"Other" stuff in my storage.

[Ives]

I recently purchased my first Mac. It is a MacBook Air and because it has a smallish SSD (128 GB) I move my photos to an external hard drive and all my documents to Google Drive. However, when I look at the storage status, I see 39 GB of "other" stuff, as shown in the attached screen shot. Could someone please tell me what this "other" stuff may be and where could it be found? It doesn't appear in the Finder.
Thank you,
Ives

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

The "Other" files can be many things - System files, GarageBand loops/instruments, Google Drive documents/files that are synced to a Google Drive folder in your Home folder (if you are running the Google Drive app), email and attachments, items in your Downloads folder, etc.

What is ‘Other‘ and ‘Purgeable‘ in About This Mac?

Hope that helps,

C

 

[Ives]

Hello,

The "Other" files can be many things - System files, GarageBand loops/instruments, Google Drive documents/files that are synced to a Google Drive folder in your Home folder (if you are running the Google Drive app), email and attachments, items in your Downloads folder, etc.

What is ‘Other‘ and ‘Purgeable‘ in About This Mac?

Hope that helps,

C

Thank you Cory, I added up the sizes reported for System, Google Drive and Applications and came up with 20.77 GB taken by these three. That leaves me with 18.23 GB still unfound, but I guess I can live with that.

 

[Cory Cooper]

No worries.

Some of the Other files are actually hidden in your User > Library and System & Library folders, so they will not be included in the folder size calculations. If you open Macintosh HD and check View > Show View Options > Calculate all sizes from the menu bar, it will show all but those hidden files. My Other shows as 90.23 GB and I do have GarageBand, Logic Pro X, and MainStage installed with all additional sounds. My Macintosh HD > Library > Application Support folder is 59.34 GB, which is probably a large chunk of the Other files on my Mac.

It's really nothing to worry about and it's normal.

C