How Do I Access ‘Other’ and System Storage on Mac?
To see how much “Other” storage you’re dealing with, you’ll need to check your Mac’s System Storage. Here’s where to find it.
How Do I Find Out What ‘Other’ Is in My Mac Storage?
Along with taking up a non-trivial part of your Mac’s hard drive, “Other” storage can be frustrating because nothing in About This Mac tells you what exactly it is. Generally, however, “Other” is anything that doesn’t fit under the supplied categories on the Storage screen, including things like apps, documents, attachments from Mail and Messages, and system files like macOS itself. Some examples of what may be in “Other” include:
iPhone and iPad backups.App caches.Installer files.Browser caches.
It’s hard to make an exhaustive list of what is and isn’t “Other,” which means it’s hard to figure out exactly where to look if you need to clear up some space. But you can check a few reliable places.
How Do I Clear ‘Other’ Storage on My Mac?
One spot you should look at if your “Other” storage is claiming too much of your hard drive is the Caches section of your Library folder, but you have to take some special steps to get there.
What Else Can You Remove From “Other” Storage?
You can also do the following to remove items from “Other” storage: Instead, look for apps you don’t use anymore and delete those.
Clear the cache from your web browsers: How you do so depends on the platform, but you’ll usually open Preferences and go to the Privacy section. Delete installation files: Your Downloads folder can quickly accumulate a lot of stuff you don’t need, but you should especially look out for files macOS used to install an app. They typically have a file type of .dmg. Quit applications you aren’t using: Applications can create temporary files that use some storage while the application is running. The application(s) often delete temporary files once you quit them. Some of those temporary files will show up in your “Other” storage.
How Do I Get Rid of ‘Other’ Storage?
Since some of the files under “Other” are important for keeping your Mac and apps running smoothly, you wouldn’t want to remove this block of storage altogether. If you regularly clear your backups, caches, downloads folder, and other places we’ve described, however, you should be able to keep it under control.
