What's the best Disc Cleaner App (For Duplicates, etc.)? My hard drive is almost full

Rockhavenw · Sep 14, 2016

Help please! I have over 300 GB of "Other" on my MacBook Pro. I'm sure there must be lots of duplicates and old files. I've deleted mail and as many extra files as I can safely find. My crashed hard drive was rescued and put on my new computer, but with music and photos I now have only 40 Gigs of free space! Any help will be appreciated! Thank you!

harryb2448 · Sep 15, 2016

Trim out some usic and photos and see other posts re 'others'.

Rod · Sep 15, 2016

Might I suggest that the reason you have so much data in "Other" is due to accumulated files associated with your other data added over the life of your old device. "Other" is comprised of file location info, metadata from photos and other media, preferences etc, etc essentially everything that does not fit into the other 5 definitions.
There really is no way to know what to remove and what to keep so a Cleaning app which I would not advise anyway (they often do more harm than good) will be of no help to you.
There are applications like MacPaw Gemini but it will not reduce your "Other" files. It also requires you to decide which one of each file you want to keep which can be a time consuming and difficult task, choose the wrong one and you may loose valuable documents, pictures, music tracks and so on.
By far the best way would be to backup your Macintosh HD as a bootable clone using either Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper (both of which offer free 30 day trials) to a USB HD (which is a very good idea anyway) then erase and perform a clean install of the operating system on your new computer and copy only the files you need back onto the new device.
I did this recently with a new MBP and reduced my overall storage by 60Gb and my "Other" data by nearly 50% but I still have 64Gb of "Other".
I admit it is a time consuming process but a little like an overstuffed filing cabinet getting rid of redundant files and folders is a necessary task.

Rockhavenw · Sep 15, 2016

I've removed duplicates and unwanted pictures and music that I can see--I've seen people post that there are duplicates in places they couldn't see until they used a disc utility, though. Thanks for suggesting I search for "other." I tried several other key words with no success.

Rockhavenw · Sep 15, 2016

Thank you for the advice. I have tried to back up to a USB HD, but am not confident that I have all I need saved. I did not know about the clone programs. Sounds like that would help. I will look into them. I's a little intimidating to think of wiping and reloading myself! You make it sound doable, though! Thanks so much!

Rockhavenw · Sep 15, 2016

harryb2448

I've removed duplicates and unwanted pictures and music that I can see--I've seen people post that there are duplicates in places they couldn't see until they used a disc utility, though. Thanks for suggesting I search for "other." I tried several other key words with no success.

Sorry--I replied previously without the quote feature, and now I can't get back to it!

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Trim out some usic and photos and see other posts re 'others'.

Rockhavenw · Sep 15, 2016

Rod Sprague said:
Might I suggest that the reason you have so much data in "Other" is due to accumulated files associated with your other data added over the life of your old device. "Other" is comprised of file location info, metadata from photos and other media, preferences etc, etc essentially everything that does not fit into the other 5 definitions.
There really is no way to know what to remove and what to keep so a Cleaning app which I would not advise anyway (they often do more harm than good) will be of no help to you.
There are applications like MacPaw Gemini but it will not reduce your "Other" files. It also requires you to decide which one of each file you want to keep which can be a time consuming and difficult task, choose the wrong one and you may loose valuable documents, pictures, music tracks and so on.
By far the best way would be to backup your Macintosh HD as a bootable clone using either Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper (both of which offer free 30 day trials) to a USB HD (which is a very good idea anyway) then erase and perform a clean install of the operating system on your new computer and copy only the files you need back onto the new device.
I did this recently with a new MBP and reduced my overall storage by 60Gb and my "Other" data by nearly 50% but I still have 64Gb of "Other".
I admit it is a time consuming process but a little like an overstuffed filing cabinet getting rid of redundant files and folders is a necessary task.

Thank you for the advice. I have tried to back up to a USB HD, but am not confident that I have all I need saved. I did not know about the clone programs. Sounds like that would help. I will look into them. I's a little intimidating to think of wiping and reloading myself! You make it sound doable, though! Thanks so much!

Rod · Sep 15, 2016

Other is not a key word as such I was referring to this:

Just how much storage do you have total because if as you say you have only 40Gb left and (I'm guessing here) you only have a total of 500gb then you are way under the suggested 25% free that is needed for efficient operation of the system. So if you are experiencing poor performance and spinning wheels a lot that's probably why.
If you could give us the specs of your device that would be a help. OS, Storage, device model, CPU, basically all the stuff on the "About this Mac" window under the Apple Menu.

Rod · Sep 15, 2016

It also worth mentioning that you could run an Application called Onyx. This is a free app highly recommended by Mac Forums users. In transferring everything from your old device you may have ended up with a lot of unnecessary baggage in the way of system junk and user caches as well as iPhoto/Photos and iTunes junk. Not everybody is aware that these apps have their own "trash" cans and so never empty them.
OnyX will tune up your OS and empty system trash for you. You must get the edition for your OS which I assume is El Capitan and it is available here; http://www.titanium.free.fr/onyx.html
Allow it to validate your drive (can take a while) then run it on Maintainence script. BUT PLEASE BACKUP EVERYTHING FIRST. Even Time Machine would be adequate for the purposes of running OnyX see; https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250
Either way you will need to invest in an external HD roughly twice the size of your device HD eg. 500Gb Mac HD requires 1Tb external HD.

harryb2448 · Sep 15, 2016

And further when you do move these items to the Trash, ensure you empty Trash. Depending on the operating system you may be able to use 'Secure Empty Trash'.

ferrarr · Sep 15, 2016

The best disc cleaner is you. You need to know, what you want to keep, and have it organized and maintainable. Consider it like Spring or Fall cleaning. Yup, time consuming it is, but it is worth the piece of mind knowing your information is safely stored and easy to get to when needed.

