I would like to free up space on my hard drive. Currently I have 578GB as "other". Any suggestions how I can attack this?

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I would like to free up space on my hard drive. Currently I have 578GB as "other". Any suggestions how I can attack this?

I neglected to delete emails for years and ended up with 16600 emails in my inbox. Since I was having a problem with my startup disc being too full, I deleted 8000 of my emails in the inbox and only gained about 4 GB more space. Usage right now is: audio: 9.49, movies: 130.96, photos: 20.41, apps: 5.63, backups: 0, other: 578.01 GB. Out of 749.3 GB on the disc I have 4.79 GB free. I would like to free up more, but could use some advise regarding how I can attack that "other" quantity.

Any ideas?

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Jan 13, 2014 7:58 PM

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Answer 1

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Limnos

Level 10

411,259 points

Jan 13, 2014 8:04 PM in response to misterillusion

Here's some older references I have:

Have a look at how space is being used:
OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) (free) - http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/download/

2012 Linc Davis tips on running ODS as root user so it sees all files - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4226864?answerId=19336100022#19336100022 In Terminal:

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

"Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. When you're done with it, quit it and also quit Terminal."

OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878 - “You may notice a difference in available space statistics between Disk Utility, Finder, and Get Info inspectors. This is expected and can be safely ignored. The Finder displays the available space on the disk without accounting for the local snapshots, because local snapshots will surrender their disk space if needed." "To clarify, none of the 'Other' category represents local snapshots." - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4127784?answerId=18990711022#18990711022

Hidden local backups with Mac OS X Lion filling up your MacBook hard disk! - http://blog.valerio.de/post/19238158977/hidden-local-backups-with-mac-os-x-lion- filling-up-your - Time Machine using local drive to store backups when external drive is not available.

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