I'm trying to understand what the 'other (237.62GB)' is, in my storage. I can't access it to see what is stored there.
I'm almost out of 1tb storage, have 'one drive' and everything is backed up to there (except photos as that isn't an easy click). Have files 'on demand' on and entire hard drive backed up to external storage device.
If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. thanks
iMac 27″, macOS 11.7
As a Start
Find iOS backups stored on your Mac
According to your image, there are 78.58 GB of Backups On the computer and another 53.33 GB of email ( probably attachment "
Free up storage space for email accounts in Mail on Mac
Other is data used by the system that's outside of your direct control.
It typically includes caches, temporary files, virtual memory backing, filesystem snapshots, etc. - not something a typical user would interact with directly. Instead, the OS manages this, deleting old content as necessary if space is needed.
You may see the 'Other...' decrease after a reboot, since many files are flushed at shutdown, and you're not likely to be eating much in the way of virtual memory with no apps open, but it will grow over time.
Suffice to say, the OS manages this, and 'right-sizes' it based on your usage. You don't have any control over it.
The most obvious saving available to you is to turn on iCloud Photos, which will offload much of the 200GB of photos data on your system (assuming you have sufficient iCloud storage space).
You could also do the same with your Documents, although that tends to have more implications to your workflow. Without knowing what you do, and how many of those 178GB of documents you need right now, it's hard to tell if that's practical for you.
At the end of the day, 1TB isn't much nowadays and it might be worth looking into additional storage options.
Thanks Camelot, this is very helpful.
I use an external drive to back up the mac hard drive. I also use one drive to back up files. Photos aren't backed up to one drive as I don't know of the way to do this? The documents is a good point, I have set one drive preferences for 'files on demand' is there a way to say set this to only have documents dowloaded that were used in the last, say, week? It looks to me that documents not used for months are still on the hard drive
Oh is a reboot, turn off turn on? or more than that?
Thanks!
> Photos aren't backed up to one drive as I don't know of the way to do this?
I don't either. I don't use OneDrive.
Photos.app is directly integrated with Apple's iCloud storage (check System Settings -> iCloud -> Storage to enable), where it uploads your photo library to iCloud without having to worry about things at the file system level. I don't think there's a similar option with OneDrive (which would require copying your entire Photos Library to OneDrive, but would still leave the full library intact on your system for no net saving).
> I have set one drive preferences for 'files on demand' is there a way to say set this to only have documents dowloaded that were used in the last, say, week?
Again, that's a OneDrive thing. I'm not familiar with the options there.
> Oh is a reboot, turn off turn on? or more than that?
Not just 'turn off'. That's rarely a good idea (and usually a last resort). Instead, use the Apple menu -> Restart (or Shut Down).
It can be nessecary to reinstall macOS if you have issues with the other storage becoming too large
Thanks WheelieNick
Can I do that if I'm running macOS 11.7? Apple doesn't support that version any longer.
It will reinstall that OS using recovery or the latest OS that was supported on your Mac.
trying to manage my hard drive storage, almost out of 1TB
