Cleaning up "Other" on HD

Question

Level 1

11 points

Cleaning up "Other" on HD

Hey all, I've recently installed an SSD in my 2011 17" MacBook Pro in the usual hard drive slot, and put my old HDD in the optical bay with one of those kits for OWC. Seems to be working great so far.

However, I'm trying to free up some space on the HD, as I want to use it for audio sample storage for music production. I noticed a big chunk of "other" when i get info about the drives, bigger than anything else on the drive in fact. Any ideas how to find out what this is and potentially clean it up?

Thanks!

Geoff

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Jan 21, 2015 8:10 AM

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Answer 1

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,329 points

Jan 21, 2015 8:15 AM in response to gdgross

First understand what OTHER is:

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202867

What you might do is download from the Internet OmniDiskSweeper and Grand Perspective (Both free) and open them. They will show you all of your files and the respective sizes. This should aid you in determining where you want to put the various files.

Ciao.

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Answer 2

gdgross Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 21, 2015 9:46 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

Ok, thanks, I'll check out those utilities tonight.

It just strikes me as really a lot, almost 300GB worth of "other" stuff that the os doesn't categorize. I use this computer mainly for audio production, and various personal things. For reference, my entire iTunes library, which contains (I bet) hundreds of ripped from CD albums, is less than 100GB. Can't imagine what on my machine is eating up 300GB. Even my audio sample sets are relatively small, the biggest is about 70GB, and that's not even on this drive yet.

If I can't figure it out, I've got half a mind to wipe the drive and start over, but I'm afraid of losing something essential or forgotten.

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Answer 3

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,329 points

Jan 21, 2015 10:10 AM in response to gdgross

You may also reindex Spotlight. Yosemite has been known to report incorrect information in that window:

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

Ciao.

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Answer 4

gdgross Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 22, 2015 10:07 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

Well, after little success with the info scanners and other cleaning methods, I ended up wiping the internal HD (of course after copying important files to an external drive), installing a second copy of OSX on there, and moving the important files back on the the HD.

Ended up with an extra 150 GB or so after all was said and done. Lost a couple of programs that came with the machine, like the adobe suite, but I never use them anyway, and don't know how. I think the legality of them was questionable anyway.

Thanks guys, took the long route, but I know everything is clean and fresh now!

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Answer 5

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,329 points

Jan 22, 2015 11:24 AM in response to gdgross

gdgross wrote:

Lost a couple of programs that came with the machine, like the adobe suite, but I never use them anyway, and don't know how. I think the legality of them was questionable anyway.

As a point of information, that is not an Apple application.

Ciao.

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