50GB of 'other' space used up on Macbook

[giasha]

For months my Macbook said that my startup disk was full and when I checked my storage breakdown I had a mystery 50GB taking up space out of 121GB flash drive.

Last week my laptop broke and I had to re-download OS X, wiping the laptop clean. I then added my photos library (47 GB) and music library (8GB) and backed up my iPhone once. After that my laptop once again said I had run out of space. I don't understand how this has happened as since my laptop got wiped there shouldn't be any files cluttering.

I downloaded OmniDiskSweeper which said that the biggest users of space are the 47GB taken up by photos (under 'documents') and 41GB of iPhone backups. Is it normal for a single backup to be this big? Can I move the backup onto my external hard drive? Is it reliable to only use iCloud for backing up iPhones?

Just not sure what to do, I only have 2GB of space left and I need to resolve this ASAP. Please help!!

 

[maflynn]

Could be local snapshots, i.e. local backups from time machine.

If you run Omni DiskSweeper with sudo (As shown below), it will include some system files that it would not normally have access to scan. That is a more accurate representation of what's consuming your drive.

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

Another option is to use this terminal command
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

I prefer to redirect it to a text file (this puts it in your Documents folder
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g / > ~/Documents/du.txt

Like the sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper command, it will scan all directories, but produce a text file as opposed to showing the results in a window

 

[snaky69]

Is it reliable to only use iCloud for backing up iPhones?

Yes. The service has been offered for years now. If it was unreliable, I think you'd have heard about it by now.