How to clear mac. Disc space full.

[lizegb]

I'm going to be starting University in September, so I will need to store a lot of work and things on here, but at the moment my disc space is full and I literally don't know how to clear it. Most of my files is in 'other' and i don't know what this is.
I want to completely clear down my mac but keep my iTunes and iPhoto library. Most of my disc is full with music and photos and I don't know where to store them.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Gav2k]

External hdd?

 

[lizegb]

External hdd?

Do you recommend any in particular?

 

[darngooddesign]

Command+I on your various user folders will give you a better idea of what's in there. There are also apps which will give you more details; some will let you delete caches and other accumulated files which are unnecessary.

I access my music and photos frequently so I find having to use an external drive tethered is a pain. My suggestion is to upgrade your internal drive and stick your existing one in an enclosure. I assume you have the tiny 128GB drive.

 

[quackers82]

Download Disk Inventory X http://www.derlien.com/downloads/index.html

Will scan your hard disk and break it down by size which folder has lots of data in it, really useful for this time of situation.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I imagine this is a similar suggestion to Quackers. I always used OmniDiskSweeper to check the free space, as it's quite a simple interface: https://www.omnigroup.com/download/latest/OmniDiskSweeper

Of course I'm sure they provide the same functionality so it's your choice which one to use.

 

[ET iPhone Home]

I'm going to be starting University in September, so I will need to store a lot of work and things on here, but at the moment my disc space is full and I literally don't know how to clear it. Most of my files is in 'other' and i don't know what this is.
I want to completely clear down my mac but keep my iTunes and iPhoto library. Most of my disc is full with music and photos and I don't know where to store them.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Go to APPLICATIONS > DISK UTILITY, Choose/Hi-light the HDD/SSD in the left column. Then choose the tab ERASE. However, be careful NOT to erase everything unless that's what you want to do. BACKUP! before proceeding.

 

[Ulenspiegel]

I'm going to be starting University in September, so I will need to store a lot of work and things on here, but at the moment my disc space is full and I literally don't know how to clear it. Most of my files is in 'other' and i don't know what this is.
I want to completely clear down my mac but keep my iTunes and iPhoto library. Most of my disc is full with music and photos and I don't know where to store them.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

You can check with http://diskwave.barthe.ph what consumes most of your disk space and what can be deleted.
And you can use a http://eu.minidrive.bynifty.com, if you have a 13" MBA or simply an external HDD.

 

[lizegb]

Thank you for all your suggestions. I will try cutting file size down and get back if I still need advice.