lalaw72
Level 1 (1 points)

Q: My startup disk is full; How do I find "other" - 62.82GB's?

My startup disk is full.  See below:

macbook air storage 10-21-2015.png

Please tell me how to find "Other"/62.82 GB's so I can delete or move over to Airport Time Capsule.  I did download OmniDiskSweeper - just don't want to delete the wrong files and desperately need to free up space.

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)  OS X Yosemite 10.10.5

MacBook Air, iOS 7.1

Posted on Oct 21, 2015 9:08 AM

by OGELTHORPE,Solvedanswer
OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE
Level 9 (52,776 points)
Mac OS X
A:

Here is the definition of OTHER:

 

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

 

It perhaps should be named 'miscellaneous'.  This should make dwb's good advice a bit more meaningful.

 

Ciao.

Posted on Oct 21, 2015 12:14 PM

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lalaw72

Q: My startup disk is full; How do I find "other" - 62.82GB's?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by dwb,Helpful

    dwb dwb Oct 21, 2015 12:16 PM in response to lalaw72
    Level 7 (24,460 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 21, 2015 12:16 PM in response to lalaw72

    I have a few simple rules for people who aren't Mac experts:

    1. Leave the System and Library folders alone. Anything deleted from them could leave your computer unstable or unable to boot up.
    2. There are some programs in the Applications folder that are installed by Apple - they should be left alone. Others are okay to delete assuming you don't need them. If you aren't sure, leave them alone.
    3. Inside your own folder there's a Library folder too. It isn't as dangerous to delete things from it as the main Library but doing so could leave one of your programs unstable or non-functional.
    4. Everything else in your own file space is fair game. Keep in mind that word processing and similar files are relatively small and deleting them won't create much space. I could delete everything in my Documents folder (and it has a lot of stuff in it) but it wouldn't free up as much space as deleting one movie. Media files, movies, videos, music, and digital photos are large and deleting a small number of them will free up the most space.

  • by OGELTHORPE,Solvedanswer

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Oct 21, 2015 12:14 PM in response to lalaw72
    Level 9 (52,776 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 21, 2015 12:14 PM in response to lalaw72

    Here is the definition of OTHER:

     

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

     

    It perhaps should be named 'miscellaneous'.  This should make dwb's good advice a bit more meaningful.

     

    Ciao.

  • by lalaw72,

    lalaw72 lalaw72 Oct 21, 2015 12:15 PM in response to dwb
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Oct 21, 2015 12:15 PM in response to dwb

    Thanks for the help....although the problem I have (since I am not a Mac expert) is knowing which files I shouldn't delete vs ones I should.

     

    For now, I deleted my photos (after backing them up) so I do have more spaced freed up.

     

    Thanks again!

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Oct 21, 2015 12:24 PM in response to lalaw72
    Level 9 (52,776 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 21, 2015 12:24 PM in response to lalaw72

    Any thing that you off load to an external HDD also needs to be backed up, if you value it.  Many people often forget that. 

     

    Ciao.