I'm new to Mac and I have an update. Trouble is, I can't get it, because "other users and shared" occupies a gargantuan amount of space. Which is strange, as this is a brand new machine, which only I use and there is no shared content. I have added very little to it. So what on earth is this "other users and shared" business, and how do I find it and get rid of it?
Did you buy directly from Apple, either an Apple retail store or Apple Online Store, or from a reseller? It sounds like you have a pre-owned computer that was not properly prepared for resale.
New Macs bought from Apple or a verified Apple-authorized reseller NEVER ship with a full disk or solid-state storage.
If so, you may never be able to use it.
You can use this Apple Support page to see the warrantly coverage:
View Coverage - AppleCare & Warranty
A new computer will show coverage with a warranty expiration date within days of when you bought it. If months off, or no warranty shows, you have someone else's Mac.
Hello, Allan, definitely NOT a reseller, a brand-new machine. I transferred stuff from my old Dell computer to it, and I suspect that this is somehow the cause of the problem. Warranty expires 24 August 2026.
Warranty expires 24 August 2026.
When do you activate it? I you just bought eh computer, that is a suspicious date.
No, I've had it for a while - the facts are rather more prosaic. I'm one of those unfortunate souls whose computer facility extends to turning the thing on and off without assistance. My Dell laptop was behaving badly (I suspect that computers can sense when there's a complete incompetent at the keyboard and act accordingly), so I got the Macbook (brand-new, from an authorised Apple dealer) as a replacement. I used the Apple software to transfer the Dell contents to the Macbook. As I was struggling with Apple's different ways of doing things, the Dell decided to behave itself, so I gave up the struggle and went back to the familiar ways.
The Dell then decided that it was no longer going to cooperate, so I decided to confront my Apple demons. The first thing it did was ask me to update the software, and this is when I found this enormous slab of "Other users and shared" hogging most of the disc space.
"Other users and shared" occupying too much space
