Other user taking up a lot of space

We bought my kid a MacBook Air, and originally the account I set up for her was the admin account. For “reasons”, I decided to create a second account for myself, make myself the admin instead. I didn’t install any applications, and I don’t use that Mac at all. Fast forward to today, she’s away at school and now seems to be running out of the space. I am attaching an image of the breakdown of what’s on the hard drive and it looks like the other users category is taking up a lot of space I did not think that additional users took up that much space and the only thing I can imagine is it’s because I set the new account as the admin account. Does this seem weird, am I interpreting it correctly? Meaning, did I accidentally cause a lot of space to be taken up because I sent the second account as an admin account when the first account was an admin account originally?


Posted on Sep 12, 2023 03:50 PM

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Posted on Sep 12, 2023 04:15 PM

... did I accidentally cause a lot of space to be taken up because I sent the second account as an admin account when the first account was an admin account originally?


No; that doesn't have anything to do with it, but 250 GB is not a generous amount of space to begin with. From your screenshot it appears that "Other Users" (you) are occupying about a third of that; perhaps 80 GB or so. That's not an unusual amount.


In your situation it might be best for your daughter to delete your User Account according to Delete a user or group on Mac - Apple Support. When asked, select "Delete the home folder." Be sure to read that Support document before proceeding.


Two very important caveats:


  • Make absolutely certain her User Account has Admin privileges. Strictly speaking she should not be able to delete your Account if hers is not already an Admin account, but she needs to verify that.
  • Don't do anything without a backup, which ought to go without saying: Back up your files with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 12, 2023 04:15 PM in response to memurphyiii

... did I accidentally cause a lot of space to be taken up because I sent the second account as an admin account when the first account was an admin account originally?


No; that doesn't have anything to do with it, but 250 GB is not a generous amount of space to begin with. From your screenshot it appears that "Other Users" (you) are occupying about a third of that; perhaps 80 GB or so. That's not an unusual amount.


In your situation it might be best for your daughter to delete your User Account according to Delete a user or group on Mac - Apple Support. When asked, select "Delete the home folder." Be sure to read that Support document before proceeding.


Two very important caveats:


  • Make absolutely certain her User Account has Admin privileges. Strictly speaking she should not be able to delete your Account if hers is not already an Admin account, but she needs to verify that.
  • Don't do anything without a backup, which ought to go without saying: Back up your files with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

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Other user taking up a lot of space

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