Out of my 250gb hard drive, over 200gb is taken up by "other" How can I clear up this space? I'm scared to download any third party programs.

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Out of my 250gb hard drive, over 200gb is taken up by "other" How can I clear up this space? I'm scared to download any third party programs.

Hey guys, I have a macbook from 2009 (Not the Pro or the Air, the original one that was discontinued) and I'm running out of disk space, I've moved my videos and my iTunes library over to an external hard drive, but when I look at the storage, I have over 200gb of my 250gb hard drive taken up by "other"

I looked up what this is and it appears to be things like documents and and .zip files. Now, I know I must have some of this, but certainly not 200gb. I want to clear this space, but am scared to download third party programs. Any Help?

MacBook (13-inch Late 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Feb 26, 2012 6:17 PM

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Answer 1

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shldr2thewheel

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Feb 26, 2012 6:22 PM in response to IvanMarin

IvanMarin wrote:

I want to clear this space, but am scared to download third party programs.

Don't be scared. Download OmniDiscSweeper, or WhatSize. Also, read this: http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html, http://pondini.org/OSX/DiskSpace.html

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Answer 2

IvanMarin Author

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Feb 26, 2012 7:01 PM in response to shldr2thewheel

I tried OmniDiscSweeper but it just tried to delete actual files, like videos and pictures.

I don't know what to delete and what not to.

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Answer 3

Feb 26, 2012 7:07 PM in response to IvanMarin

WhatSize seems to help alot of people get rid of all the stuff in "other". It's filled up with alot my miscellaneous stuff, no pictures or videos.

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Answer 4

Feb 26, 2012 8:32 PM in response to IvanMarin

I had the same thing happen to me tonight. I am a music teacher, and I know I have a lot of music (80GB) but when I look at the storage breakdown it only says "other" for the full amount on my hard drive...

I did find out that I was deleting photos from iPhoto's by clicking delete; yet you ave to empty the trash via iPhoto to get rid of them for good.

Tonight it became an issue because I am putting together a video for four of my kindergarten classes. It kept freezing up iMovie and wouldn't import my clips from the desktop. I guess by doing so there may be multiple copies of the videos on my computer, then it would say there was no space left.

As soon as the project is done I will delete these files, but wow, what's up with it not categorizing the files and how did I acquire so much?

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