102 gb of "other" on my mac

[chillyournuts]

recently i noticed my macbook getting slower. So i decided to clean it out. I went to see how much space I had and to my surprise, most of hard drive was full. Not full with files i have personally contributed but many files in the "other" section. I have 102 Gb of those files. I started cleaning out and they arnt going away. I have used OmniDiskSweeper and several other programs that arnt helping me with it.
I really need to figure this out

Does anyone know of where these files could be? and what they are? Also, how i an get rid of them.

Thanks!

 

[GGJstudios]

If you're wondering what "Other" category in the Lion/ML storage tab is about, this may help explain:

What is this "Other" in the storage tab? What is eating my space​

For space issues not explained by the above, there are a few things you can try, some of which may or may not apply:

• Begin by restarting your computer as a first step. This sometimes resolves issues.
  
  
• For Time Machine users on notebooks running Lion or later, space may be consumed by Time Machine local snapshots, which can be disabled.
  
  OS X: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs​
  
  
• Check to see if some of the space is being used by your sleepimage file.
  
  
• Check the System Memory tab in Activity Monitor to check page outs and swap used. If swap used is significant, restart your computer and track that value under your normal workload. If you have significant page outs under normal use, you could benefit from more RAM.
  
  
• Search with Finder to see if the space is being consumed by a very large file or several large files. Adjust the 50GB in the illustration to whatever size you deem appropriate.
  
  
• Use OmniDiskSweeper, JDisk Report, Disk Inventory X, DaisyDisk or GrandPerspective to see how space is being used on your drive. Some of these apps may show more detail than others, so try several.
  
  
• Check your drive with Disk Utility: Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks
  
  
• Try re-indexing your drive: Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes

Here are a few resolutions found by others with the same question:

• Encrypted drive
• Time Machine backup files and needed disk repair
• App filling log file
• App or file was 89GB
• Drive needed to be re-indexed
• Time Machine backup file
• Large app cache file
• Garageband files and video podcasts
• Oversized email being duplicated
• Another email issue

Freeing up space in Mac OS X

How OS X and iOS report storage capacity

 

[benwiggy]

recently i noticed my macbook getting slower. So i decided to clean it out.

Your computer does not (necessarily) slow down just because you've got lots of files on your hard drive.

Most files will happily sit there, unused, and not affect your Mac's running in any way. Files aren't used unless they are needed. As long as you have around 10% free space, you'll be fine.

You can try emptying cache files, which may improve things. However, things may initially be slower while the caches "re-fill", and you should not empty caches routinely "just in case". Use a utility such as Onyx; or do a Safe Boot, which dumps the caches.