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Macbook "other" space filling my hard drive.

The "other" space on my MacBook is taking about 201G of the total 256G. My hard drive is full. I can't even update my system. What's going on?

Posted on Aug 27, 2020 8:06 AM

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Posted on Aug 30, 2020 3:41 PM

Resolved: Mail was the culprit for me. I have multiple accounts on my Mail app. Every time my mail connected, which is often a log was taken, slowly filling log files. After I turned this feature off and deleted the logs it freed 190GB!!


Here's how:

  1. Open Mail >>Window>>Connection Doctor
  2. Uncheck the box next to "Log Connection Activity"
  3. Click on "Show Logs"
  4. Select the files and delete.


It worked great for me.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 30, 2020 3:41 PM in response to neuroanatomist

Resolved: Mail was the culprit for me. I have multiple accounts on my Mail app. Every time my mail connected, which is often a log was taken, slowly filling log files. After I turned this feature off and deleted the logs it freed 190GB!!


Here's how:

  1. Open Mail >>Window>>Connection Doctor
  2. Uncheck the box next to "Log Connection Activity"
  3. Click on "Show Logs"
  4. Select the files and delete.


It worked great for me.

Aug 27, 2020 11:00 AM in response to neuroanatomist

I've looked at files, even deleting large movies. It doesn't solve the issue. The proportion of this "other" space doesn't make sense. The "other" space in all my other devices is much, much, smaller proportionally.


Also, when I try to store things in iCloud under manage storage, it reads "Your password is required to enable iCloud Photo Library. Open Apple ID in System Preferences to turn on iCloud Photo Library."


I can't find the option to do this. Photos are checked in the iCloud list.



Aug 30, 2020 4:22 PM in response to JBibeau

JBibeau wrote:

Thanks for your help!

re:largest folders
I can't figure that out. Storage management says that "Other" is using the most space but I cannot click on it. Neither can I click on "System." All the other files (Applications, Documents, iCloud Drive etc.) can be clicked and the size of files is shown. Nothing large is remaining.

The point of the tip I linked is that you can't use Apple's Storage Management tool to see what is in 'other'. You can dig in ~/Library yourself, or use one of the 3rd party apps linked in the tip – those show all folders/files and you can sort by size, which would have made it easy to see that the Mail app logs were the culprit.

Macbook "other" space filling my hard drive.

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