This makes the Mac OS X “Other” storage quite a bit different from the same label applied to iOS storage, and while there can be some bloated caches and other junk, the Other storage on a Mac is more likely to make sense. Basically, anything that is not one of the media types that the Storage tab specifies will be shown as “Other”.

Various file and file types not recognized by Spotlight, for example a virtual machine hard drive, Windows Boot Camp partitions, etcĪs you can see, this is not unnecessary junk or clutter.

Fonts, app accessories, application plugins, and app extensions.

User caches and system caches, including things like browser caches and locally stored message media files.

User library items like Application Support, iCloud files, screen savers, etc.

Anything in the system folders of Mac OS X, ranging from temporary files, swap, voices, etc.

Various types of personal and user data.Archives and disk images, including zips, dmg, iso, etc.Documents and file types, including PDF, doc, PSD, etc.That means a very broad list of items will be considered as Other, including things like the following: Perhaps Other is taking up a ton of space, so what exactly is that “Other” storage on a Mac? Essentially it’s anything that Mac OS does not allocate to the listed specified storage types of applications, backups, audio, movies, backups, and photos. Nonetheless, it can be valuable to know what that other stuff is, particularly in the event you are running low on disk space. The size of Other is often quite large in Mac OS X and it varies considerably as you can see in the various screen shots here, but again, this is not something to overly concern yourself with as it could be in the iOS world. In versions prior to Mac OS X 10.10 you will need to click on “More Info” in the About This Mac screen to see the Storage tab, otherwise everything else is the same. The Other storage is the blue item in new versions of OS X, and the yellow item in the graph on prior versions of Mac OS X, regardless, Other is visible in any modern version of Mac OS X.

Look under “Storage” tab to find the Other data on the Mac drive.Click the  Apple menu and choose “About This Mac”.If you’re curious to see how many files and items on a Mac drive are classified by MacOS and Mac OS X as “Other” storage consumed, you can check through the About This Mac window panel: Let’s take a moment to check the Storage space on any Mac, and then learn a bit more about the Other space in Mac OS X, what it is, and how you could reduce the size of “Other” storage on a Mac if the computer is running low on available disk space.

How to get rid of other storage on mac