How do I clear OTHER in my storage? Not sure how to clear caches.

Question

Level 1

16 points

How do I clear OTHER in my storage? Not sure how to clear caches.

How do I get rid of the 200 GB worth of OTHER items that are clogging up my storage. I've cleared trash, downloads, and backups are taking up 1% space on harddrive. Not sure how to purge my caches w/out deleting important stuff. I try to keep premier and after effects caches on external harddrives. Any help would be much appreciated!

MacBook Pro Retina Mid 2012

2.6 GHz Core i&

16 GB RAM

250 GB storage

Running El Capitan and haven't updated because I don't have enough space on harddrive to update it.

Posted on Sep 22, 2016 5:47 PM

Reply

Answer 1

FoxFifth

Level 10

475,455 points

Sep 22, 2016 6:34 PM in response to StephinGR

One possibility is that the numbers shown for Other are wrong. If so, re-indexing may correct that: Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

The following may also help:

What is 'Other' and 'Purgeable' in About This Mac? - Apple Support

What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It?

Reply

Answer 2

StephinGR Author

Level 1

16 points

Sep 22, 2016 6:54 PM in response to FoxFifth

Hi FoxFifth-

Thanks for your post. I just tried reindexing my user profile in my main harddrive, my desktop, other subfolders- not much change other than my entire storage bar indicating OTHER. Then I reindexed my overall hardrive and the OTHER storage jumped from 200 GB to 242. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

-S

Reply

Answer 3

StephinGR Author

Level 1

16 points

Sep 22, 2016 7:01 PM in response to StephinGR

FoxFifth-

I also just tried Reindexing from the terminal.

http://www.iphonetopics.com/force-spotlight-to-reindex-folder-volumes/

No go. Still totally full of other. Any thoughts?

-Stephanie

Reply

Answer 4

FoxFifth

Level 10

475,455 points

Sep 23, 2016 7:57 AM in response to StephinGR

If you have reindexed twice and it is still showing everything as Other, I don't have any more ideas about that. Myself, I ignore that breakdown as I don't find the information very useful. For me the main issue is how full is my drive and to deal with that I look for what are the large files that I might be able to move.

The following may help with that:

http://osxdaily.com/2016/02/06/mac-startup-disk-almost-full-message-fix/

OS X El Capitan: Increase disk space

There is also a 3rd party app that may be useful in locating large files -- OmniDiskSweeper: https://www.omnigroup.com/more

Reply

Answer 5

StephinGR Author

Level 1

16 points

Sep 24, 2016 4:45 PM in response to FoxFifth

Hi FoxFifth-

Thanks so much for your help. I used omnidisksweeper using this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBiXCNRdiGA

of instructions and got rid of a ton of files in my After Effects cache that I did not know were there. Thanks!

Reply