How To Free Up Other Storage On Mac

Checking your storage on Mac isn't difficult – but managing it can be. One of the more curious storage compartments is the 'other' storage on Mac, which sounds like a catch-all for files that can't be labeled properly. And that's sort of true! But the other volumes in container can get full, and reduce the Mac storage Other space for your Mac. How to Remove “Other” Storage Space on Mac OS X and Free more Space? Some people say that they have so much of space available that they really don’t need to free up some of it. No, not at all, your disk will ultimately fill up and even. The limitations of Mac storage often create a problem that prevents the Mac from running smoothly, which results in inconvenience to every user. With that said, we take a look at the four ways to free up the storage space on the device manually, according to Apple. How to Free Up Storage Space Manually on Your Mac 1. Store the contents of the device to the iCloud storage. This is a safe and secure place for your files.

The Optimized Storage features of your Mac help you save storage space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:

When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically.
Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it.
Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.

If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.

Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.

Manage storage on your Mac

The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.

Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:

Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.

Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.

Optimize Storage

Click the Optimize button to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.

Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.

Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Trash Automatically

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

How To Free Up Other Storage On Mac Air

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.

You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.

Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.

Where to find the settings for each feature

The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.

If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.

If you're using macOS Catalina or later, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”

Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
Reminds you to delete used app installers
Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

How to free up storage space manually

Even without using the Optimized Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
Move files to an external storage device.
Compress files.
Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.

Learn more

The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Other, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.

/Mac Cleaner /What is Other on Mac Storage and How to Remove It

I’m a loyal MacBook user; so loyal, that I’ve bought my 4th MacBook now. I replace them with new ones every time I want to. I’ve been using my 4th Mac for 2 years now. I noticed that mac other storage is growing and is running out of the application memory of my system. There're 50GB of 'other' on Mac! How to delete other storage on Mac 2020 to free disk space and to make it perform faster?

It's easy to clean up other storage on Mac. In the following, we'll show you how to get more disk space for your Mac.

Article GuidePart 1. What Is Other on Mac Storage?Part 2. How Do I Get Rid of Other Storage on My Mac?Part 3. How to Manage Storage on Mac?In Conclusion

Part 1. What Is Other on Mac Storage?

Is your Mac running slowly? Have you checked out the storage capacity of your Mac device? It has various labels right? You can see Apps, Audios, Movies, Photos, as well as Backups. Everything seems to be obvious, isn’t it? You know which files are actually eating up your disk space.

But how about “Other”? What does this mean? It can be frustrating to know that these “Other” files take too much of our disk space so that we have to free them. Want to get the actual storage space back? Well, we’ll tell you more about Other Storage first. And then, we’ll tell you how to get rid of other storage (purgeable space) on your device.

What is Other on Mac storage? Other types of storage refer to those that do not fit in the categories (e.g. Apps, Audios, Movies, Photos, as well as Backups). These Other files would include the following:

Documents including .doc, .PDF, and .psd files.
System files of macOS X.
Temporary files of macOS X.
Cache files including browser cache, user cache, and system cache.
Disk images.
Archives including .dmg and .zip.
App plugins.
Extensions.
Everything that cannot be classified into the main categories.

Then, how to delete other storage on Mac 2020 when Mac other storage is huge? Let's move into the following parts of deleting Mac other storage, especially with a free-tried and powerful Mac cleaner.

Part 2. How Do I Get Rid of Other Storage on My Mac?

How to access other storage on Mac? How to delete other from Mac? You don't know how to delete Other storage on Mac (2020) completely because it might contain files that are important. What we would do to help you is to delve into different types of Other files and how to clean them.

# 1 - Removal Of Documents That Take Up Other Storage Space

You might think that documents do not take up too much storage space. But you’ll realize later that .csv and .pages files can actually be large in size. And that’s just it. We’re not even counting images, big presentations, and eBooks. That’s why your Other storage takes up too much space.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to clean other on Mac by clearing documents:

Go to your desktop, then press Command and F keys together.
Press This Mac then press the 1st dropdown menu field.
Choose Other.
Go to the Search Attributes window to tick up File Size and File Extension.
You now have the ability to place various file types of documents (e.g. .pages, .pdf, .csv, etc.). You can also input file sizes in order to locate large documents.
Review the results (or items).
Delete files you no longer need.

# 2 - Deleting Temporary Files

When your Mac is currently running, it always creates (and even piles up) system files such as logs. These files are necessary for the system to function normally--only on a specified period of time. There are times that these files become outdated and result in clogging up of your disk space. These are part of the Other classification as well.
Usually, these type of files is temporary. But sometimes, they don’t get removed unless you actually do something about them. Apple didn’t make it easy for you to delete these system files and temporary files.

So, where can you find these system files? Follow the steps below on how to clear system storage on Mac:

Go to ~/Users/User/Library/Application Support/
In the folder that appears, you will see applications that use up too much space with their temporary files and system files.
Delete this manually.

However, this is not a recommended way to delete other storage on Mac 2020. Why is this so? Well, you might delete files that are necessary for the apps to function. The best way to do this is to use iMyMac PowerMyMac, which can help you to delete other from Mac by removing your Mac junk files including unnecessary documents, temporary files, caches and others. Have a free trial below!

# 3 - Removing Cache Files

Cache files look harmless to you. But they can actually take up much disk space. There are three types of cache (the main ones)--- user, browser, and system. These cache files are used to improve the speed of your system. But once they get really big, it can turn the other way around resulting in poor system performance.

