Applications using excessive storage on Mac Studio

Question

Level 1

4 points

Applications using excessive storage on Mac Studio

Help why are applications taking up ALL my storage space? I just switched from a 2020 iMac to a 2025 Studio both had 1TB of storage space which was always more than enough on my previous computer as I keep all my files on external hard drives. I always had over half of the storage empty now that I've switched over the storage says that my applications are taking 733GB of space (sometimes it fluctuates up to 900GB and causes the "disk full" warnings) - why would this suddenly be happening? When I click the info next to applications, the sizes don't come even close to adding up to that amount.

I've turned off icloud, emptied the trash obviously, cleared out old Lr Catalogs. Can't seem to make a dent

Mac Studio, macOS 15.6

Posted on Nov 16, 2025 10:02 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

HWTech

Level 9

68,222 points

Nov 20, 2025 7:31 PM in response to Chl_oe2

In the first screenshot showing the macOS storage management screen......all of those categories are referring to any file which can fit the category. For "Applications" category, it is counting files in other locations beside the Applications folder. The "Documents" category is counting any files that are considered a document type file located anywhere on the drive...not just within the Documents folder.

Also, the information in the storage management area is known to be inaccurate and is based on Spotlight's indexing. You can try rebuilding the Spotlight index to see if that makes a difference.

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

FYI, the most critical & reliable storage value is the Free space value which unfortunately is only shown in Disk Utility. Ignore the "Available" storage value shown everywhere within macOS since it is very misleading and it is not synonymous with Free. Even the "Used" space value can be misleading due to how the APFS file system works when copying files to another location on the same APFS volume.

You should never let the Free storage space drop below 20GB since that can disappear very quickly sometimes. You should have at least 20%+ of Free storage at all times....even more depending on your workloads. If you completely run out of Free space, then bad things happen.....you won't be able to delete anything in order to make more room due to how the APFS file system works (it needs to write to the drive before actually making any changes).

Reply

Answer 2

Nov 21, 2025 7:40 AM in response to Chl_oe2

See if any of the utilities mentioned in this article help you find any big Boat Anchor -sized files that you do not need. cleaning out the very largest handful of files provides the fastest relief, if any is possible.

What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how… - Apple Community

The terminology in the Apple reports has changed slightly since the article was written, but the solutions are the same.

Reply