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How can I reduce the other storage on my MacBook Pro?

JUCJ85

JUCJ85

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 29, 2011
460
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So when I go to storage on my 1TB MacBook Pro, it shows 73.05 in other, 15.33 for system, is there a way to reduce that amount of other storage to free up space on the MacBook? I've looked at different apps on the App Store on the Mac, but I don't know which works the best, if at all.

Thanks.
 
How much total storage do you have in use? There are ways to reduce "other", but they are usually only temporary.
 
Use the built in storage management tools for the first pass at finding space hoggers, then download Omni Disk Sweeper to help you identify sources of hidden storage. It won't make any judgements as to what's bloat and what's not, but Omni Disk Sweeper will allow you to easily see how large various directories are so you can zero in on anything that looks suspiciously large.

Some programs will make backups, but never delete them and some programs that you no longer use will leave behind massive caches or log files that can be cleared out.

Another source of the "other" is time machine. If you have Time Machine, you'll be using some of your space to keep local changes that are kept around until the next time you make a backup.
 
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You could be using Time Machine on your internal drive. Move the target to an external volume as there's not much point using it otherwise.
 
Download DiskWave from here:
It's small in size and free.

Open DiskWave and go to the preferences.
Put a checkmark in "show invisible files".
Close preferences.

The DiskWave window shows you all your drives in plain English (no ridiculous graphical formats).
Click on any volume.
Now, you'll see what's ON the volume, listed in order of "largest to smallest".
You can easily locate what's eating up your space.

What is it?
 
HDFan said:
How much total storage do you have in use? There are ways to reduce "other", but they are usually only temporary.
Click to expand...
754.49GB in use, mostly my TV Shows that I sync to my iPhone, and if the 1TB iPhone does come out, I'll sync them to.

Fishrrman said:
Download DiskWave from here:
It's small in size and free.

Open DiskWave and go to the preferences.
Put a checkmark in "show invisible files".
Close preferences.

The DiskWave window shows you all your drives in plain English (no ridiculous graphical formats).
Click on any volume.
Now, you'll see what's ON the volume, listed in order of "largest to smallest".
You can easily locate what's eating up your space.

What is it?
Click to expand...
I'll try this.

dazzer21-2 said:
You could be using Time Machine on your internal drive. Move the target to an external volume as there's not much point using it otherwise.
Click to expand...
I'm not real familiar with Time Machine, so I don't know if I'm using it or not.

smirking said:
Use the built in storage management tools for the first pass at finding space hoggers, then download Omni Disk Sweeper to help you identify sources of hidden storage. It won't make any judgements as to what's bloat and what's not, but Omni Disk Sweeper will allow you to easily see how large various directories are so you can zero in on anything that looks suspiciously large.

Some programs will make backups, but never delete them and some programs that you no longer use will leave behind massive caches or log files that can be cleared out.

Another source of the "other" is time machine. If you have Time Machine, you'll be using some of your space to keep local changes that are kept around until the next time you make a backup.
Click to expand...
Will try this one too.

AngrofMayfair said:
You are lucky, I have 158GB of 'other' :(
I still have 1TB of free space though :)
Click to expand...
Lol, I hate that, I have 245.54GB Available out of my 1TB, but Other is using up the 70.05GB, with 15.33 System, which I understand. It's brand new MacBook Pro from 2020 too, love it, I actually like the touchbar, it comes in useful at times, I didn't get the M1 because I don't do any video editing or anything like that, so this was good enough, the 1TB, 16GB RAM, Intel CPU, love it.
 
Ok I tried both Omni & DiskWave, but didn't find anything, idk what I'm doing wrong, could it have something to do with iCloud? If I turn iCloud off will it free up space?

I checked in I forget which, but Time Machine didn't have anything inside of it. I even opened it, only went back to yesterday.

Are there any other good apps that can help with this issue? I remember there was an app, that would clean clutter, but I forget the name, you would do one by one, and you have to restart your MacBook each time. Wish I could remember the name.
 
HDFan said:
I prefer Daisy Disk over Omni for disk usage analysis. Graphical interface, delete options, finds things that Omni doesn't.
Click to expand...

Well, Omni doesn't actually find anything for you. The only thing it really does is provide real time directory sizes. It's only useful if you know what an unusual size for a given directory would be.

I'm curious about what kind of things hard to identify things Daisy Disk finds for you though. Does it find things like orphaned preferences and excessive backup files from programs that never prune their backups?

I usually recommend Omni Disk Sweeper because it's free, but if Daisy Disk does the same thing in a fraction of the time, I have no bones about paying for software.
 
Omni showed I had 134.4 GB in Application Support, DaisyDisk 611.4 GB. It ignored 476 GB in MobileSync which is one of the first places I go when I want to clear space.

smirking said:
Does it find things like orphaned preferences and excessive backup files from programs that never prune their backups?
Click to expand...

Doesn't find orphaned preferences, but as above it can show backups if you know where to look.
 
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Onyx can clean up the system without being destructive. If looking to add to the default Onyx maintenance routine options, always best to read up on the implications. Personally never had issue with Apple Silicon & Intel Mac's running Onyx, even revived a never clean installed 2011 15" MBP that's SW image was near unbootable. I've always liked Onyx as it doesn't add any daemons, start up items etc. A one shot solution that only updates as necessary and Freeware.

"OnyX is a multifunction utility that you can use to verify the structure of the system files, to run miscellaneous maintenance and cleaning tasks, to configure parameters in the Finder, Dock, Safari, and some Apple applications, to delete caches, to remove certain problematic folders and files, to rebuild various databases and indexes, and more."

Q-6
 
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Queen6 said:
Onyx can clean up the system without being destructive.
Click to expand...

I've never heard of Onyx. Looks promising. I just downloaded it and it reminds me a bit of Cocktail. It seems like it's something of a freeware cousin of that program?

There were so many options that I too intimidated to try anything, but you say that it's pretty safe to run the default options? I'll read up before doing anything of course, but how carefully I want to read is the issue.
 
smirking said:
I've never heard of Onyx. Looks promising. I just downloaded it and it reminds me a bit of Cocktail. It seems like it's something of a freeware cousin of that program?

There were so many options that I too intimidated to try anything, but you say that it's pretty safe to run the default options? I'll read up before doing anything of course, but how carefully I want to read is the issue.
Click to expand...
I've used Onyx for years and it has never presented any issue for me. I generally just use Onyx for maintenance as I'm not overly concerned with the tweaks to the system. Default maintenance has always been safe for my Mac's, just look at the options in case you don't want a specific feature to be cleaned up/data removed.

Yes Onyx is similar to Cocktail, with fewer features. What is important is that you must download the specific version of Onyx for your Mac's version of OSX/macOS. The application has been around for years and generally well thought of :)

Q-6
 
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Onyx is a great app for maintenance but needs some care and attention.

But, no disrespect intended to the Op who seems to be a fairly new Mac user, you should have plenty of free space on your 1TB MBP, and the 70GB “other“ used seems reasonably normal. Enjoy using your MBP and don’t worry about it? Of course, installing all the different apps being suggested is not going to improve the storage.
 
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My Other category is non existent. All I do is from time to time run First Aid on my disk in order to fix permissions (there was a command some time ago for fixing permissions but it was removed I think in Catalina) and also from time to time boot into Safe Mode, this will force some cleanup processes. Try that and let us know of the results.
Screenshot 2021-08-30 at 14.44.02.png


I am not using any system modifier or third party app.
 
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