freezing up and I've accidentally thrown out a baby or two when doing that. I use Clean My Mac to get rid of fluff that way, and an external drive to put non-essential media... what else is there? I want it gone! I want free space and headroom on my machine. 😝

Also, this MBP was migrated to from a 7 year old PowerBook G4... have I been accumulating "other" stuff all this time?

Thanks!

To update the thread: I have gone through the "all my files" section of my laptop, and thrown away as much as I reasonably can (keeping docs onboard that I might need when my external HD isn't connected), and that has resulted in about a 15GB savings, but there is still 75GB in the "other" category, i.e. I have only reclaimed a couple of GB during this process. So, I am still left wondering what all this "other" stuff is? It's looking like I could throw away absolutely everything that I see on my machine, aside from apps and some videos and photos, and I'd still have 75GB of "other!"

Tips?! This is a time of growth in my Mac knowledge. Thanks!

I would also really appreciate some tips. Out of my 60GB of space, 40GB is taken up by other? 😟 I would love any tips on how to clean some of this up. I don't understand how it got to be like that seeing as how I just got this computer and have only just started using it.

Thank you!

To see what's taking up space, see: WhatSize or OmniDiskSweeper

Keep an eye out for large log files (there have been reports of run-away adobe log files)

Thanks very much for the tip! I will go hunting 🙂

Just don't delete anything unless you're sure (...otherwise ask us here).

Did you ever solve this? I have 75GB of my 128GB hard drive taken up by "other". I noticed the problem when syncing my iPhone as iTunes gave me a warning that I was out of HD space. There is no way that I have 75GB of .zip, .doc, or such files on my hd.

Any idea what the "other" files are and how to get rid of them?

mcgillionaire wrote:

I have 75GB of my 128GB hard drive taken up by "other". There is no way that I have 75GB of .zip, .doc, or such files on my hd.

Any idea what the "other" files are and how to get rid of them?

To see what's taking up space, see: WhatSize or OmniDiskSweeper

Keep an eye out for large log files (there have been reports of run-away adobe log files)

The OmniDisk Sweeper helped A TON! Thanks Tony!

Thank you Tony. I read your reply and downloaded OmniDiskSweeper. I managed to reduce my "other" by three quarters.

As per Tony's suggestion, I ran the Omnidisk and found that 150GB of my hard drive was being used by Mail. Looks like I'll be cleaning out my mail box. Thanks Tony and all.