04-29-2012, 05:10 PM

The "other" usage bar on my MacBook Pro has become HUGE and seems to be getting even larger--it is now taking up 109.7GBs of storage space and my computer has ground to a snail's pace. I can barely use it for my work. I've tried searching on Google and tried various suggestions, yet nothing has worked.

I am using a MacBook Pro 15' Core 2 Duo running OSX Lion 10.7.3, Photos are taaking up 20.61GB of space, Audio, 9.31GB, and Apps 11.29.

I think I have thrown away whatever I dared, but maybe there is more hidden stuff or some other secret.

HELP PLEASE!!

Thank you!

04-29-2012, 05:21 PM

Other can be everything that the system can't recognize. Like some some outlandish movie format. Or in my case, my Dad's Panasonic Camera's RAW files which aren't supported by Apple RAW.

Get yourself DaisyDisk or Disk Inventory X. DaisyDisk I find works better/faster than others.
With DaisyDisk I then start at the Root HD and then start clicking my way into whatever folder shows largest and repeat it until I know what it is.

04-29-2012, 05:54 PM

Take a look at this recent blog article, it will explain a few thing about Other.

04-29-2012, 05:59 PM

Do you by chance have Time Machine enabled and have been disconnected from your Time Machine drive lately. If so, Time Machine may be saving its "local snapshots to your drive till it can reconnect with the external drive. OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs

04-29-2012, 08:56 PM

Hi, Skydude and everyone else,

Well, I did have my external unplugged, so I just plugged it back in. Do I do anything in particular now or just let it do it's back up thing, and then will it remove the large amount of "other" on its own?

Thank you!

04-29-2012, 09:29 PM

Just let it sit, if Mac OS X needs the space for stuff you add it will remove the onboard backups itself.

Local snapshots are periodically condensed into daily or weekly snapshots to minimize the space used on your disk. If your disk is low on space, Time Machine stops creating new snapshots, and some or all existing snapshots may be removed to make space available for applications to use. If sufficient disk space becomes available again, Time Machine resumes creating local snapshots. This means your disk will have the same amount of available space as it would if Time Machine were not enabled.

04-29-2012, 10:27 PM

If you want to get rid of the local TM backups all together…
Disable Time Machine Local Backups in Mac OS X Lion

04-30-2012, 01:32 AM

Hello, Everyone,

I tried reconnecting my external and letting time machine run, but I still have a huge figure under "other". After doing some detective work, I see that my home folder on my HD has a very large size shown, but that the contents of that folder do not come close to equaling the total shown for the home folder, itself.

Any ideas?

Thanks again, so much!

04-30-2012, 09:46 PM

I tried reconnecting my external and letting time machine run, but I still have a huge figure under "other"
These on board Time Machine backups will stay on your Mac, even if you do a regular backup after. They do however get delete once Mac OS X sees that you need the space. So don't fret over it… or remove them yourself by disabling the MobileBackups feature and rebooting.

How to disable MobileBackups feature (TimeMachine local backups) on Mac OS X Lion

Edit: Brain error, just saw that it's under your users folder…
Have you got DaisyDisk or Disk Inventory X yet? It will make it a snap to find out what is going on. It also sees hidden files… which you will not see on the Finder.