Your Mac can start to slow down and not perform as well when your storage is nearly full, so it’s important to know what’s using up your disk space and clean up the extra files that accumulate over time. Another reason you might need to free up space on your Mac is if you’re trying to install a new macOS update.
In this article, we’ll answer the questions: what is Other in Mac storage, can you delete Other storage, and should you delete Other? And most importantly, we will explain how you can delete other storage on Mac?
How to Delete Other Storage on Mac?
Finding and removing files from the Other category of Mac storage can be interesting, especially if you own one of the models with lower storage capacity. Here we will see how you can find and remove files from the Other category of storage on your Mac.
Always check the pending ones and follow the procedure as the system deletes the files when finished.
Browsers in general, store cache files to speed up their process, but they can take up a lot of space. So always clear your browser cache from time to time.
Some large files, such as disc images and installers (.iso and .dmg), compressed files (.zip and .rar), and others can take up a lot of space, but you can delete them manually using the Finder
Library is a hidden folder in macOS because it contains essential files for system operation. The user should be careful not to delete the wrong files.
It is recommended to clean this folder periodically to reduce system disk usage.
What are other Mac files?
If you didn’t already know about the About This Mac view, you can use the tools available through About This Mac > Storage to see and manage what’s taking up all types of storage on your Mac. Other is a category icon in the macOS System Information drive. It addresses this loading of files that don’t fall under the labels of standard storage categories, but still consume a noticeable chunk of space on your system.
Get to this basic overview of what’s taking up space on your Mac by following these steps:
Click the Apple logo in the upper left corner.
Go to About This Mac.
Select Storage. Wait while it calculates.
Eventually, you’ll see a bar chart showing what types of files are taking up space on your Mac.
Click Manage and you will see a screen, or browse files to reduce clutter.
However, here you can’t access Other at all – notice how it’s grayed out in the left column.
The “Other” label is applied by the system to files that don’t fit neatly into these types, such as installation packages, cache files, old archives, application extensions, temporary files, and the like.
How to Check your storage space on your Mac?
In case you’re worried about how much storage space you have on your Mac, you can check its usage folder to see how much space each category, including Other, is taking up.
Click the desktop or Finder icon from the dock.
Press the apple button Menu icon in the upper left corner of the screen.
Click on About this Mac.
Enter Storage option.
Your Mac classifies its storage classes as follows:
Apps, movies, photos, audio, backups and – an indescribable category – other.
How to clear “Other” storage on your Mac?
When you are in the Library folder, the other files are deleted in the same way as any normal file. Again, we warn you to be careful!
You can delete files by right-clicking on them and selecting Remove to Trash (or Trash if you’re in the US).
You will then need to empty the Recycle Bin/Trash afterwards or the file will still be on your Mac.