168 GB of "Other"

[galaxy7]

Ugh...So I had some files I wanted on my timemachine back up and not necessarily on my computer. I put the files on my computer in a folder, ran a timemachine update/backup, and all was good. Did exactly what I wanted. So then I moved those files to the trash can. After this process, I went from 364GB available (on the internal drive) down to 230 GB available on the drive. And also, now I have 169GB of OTHER. Before my file process, there was only a tiny little bit of other.

How can I reverse this, or how can I get all that Other crap out of there. Yes, I also emptied the trash when I was done with those files. All my files are still the same size and the only difference in anything the massive expansion of the Other.

Thanks for any help guys!

 

[eldho]

Ugh...So I had some files I wanted on my timemachine back up and not necessarily on my computer. I put the files on my computer in a folder, ran a timemachine update/backup, and all was good. Did exactly what I wanted. So then I moved those files to the trash can. After this process, I went from 364GB available (on the internal drive) down to 230 GB available on the drive. And also, now I have 169GB of OTHER. Before my file process, there was only a tiny little bit of other.

How can I reverse this, or how can I get all that Other crap out of there. Yes, I also emptied the trash when I was done with those files. All my files are still the same size and the only difference in anything the massive expansion of the Other.

Thanks for any help guys!

My guess is that you have a 'snap shot' of your previous file that is still residing on your computer. If you have CCC that is what I use to get rid of unwanted snap shots as they show up as items that can be deleted. That is how I have freed up space on my computer after getting a similar shock and frustration as you describe.

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

For mine cloning is far better than TM with these storing of snapshots.

 

[galaxy7]

My guess is that you have a 'snap shot' of your previous file that is still residing on your computer. If you have CCC that is what I use to get rid of unwanted snap shots as they show up as items that can be deleted. That is how I have freed up space on my computer after getting a similar shock and frustration as you describe.

Thanks eldho...what is CCC?

I also made my way to the ~/library. There's nothing in there that explains the inordinate amount of 'other' that I grew yesterday. When I sort by date, there's nothing significant from that event that caused this item.

 

[njvm]

CCC - Carbon Copy Cloner - https://bombich.com/

 

[ck1984]

You didn't mention if you ran Time Machine *after* deleting the files since that can also clear out extra snapshots (but you'll want to wait a week, I guess, to make sure that TM doesn't trim out the backup with the extra files).

Also, I'm guessing you've tried this, but I was fixing my friend's full-hard-drive computer the other day and just rebooting cleared out 140GB of "Other" temp files from /private/var

 

[galaxy7]

I ran a time machine backup with the files on the computer to actually get those files ON the time machine. Then deleted from the computer. Then let the time machine resume its normal schedule. I checked the storage after these events and noticed the huge other.

Ive rebooted twice and no change to other.

So I’m not a computer guy at all. Thus I have no idea what these CCC’s and things like that do, and can’t even imagine what they do for me that running “time machine” on an external drive doesn’t.

I have read every article I can find and learned more ways to search this computer than I care to know about (it's brand new BTW), and I cannot account for the sudden growth at all. Not in any cache or anything.

 

[eldho]

Time Machine claims to just put temporary snap shots on so it may remove them a bit later on as ck1984 was referring to. Time Machine does not always behave as it is supposed to so if those files are important to you I suggest that you have them kept somewhere else as well as in Time Machine. I experienced Time Machine crashing when I needed to replace my internal drive and went to back up again. I ended up erasing the Time Machine disk and starting again.

 

[nieks]

Ugh...So I had some files I wanted on my timemachine back up and not necessarily on my computer. I put the files on my computer in a folder, ran a timemachine update/backup, and all was good. Did exactly what I wanted. So then I moved those files to the trash can. After this process, I went from 364GB available (on the internal drive) down to 230 GB available on the drive. And also, now I have 169GB of OTHER. Before my file process, there was only a tiny little bit of other.

How can I reverse this, or how can I get all that Other crap out of there. Yes, I also emptied the trash when I was done with those files. All my files are still the same size and the only difference in anything the massive expansion of the Other.

I once experienced a different but somewhat similar issue, because I wasn't aware of how MacOS treated deleted files on different volumes. Make sure the external drive is connected when you empty the trash, or it won't take out the deleted files on that volume.

However, you are complaining about "Other" files on the internal disk. Have you tried locating the files to make sure these are time machine files?

• Make sure the system folder is visible in finder (Open a Finder window and go to your Home folder. Within the Finder menu, click View > Show View Options. Place a checkmark next to Show System or Library Folder.)
• Open a new finder window.
• Make sure the finder shows you the total size of folders (to do so, open the folder in question, select View -> Show View Options from the menu bar or press the keys Command-J, and check Calculate All Sizes.
• Then just pick the biggest folder, open it, pick the next big folder, and continue to do so until you've found the big files on your internal disk.

 

[galaxy7]

So I don't know what I did or how it works, but this is what happened. Read some articles and deleted a bunch of files from a cache in the /Library. Something in there delted the one extra file I created from the TimeMachine drive. It was just gone. And just that one in question that started all this was gone. It left all the other backups. Once it deleted that folder from the timemachine drive, all that extra "other" was now gone from the computer itself.