DariusJam
Level 1 (4 points)
Desktops

Q: 2 Day old Macbook Pro, no data migration hard drive almost full. Why?

I have a brand new Macbook Pro (well new out the box. It is an early 2015 model) Solid State base memory 128 GB (I know, I know). Here's the thing. I didn't do a data restore, or any data migration. The only software I installed was Microsoft Office. Only files I've installed (word, excel, etc.) don't even amount to 1 GB. I have loaded also, about 200 MP3s.

 

According to Disc Utility, My memory allocation includes 4GB of music...but iTunes says its only 1.5 GB. I also have over 32 GB allocated to 'other'.

 

What could possibly be eating up all of this storage space?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Apr 21, 2016 11:01 PM

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DariusJam

Q: 2 Day old Macbook Pro, no data migration hard drive almost full. Why?

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  • by Carolyn Samit,

    Carolyn Samit Carolyn Samit Apr 21, 2016 11:12 PM in response to DariusJam
    Level 10 (124,346 points)
    Apple Music
    Apr 21, 2016 11:12 PM in response to DariusJam

    "Other" explained >  OS X Tips The Storage Display

  • by dwb,

    dwb dwb Apr 22, 2016 11:36 AM in response to DariusJam
    Level 7 (24,440 points)
    Notebooks
    Apr 22, 2016 11:36 AM in response to DariusJam

    I wish Apple had never included that Storage Allocation graphic because it causes so much confusion and worry. Spotlight indexes the hard drive and identifies the type of each file based on what program they belong to. As you’ve seen in the graphic there are some specific categories listed and then anything else is dumped into the “Other” category. Fine. The problem is that the Spotlight index can get damaged really easy and files become mis-categorized as “Other”. This makes people panic because it looks like Other is growing huge but they tend not to notice that the remaining categories are shrinking. Read the following to repair your Spotlight index: Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes - Apple Support

     

    So, does this explain what you are seeing or is the hard drive really filling up? Check the storage indicator and look above the bar. It will say something like 45GB Free of 128GB. What does yours say?