OSX Lion: Backups/Other Disk Space

I'm having this same problem. "About This Mac | Storage" is showing that I have 49.31 GB in the "Other" category. I have no idea what is taking up this much space, but I do know that this amount of data keeps getting larger. I've lost approximately 10 GB since installing Lion on the release date.

Same thing here. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the new mobile backup feature introduced in Lion. Those are stored in /Volumes/MobileBackups and have the same structure as TM backups.Not much help when they block the disk. Does anyone know how to turn this feature off?

Jan-Kaspar Münnich found a solution. See http://www.jan-muennich.de/lion-mobile-backup-lokale-time-machine-abschalten

For those not speaking german. The solution is to turn off the mobile backup feature by executing the following command in the terminal:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

Or you can go into TM and just switch it to Off and restart.

I've already tried that with no success. I reinstalled Lion, so far so good. I'll update if I continue to lose disk space.

I personally haven't been able to confirm if the three suggestions below actually does anything to stop the free space from filling up because I personally don't have this issue with TM turned off, but I guess it is worth a shot:

System Preferences > TimeMachine > Options > Change Lock documents to 1 day

OR

System Preferences > General > Number of recent items > Change Applications, Documents, & Servers to None

OR

Open Terminal and type: sudo tmutil disablelocal

I have the exact same problem on my new Air (Lion). I have been able to recover some data space by turning off Time Machine but I was not able to get rid of the "other" section which takes almost 1/3rd of my storage. I have no idea what all of this space is used for - especially given the fact that my computer is only 10 days old and that I have not downloaded any heavy application (except for MS office). I suspect it has something to do with Lion duplicating files but I don't know what to do about it. I have tried the suggestions listed above but it didn't work for me 😟 ...

Help anyone?

I had exactly the same issue...

tried all three options above but did not work.

I ended up switching off TM and rebooted.

My "backup" component went from a whopping 218.11Gig back to zero. (I've had my machine for 3 days!!!)

The "other" I suspect is all the documents etc. (I have a couple of VMware virtual machines) held in the documents folder taking up about 150Gig and my other is approximately 160Gid

I reckon Lion must cache the Time machine data locally before flushing to external time machine disk hence why its becomes zero after the TM is turned off.

My "Other" component did not increase once the TM was turned off.

I do need TM running so I guess I might have to just live with the extra disk being used.

Interesting though.. when you check the disk info of Mac HD, the "Backup component" did not seem to be part of the disk utilization, OMNIdisksweeper did not pick it up either...

Hope that Helps

You don't mention if you are using a mobile computer.

If so, those are local snapshots.

If you have TM on, but no backup drive connected, it will make local snapshots until you connect the TM drive back up.

From the picture you posted, when you turned TM off, the local snapshots went away and you picked up about 39GB of free space. They weren't combined with Other.

Thank you for your quick answers guys! Turning off TM does free the "backup" section so no problem with that. However, my main concern has to do with the "other" section which takes a little bit under 1/3rd of my space and does not disappear even after a reboot. In my case, I just don't see what all this data is used for!!!

I am using a 10 days old new macbook air (2011) with Lion.

Having the same problem. Am even more concerned now that I turned on Time Machine again and the "Other" space did not remerge with the "Backups" space, so now I have a growing "Backups" space while my "Other" remains exactly the same--27+GB of unknown, undeleteable data.

Help please?

merouan wrote:

However, my main concern has to do with the "other" section which takes a little bit under 1/3rd of my space and does not disappear even after a reboot. In my case, I just don't see what all this data is used for!!!

Other is everything that is not Audio, Movies, Photos, Apps, or Backups. That leaves system files, documents, support files, databases, preferences, etc.

mikeyllorin wrote:

my "Other" remains exactly the same--27+GB of unknown, undeleteable data.

Help please?

Why do you want to delete the system files, your documents, application support files, etc?

Barney-15E wrote:

. . .

If you have TM on, but no backup drive connected, it will make local snapshots until you connect the TM drive back up.

Time Machine doesn't stop making Local snapshots when your TM drive is connected; they continue. See #30 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

skitzogreg wrote:

After installing Lion, my disk space dropped to a new low. After pulling the hard drive "inventory" report, I noticed that I had a substantial "other" category

Take those categories with a very large grain of salt. First, they come from the Spotlight index, so if it's not up to date, that display won't be, either.

Second, what categories things get put in is, well, a bit unpredictable. Apps in /Applications will show up in Applications (along with many things deep in OSX, apparently), and sometimes when you delete an app and you have Local snapshots, it will appear in Backups, sometimes Other.