Restricted files taking up 400GB on my Macbook Pro

Question

Restricted files taking up 400GB on my Macbook Pro

How do I clean up my Macbook Pro?

When I view my storage, the Other category is taking up 412 GB of storage on my machine

When I use some other software to track it down, I can see that the 400GB are being taken up, not by apps, music, photoshop files or photos, but instead by restricted files.

I checked Time Machine, and it has not been running since I purchased my Mac. I had Dropbox running, but I've unlinked everything and double checked, it is currently not taking up much space at all.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to clear, clean up my Macbook Pro (running Yosemite)?

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Feb 19, 2015 2:51 PM

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Answer 1

my ginger

Level 5

4,928 points

Feb 19, 2015 3:02 PM in response to Ryan Redding Ca

Hi You might try reindexing spotlight. http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

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Answer 2

Feb 19, 2015 3:14 PM in response to my ginger

Thank you. I tried your suggestion, but it didn't seem to help with the two main issues. 1. My computer is storing loads of data somewhere for some reason. 2. I cannot seem to find out why, where or what it is so I can clean it up.

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Answer 3

my ginger

Level 5

4,928 points

Feb 19, 2015 4:24 PM in response to Ryan Redding Ca

Hi. When you do a reindex it takes a while depending on the amount of files on your volume. Your MBP will run a little slower while it's doing this. If you are the only one on this MBP as admin then except for core root files , there should not be any you can't open. Is this happening on your startup volume or a storage drive. You might need Linc Davis to jump in on this. Hopefully he'll see this and have some ideas for you. Look at this link. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6418568

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Answer 4

fergusom

Level 1

0 points

May 7, 2015 12:33 PM in response to Ryan Redding Ca

Hey Ryan - ever have any luck with this? I have the same issue now.

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Answer 5

my ginger

Level 5

4,928 points

May 7, 2015 3:23 PM in response to Ryan Redding Ca

After reindexing spotlight. You should be able to go to spotlight and type in other and then click on (show all) from the drop down menu. This will open the finder and give a list of everything that is in other. Then clicking on each item will show down at the bottom where it is.

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