Back in July, I went through all my music files and my image files. It took me a couple of weeks to compare and organize. I did have my Time Machine backup and a clone, so I wasn't worried about losing anything, except when stupidity hit. I saved about 50 gb after going through everything and organizing the files.

Happy cleaning.

joema · Sep 18, 2016

ferrarr said:
The best disc cleaner is you. You need to know, what you want to keep, and have it organized and maintainable. Consider it like Spring or Fall cleaning. Yup, time consuming it is, but it is worth the piece of mind knowing your information is safely stored and easy to get to when needed.

Back in July, I went through all my music files and my image files. It took me a couple of weeks to compare and organize...I saved about 50 gb after going through everything and organizing the files...

Depending on the person and the circumstances, this approach may not always be a worthwhile use of your time. In this case you worked two weeks to save 50GB, and a 7200 rpm USB 3.0 1TB hard drive is about $60. So it took you two weeks to save (effectively) $3 worth of space. That said, the organization may have been needed besides the space issue, and if it helps you keep track of your files it could be worth the time.

OTOH there can easily be cases where the wastage mounts up hugely. As a professional video editor I was running out of space and I had 164 terabytes of storage. After some reorganization and de-duplication, I reduced this to under 100 terabytes, so I eliminated several entire RAID arrays.

I use several different de-duplication tools, but one of the most useful is Beyond Compare, a file/folder comparison tool. I often have a group of files in one folder and I need to ensure they exist on another drive, but they are spread throughout the folder tree on that drive. Beyond Compare can automatically "flatten" the folder tree and search for matches or orphans -- even when the source and destination have differing structures. It is available for both Windows and Mac: http://www.scootersoftware.com/

Rod · Sep 18, 2016

ferrarr, what you say is true, as stated purchasing a new device is an excellent opportunity to clean house. Given that I do that every 4-5 years it has become the time when I go through the contents of my old machine and decide what I really need today.
It's also good to remember that good housekeeping is a daily practice. I am careful not to create duplicate files or trash them if I do, I remove apps I don't use and thier associated files, I do not archive old emails and I dispose of email attachments saving only the ones I want, I regularily check iTunes and Photos for duplicates and I run OnyX once a month to clear user and system caches.
My wife is a great example to me she has a 2011 MBP which was a cloned from her previous white unibody MBP. Both had 500Gb storage and today she still has 204Gb free and only 86Gb of "Other." This on a laptop which is used to run our business, store her 56Gb of photos and is on continuously every day, always in use.
So it is possible to keep your "filing cabinet" clean and much better to do this than simply buy another one when the old one is full especially if it's full of useless crap.

danny.brock345 · Jan 22, 2018

DuplicateFilesDeleter for Duplicate Files

Rockhavenw said:
Help please! I have over 300 GB of "Other" on my MacBook Pro. I'm sure there must be lots of duplicates and old files. I've deleted mail and as many extra files as I can safely find. My crashed hard drive was rescued and put on my new computer, but with music and photos I now have only 40 Gigs of free space! Any help will be appreciated! Thank you!

In this case I would recommend to try DuplicateFilesDeleter.

Rod · Jan 22, 2018

Firstly "other" is data that does not fall into the categories of the defined data like photos, videos, documents ect. With music and photos this can be metadata associated with those files such a time and location stamps. You may also have a collection of language files and Universal binaries and preference files taking up space. You should also try shutting down and booting up again just to allow the operating system to refresh spotlight indexing, even then the info displayed in About This Mac under Storage is a little unreliable.
I only have 4.82Gb of Other on my MacBook Pro after 3 years and it is a Clone of two previous MacBooks although I did a clean install about two years ago. This is one of the best ways I know of getting rid of redundant files and settings but it may not get rid of duplicates.

Rod · Jan 22, 2018

As for apps that can be handy Duplicate Photos Fixer Pro is good but still requires some work because you need to set parameters and choose which duplicates to keep. iTunes can display duplicates in music but again you need to choose which copies to keep. Lastly and many people on this forum will be horrified you can use Clean My Mac 3. I and my wife have been using this app in consecutive devices for over 4 years and have never had a problem with it BUT this forum does not recommend such apps and this is the ONLY one I would advise. Used in its Auto setting it will clean up a lot of junk you don't need but DO NOT USE IT UNTIL YOU HAVE A COMPLETE AND RELIABLE BACKUP OF YOUR WHOLE SYSTEM. You can select which files will be removed and I advise you look at these choices in preferences before running the app.

MacInWin · Jan 22, 2018

This thread is over a year old. I suspect a spammer selling his product. Could be wrong, but one post, one ad?

chscag · Jan 22, 2018

Yeah, I thought the same as you Jake, but since he didn't include a link I was generous and didn't remove him or his post.

What's the best Disc Cleaner App (For Duplicates, etc.)? My hard drive is almost full

Rockhavenw

harryb2448

Rod

Rockhavenw

Rockhavenw

Rockhavenw

Rockhavenw

Rod

Rod

harryb2448

ferrarr

joema

Rod

danny.brock345

Rod

Rod

MacInWin

chscag

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