Get to know what is Other in Mac storage in this informative tutorial. Different working solutions for how to delete Other on Mac for beginners are also included.
• Filed to: Mac Recovery • Proven solutions
“How to delete Other storage on Mac? My Mac is running out of free space, but the Other segment is still holding a huge chunk of it. What is the Other in Mac storage consists of?”
As a friend of mine asked me, I realized that a lot of Mac users might suffer from the same situation. I searched for it on the web and could see thousands of similar queries about the other storage on Mac. Truth to be told – it can get a bit complicated to manage storage on Mac. If you are also running low on your Mac’s storage, then you should diagnose the “Other” segment in it. In minutes, you can get rid of unwanted junk and free up space on your system. To help you do the same, I have come up with this extensive guide on how to delete other on Mac in different fast and smart ways.
If you have been using macOS for a while, then you might be familiar with its storage manager. By default, Mac segregates the stored data on it in different categories like photos, movies, audios, backup, etc. One of the categories in storage management is “Other”. Ideally, any kind of data stored on Mac that can’t be listed under these pre-defined categories falls in the Other segment. Surprisingly, most of these files are not that important and can be removed to get more free space on Mac.
In order to learn how to get rid of Other on Mac, it is important to know what can fall under this category. As stated above, anything that can’t be listed as photos, movies, audios, apps, and the pre-listed categories, can be the “Other” storage in Mac. Some of the common files that constitute the Other storage in Mac are as follows:
Since the Other storage on Mac can be ambiguous and disintegrated, it is important to note different methods to delete it. If you want to get positive results, then consider following these suggestions to delete Other on Mac from different aspects.
Before you take any drastic measure, it is important to diagnose the Macbook storage other segment. In this way, you can learn how much storage the Other data is occupying and what necessary measures you should take. To check the status of Other files on Mac, follow these steps.
Step 1 Firstly, go to the desktop on your Mac and click on the Apple menu on Finder. From the list of the options, click on “About This Mac”.
Step 2 This will launch a dedicated window with an overview of Mac. Go to the “Storage” tab of the window.
Step 3 Here, you can view the overall storage management of Mac’s internal drive (mostly named as Fusion or Macintosh HD).
Step 4 The occupied space would be segregated into different categories like photos, movies, apps, etc. One of these categories would represent the Other storage on Mac.
While processing, Mac stores certain temporary and cache content in the background. Although its aim is to speed-up the processing, it can accumulate a lot of unwanted cache content in Mac’s storage. It has been noticed that cache data forms a major part of the Other segment and should be erased regularly. Not only will it free-up space on your Mac, but would also protect your privacy.
Step 1 To get rid of Mac’s cache, go to the desktop and click on Finder > Go > Go to Folder.
Step 2 You will be asked to enter a target address to open. Just enter the address of the Caches folder in Library, which is ~/Library/Caches.
Step 3 In no time, Mac will open the Caches folder where you can browse the cache content of all the apps in it.
Step 4 Simply select the cache files you wish to get rid of, right-click, and move them to Trash. Once it is done, restart your Mac to reset its cache.
Important Note:
Apart from app cache, you might wish to delete the browser cache as well. If you wish to delete Safari cache, then just launch the browser on your Mac and go to its “Develop” menu option. From here, you can choose to clear the browser cache.
If you are an avid user of the web, then the Downloads folder on your Mac must be accumulated with too much content. As a result, it can reflect on the Other storage on your Mac as well. If you wish to delete Other on Mac, then start by reviewing your Downloads folder and get rid of all the unwanted files.
Step 1 In order to access the Downloads folder, simply visit Finder and click on Go > Downloads.
Step 2 This will load the Downloads folder on your Mac. From here, you can just select the files that are no longer important and move them to trash.
Even after deleting these files from the Downloads folder, visit the Trash, and make sure they are deleted from it as well.
Similar to Windows, Mac also saves temporary files in the background while running an application. For instance, if you are working with MS Word on Mac, then it will automatically save temp files related to it in the background. Though, after being in use for a while, these temp files can accumulate and take a lot of space. In order to learn how to remove Other from Mac, you should consider removing its temporary files as well.
Step 1 To access the temporary files, go to Finder from Mac’s desktop and click on Go > Go to Folder. Enter the address “~/Users/User/Library/Application Support/” to access its Library > Application Support folder.
Step 2 This will let you browse the stored application data on your Mac. To look for temporary files, search files with temp or tmp extensions.
Step 3 After finding the relevant temp files, you can move them to the Trash.
Last, but most importantly, both plugins and backup content can constitute a large chunk of the Other files on Mac. If even after following the above-listed suggestions, you are not able to shrink the Other storage on Mac, then you can consider removing some browser plugins. Additionally, there is some existing iTunes backup content that you can remove from Mac as well.
i. Get rid of Browser Plugins
Plugins are mostly used to add a certain feature to a browser, but it can backfire in the long run. The method to remove plugins is mostly the same in every browser. For instance, if you are using Safari, then launch it, and go to its Preferences > Extensions. View the available third-party plugins and remove the ones you no longer want.
In the same way, you can uninstall plugins from Chrome too. Launch it and go to its Options menu (the three dot icon on the top). Click on More tools > Extensions and delete the plugins of your choice from here.
ii. Remove iTunes Backups
If you own an iPhone, then you can take the assistance of iTunes to take its backup. While taking a backup is recommended, it can consume a lot of space on your Mac. Therefore, you should consider visiting the iTunes settings and getting rid of any unwanted backup file.
Step 1 Launch iTunes on your Mac and from its main menu, click on the “Preferences” option.
Step 2 Once the Preferences tab would be opened, go to the “Device Preferences” section.
Step 3 Here, you can view all the available backup files saved on iTunes. Just select a backup file and click on the “Delete Backup” button to remove it from Mac’s storage.
After following this guide, you can easily learn how to clear Other storage on Mac. Sadly, there are times when users end up deleting some files by mistake. In this case, you can use a dedicated data recovery tool like Recoverit (IS). The Mac application is available for free and can get back all kinds of lost, deleted, or inaccessible content from your system. It features a highly sophisticated data recovery algorithm and supports almost all kinds of content. Since it is so easy to use, you don’t need any prior technical experience to recover your lost data using Recoverit (IS)y.
A Life Saver to Solve Your Data Loss Problems!
If you have also deleted some data by mistake while clearing the others on Mac, then follow these steps to perform data recovery.
Launch the Recoverit (IS) application on your Mac and select a recovery mode, to begin with. From the provided options like deleted data recovery, lost partition recovery etc. you can click on the appropriate scenario.
Additionally, you need to select a location to perform data recovery. This can be an external device or a partition of the Mac’s internal storage as well.
Simply wait for a while as Recoverit (IS) will scan the selected location and extract the deleted content. It will provide a preview of the data, letting you select the files you wish to save afterward.
Although the quick scan would be able to meet the basic data recovery needs, you can also do a deep scan as well. To do this, click on the “All-around Recovery” option instead.
Following are some of the expert tips that will further help you delete Other storage on Mac easily.
Now when you know how to delete Other on Mac, you can certainly make some free space on the system storage. Since the Other component on Mac can be scattered, you need to take some extra measures to delete it. From getting rid of cache to the browser history and plugins to backup files – there are so many things you should do to delete Other on Mac. Go ahead and follow these suggestions and always keep the Recoverit (IS) tool handy. A highly reliable recovery application, it will help you overcome an unwanted loss of data on your Mac.
Elva
staff Editor