How To Find "Other" Storage on MacBook

[ghsDUDE]

Hey Everyone -

I'm having a hard time finding this "Other" storage that's taking up space my MacBook. I just got it this week and worked on quite a large file in iMovie and Final Cut Pro X.

After exporting the 4K movie I made (it's 14.25GB) I noticed another 16GB in "Other" that shouldn't be there.

I just got this MacBook so I shouldn't have so much in "Other" right now. Is there anyway to find these items by File Type? Or to possibly view the largest files on my hard drive?

Thanks!

 

[MacGizmo]

"Other" contains your documents/files, text messages (and any images/movies in those text messages), email (and all the attachments), Calendars, Notes, reminders, the OS itself (along with any cache files), etc. In other words, it's not abnormal to have a lot of "other." I have over 158GB of "other" on my iMac right now.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

It's just 16GB. That could be only the size of OS X itself.

 

[Weaselboy]

I'm having a hard time finding this "Other" storage that's taking up space my MacBook.

Other is everything that does not fall into one of the other categories including the OS. Yours looks about right.

Sometimes that storage readout does drift off though and a Spotlight reindex can fix it. Run the command below in Terminal to reined Spotlight and see if it changes.

sudo mdutil -E /

 

[Erdbeertorte]

There was another thread about it today. With options how to find out what it is. I'll search for it.

@Weaselboy

I tried that command too, after a minute everything was like before.

Same here. Before disk aid:

After:

And when I launch the crappy Disk Utility again:

 

[Weaselboy]

There was another thread about it today. With options how to find out what it is. I'll search for it.

@Weaselboy

I tried that command too, after a minute everything was like before.

Same here. Before disk aid:

You need to wait for the Spotlight reindex to complete, and it does not look like you did. It takes 30-40 minutes or so. I should have mentioned that.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

On the second SSD is Snow Leopard and just the first one looks normal in Disk Utility but different and the second looks normal too when I don't look in Disk Utility:

 

[Erdbeertorte]

You need to wait for the Spotlight reindex to complete, and it does not look like you did. It takes 30-40 minutes or so. I should have mentioned that.

It changed directly after I entered it. And now even hours later it's the same as before.


Edit: But I just wanted to try what happens. I don't think it's wrong. Just in Disk Utility with the second SSD.


I found the other thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/5k-retina-el-capitan-flash-storage-problem.1947251/

 

[Weaselboy]

It changed directly after I entered it. And now even hours later it's the same as before.


Edit: But I just wanted to try what happens. I don't think it's wrong. Just in Disk Utility with the second SSD.


I found the other thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/5k-retina-el-capitan-flash-storage-problem.1947251/

That whole readout has been messed up since Yosemite and now seems worse in El Capitan. For example, I have about 9GB of photos in a Photos Library and that readout says I have 1.3GB of photos. I just ignore it.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

That whole readout has been messed up since Yosemite and now seems worse in El Capitan. For example, I have about 9GB of photos in a Photos Library and that readout says I have 1.3GB of photos. I just ignore it.

Yes I am aware of that and just ignore it too. I only tried some things to see what happens because people ask so often about that. The only important thing for me is how much free space I have and I can see it elsewhere too, also I know where all my data is stored.

 

[ghsDUDE]

Ok Everyone...I have ONE more question!

I did a Clean Install of El Capitan and I was able to get rid of the Yosemite since it was previously installed to free up space in Other. I'm noticing an error for the storage allocation on my MacBook. Here's what it should look like and here's what I get in Disk Utility (notice that Apps has 15.12GB)

Now when I go to About This Mac and Storage it seems to be putting some of the "Apps" storage in the "Other" category"?

Is there any way to get the HD to separate everything properly under the right categories? When I look in Disk Utility it's 15.2GB, so I'm not sure why it's listed as 5.94GB in the second picture.

Any help would be appreciate. Thanks!

 

[Weaselboy]

Is there any way to get the HD to separate everything properly under the right categories?

You can try another Spotlight reindex and see if that helps, but this thing is hopelessly screwed up and I still really think you are wasting your time with this as it is not something you will be able to fix.

 

[ghsDUDE]

You can try another Spotlight reindex and see if that helps, but this thing is hopelessly screwed up and I still really think you are wasting your time with this as it is not something you will be able to fix.

I was able to fix it! Here are the two methods I tried (and one of them worked).

1) I posted the command that you recommended. I got a bunch of warning signals but I still proceeded. Do you think I messed anything up?

sudo mdutil -E /

[/QUOTE]

2) I followed these steps listed on another website.

1. Open the Spotlight system preferences.
2. Go to the Privacy tab.
3. Drag your hard drive to the list to add it.
4. Select your drive, and then click the minus button to remove it.

One of these methods worked and fixed everything, look at the before/after screen grabs attached. Do you think I screwed anything up by doing both of these steps? I did receive a warning when I typed in the first command and I hope I didn't mess anything up on my MacBook. What exactly is a Spotlight Reindex?

Please let me know. Thanks!

 

[Weaselboy]

Nah... you did not hurt anything and both those actions do the exact same thing (reindex Spotlight). You can about bet money this will be all off again in a couple weeks.

 

[ghsDUDE]

Nah... you did not hurt anything and both those actions do the exact same thing (reindex Spotlight). You can about bet money this will be all off again in a couple weeks.

Why does it happen over again? Is it an issue with El Capitan...

 

[Weaselboy]

Why does it happen over again? Is it an issue with El Capitan...

It has always happened once in a while on any OS X version, but with later versions of Yosemite and now El Capitan it for some reason got much worse. It happens when the Spotlight index gets corrupted and I have never found or read about why it might be happening.