I dont know what to do i have looked on other threads but i have no idea what they are talking about and i now am running out of space quickly so i need it gone?
Thanks 🙂
iMac
Other can be system files and folders, third party apps and data, other personal folders and personal saved data, emails, fonts, data saved from Apple iOS mobile devices,etc.
Are you using OS X Time Machine backup function? If so, if you are not using an external hard drive to store these backups, these backups are being saved to your iMac's hard drive.
Have you emptied your OS X Trash can icon in the dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own Trash that needs to be emptied.
Check to make sure the Trash is emptied in OS X Apple Mail app, too!
I recommend you download and run Omnidisksweeper ( http://www.omnigroup.com/Omnidisksweeper) and scan your drive to find where your large files and folders are.
Matt
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders. It may take some minutes for ODS to list all the files.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.
When I want to look over my drive and see what's taking up room I use Disk Inventory X http://www.derlien.com/index.html. It's an older program but I have yet to find another that provides such a clear graphic representation of what's on the drive. It even allows you to delete files and folders.
I know this is almost a year later, but if anyone else is out there and is looking for answers I just wanted to post my results.
I followed the steps and ran Omni Sweeper from the terminal menu. What I found was that despite trashing files and emptying my trash folder each time, the items were STILL THERE!!! I had 190 gigs stuck in a "trash" folder that only appeared after funning ODS in the terminal window. I deleted that file ONLY right from ODS and instantly my computer started running faster and the hard drive showed the newly available space!
Now off to search why my trash folder is hiding and storing everything!
2TB iMac has 1.83TB of 'Other' storage, can anyone tell me how to delete it?