Here’s how to clear cache files manually on your Mac device:

Go to Go > Go To Folder.
Type out ~/Library/Caches, then press Go.
Click-hold Option. After which, drag the folder of Caches towards your desktop. This serves as a backup of your cache which you can restore if something happens.
Select every file located inside the Caches folder.
Drag these files towards the Trash.
Finally, you have to Empty the entire Trash.

Do the same steps all over again. However, in step 2, type out /Library/Caches to clear up more cache in another folder.

Do steps 1 to 6 all over again. However, in step 2, type out ~/Library/Logs to clear out other types of cache again.

If you are worried that you might delete necessary files, you can use PowerMyMac again.

# 4 - Removal Of Disk Images And Archives

If you have unnecessary .zip, .dmg, and .rar files, among others that take up system storage, you should clean them up immediately to free your disk of storage space.
You can find them by utilizing the Spotlight search:

Launch Finder.
Type out DMG/ZIP. Type this within the search field.
Choose Search: This Mac.
The results will be displayed and sort these files by size.
Clean the files you don’t need, especially the large-sized ones.

Tip: PowerMyMac's Large & Old Files can help you find out and remove archives quickly and easily.

# 5 - Removal Of Application Plugins and Application Extensions

Sometimes your memory is fulled of applications. Add-ons and plugins of your applications are included in the Other Storage category (as opposed to the Apps category). These don’t take up much space. However, it’s still worth clearing them out to gain more space.

Extensions sometimes cause trouble to your Mac device and it is best to remove them. This is a double whammy! You get to remove the app logs that cause trouble and you get to free up space too. You can manually remove these extensions one-by-one to delete other storage on Mac 2020.

How to remove your Safari extensions:

Open browser named Safari.
Press Preferences.
Press the tab labeled Extensions.
Choose the extension you want to delete. Uncheck “Enable” in order to deactivate it.
If you want to delete it, click Uninstall to uninstall Safari.

How to remove your Chrome extensions:

Launch Chrome.
Click the icon appearing like three dots. This is located in the top-right corner of the browser.
Press More Tool.
Press Extensions.
Remove or disable extensions depending on what you want.

How to remove extensions from Firefox browser:

Launch Mozilla Firefox.
Find the burger menu and open it. This is located in the top-right corner of the screen.
Select Add-ons.
Look at the Extensions and Plugins tabs.
Remove or disable any extension or plugin you want.

Note:

If you are unsure of the use of a specific extension or plugin, do not delete it. You should disable it first. If your apps (or your system) works fine after you have disabled a specific extension (or plugin), THEN you can remove it. PowerMyMac also gives you a hand to manage all the extensions in different browsers at one time.

Here’s how to do it step-by-step with this tool:

How To Free Up Other Storage On Mac

Download and Launch PowerMyMac
Click Extensions under the Toolkit module.
Click Scan. Results will show a list of extensions on your Mac.
Find the extensions or plugins you want.
Toggle to disable these extensions or plugins.

# 6 - Removing Everything Else That Cannot Be Classified

Mac Other Storage Space has its own Other classification. Funny, right? These files can actually include the following:

Files located within your user library (e.g. screensavers)
Files that cannot be recognized by Spotlight search.

Typically, these Other Files do not take up a lot of space. But, as you might know, a little goes a long way. If you want to clean up screensavers, here’s how to do it:

Launch Finder to locate Menu Bar.
Choose Go > Go To Folder.
Type out: ~/Library/Screen Savers, then press go.
Delete these screensavers.

Files not recognized by Spotlight are rarer. They include different files such as partitions of Windows Boot Camp. They can also include hard drives of virtual machines.

Part 3. How to Manage Storage on Mac?

Although you have known the ways on how to delete other storage on Mac 2020, but it's better for you to manage storage on your Mac, at this case you must consider Storage feature of macOS.

You can click Storage > Manage > Recommendations tab to find Store in iCloud, Optimize Storage, Empty Trash Automatically and Reduce Clutter options that can manage your Mac storage.

With Store in iCloud, only your current files and optimized images would be stored in iCloud. And only if you need these files will iCloud download them for you. Thus, you can save more storage space.

When using Optimize Storage, you can see all the purgeable categories in the storage details. Then you can selectively manage some big files like iTunes movies or other big attachments.

You can set automatically delete items from Trash on Mac after your 30-days saving via Empty Trash Automatically: go to Finder>Preferences>Advanced, then you can see 'Remove items...', just tick that box.

Reduce Clutter aims to remove the junk files that you don't use anymore to free up more space on Mac: Review Files > choose unwanted apps or files shown in the new window > delete those apps or files.

In Conclusion

Mac Other Storage can actually take up too much space and make your system slower. If you want to speed up your device performance, you can clean up unnecessary Other Storage files manually.

Of course, we recommend you delete other storage on Mac 2020 automatically with a fantastic tool iMyMac PowerMyMac, and you will find it really helps you a lot!

How To Free Up Other Storage On Macbook

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How To Free Up Storage On Mac

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Kun2019-01-05 11:24:05

Yeah i am a writer so there are a bunch of documents, it's time to say bye bye to them! cheers!

Wilisa2018-11-29 05:23:20

How To Free Up Other Storage On Macbook Pro

Lots of caches hidden in Other Storage...thanks, have removed all

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