You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
I am trying to clear some space on my hard drive for the latest update. There is 72GBs in "Other" that I cannot access. How do I access it to clear the space I need for the update?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15
Salutations akai193,
We want to share an article with you, to help you dig in to the Finder app and locate large files and folders. Now, the Other category can be data not categorized as any other category but it can also be data used by the system that can’t be deleted.
You haven’t told us which version of macOS we’re working with, so these steps are from the macOS Ventura User Guide. Find and delete files on your Mac
1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Settings, then click General in the sidebar. (You may need to scroll down.)
2. Click Storage on the right.
3. Go to a category on the right and click its Info button to open it.
This is going to allow you to view files and folders within each in category there. If you choose File Browser it can also give you an overview of some of the folders.
Thanks.
The Other Category should not be altered, modified, move or deleted since it is part of the Mac’s operating system. Doing so would corrupt the OS and render the OS inoperative requiring a Wipe and Re-Installation.
The Other category is a potpourri of files which include:
• System temporary files
• macOS system folders
• Archives and disk images (.zip, .iso, etc. - often found in the Downloads folder)
• Personal user data
• Files from the user’s library (Application Support, iCloud files, screensavers, etc.)
• Cache files
• Fonts, plugins, extensions
• Other files that are not recognized by a Spotlight search
• Media files that cannot be classified by Spotlight as a media file because they are located inside of a package
They can be located anywhere on your hard drive. The files that you have control over are located in the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Movies folders.
Also, if your OS becomes too full your computer will stop functioning. This may be a good time to seriously consider adding an external drive for storage. Then you can move files onto it and then delete them from your HD to clear needed space. Easy to do and problem solved.
How to clear "other" for space on hard drive?
