Preliminary information
Before you enter the live tutorial, walking to spiegare how to delete Other on Mac, it seems only right to provide you with some preliminary information in this regard.
First of all, as already mentioned above, for view storage space on macOS you have to click on the icon apple located in the upper left part of the screen and select the item About this Mac from the menu that opens, and then go to the tab Archiving in the window that appears.
In the new proposed screen, then locate the hard disk name del tuo Mac (es. Macintosh HD) and in its correspondence you will find indicated the amount of space total for storage, space busy and that agolable; unitamente to one bar divided into more segments, through which it is possible to view the category where the files on the disk are organized. Each category is marked with a different color: moving the mouse pointer over each segment you can see more details about it.
Among the various categories in which files are organized on Mac, there is usually that too Other, which in the bar visible in the above section of the OS is marked with color Grey. It includes all those files that do not fall into any other category: papers of various types, disk images, archive compressi, temporary and cache files, Plugin, extensions and other generic files.
Considering the fact that the Other category includes various types of elements, the files that are part of it can also take up a lot of space. Consequently, removing them could be useful to "make room" on the Mac hard drive. In doing this, however, it is good to keep this in mind, pay particular attention to what is deleted, in order to avoid eliminating elements that are actually useful or in any case indispensable for the correct functioning of the system.
Based on what has just been stated, I therefore suggest that you only intervene on the elements known to you. Also, you would do well create a preventive backup of your data: if you don't know how, follow my guide on how to backup Mac.
How to delete item Other on Mac
At this point, I would say that you are finally ready to take action and go and find out, in detail, how to delete item Other on Mac. Find out how to do this right below.
Delete the documents
If you want to delete Other on Mac, I recommend that you first take action on the various papers stored on your computer, eliminating those you no longer need and therefore unnecessarily occupy disk space, such as old presentations, eBooks already read, PDFs that are no longer useful, etc.
To do this, you can use the default utility Space management agolable on macOS Sierra and later. To use it, click on the icon apple at the top left of the screen, select the item About this Mac from the menu that opens, go to the tab Archiving in the pop-up window and press the button Manage located at the hard disk name from the Mac.
In the new screen that is now shown to you, click on the entry Documents that you find in the side menu on the left and select the tab Large files (to view the files that take up the most space) or that Download (to view downloaded files). You can also select the tab Browser file, to browse all files and folders and discover which ones occupy the most storage space.
When you find some files you want to delete, select them and then click the button Move to Trash which is located at the bottom. If you want to view them in the Finderclick on your bottone Show in Finder that you always find at the bottom of the screen and that's it.
Delete disk images and compressed archives
also the disk images he archive compressi, such as the application installation packages and ZIP files containing multiple documents that you received as attachments via email, can fall within the section cataloged as Other by macOS e, even on this occasion, you can proceed by removing the items in issue that you no longer consider useful.
To do this, I suggest you use the utility again Space management, as I have already explained to you in the previous step for what concerns the documents, but in this case after selecting the item Documents from the side menu you have to go to the tab Containers.
Delete temporary files and cache files
I temporary files and cache file they are data that the operating system and applications create as backups, for example to undo changes made to a file or as a “shortcut” to access certain information more quickly. To give just a few examples, the browser history, cookies and system logs are now obsolete. Removing these items can also come in hey for deleting More on Mac.
However, please note that deleting the items in question may initially reont in the slowdown of applications reference, and then everything returns to normal after a while. Also, in the specific case of clearing the macOS system cache, I invite you to act with the utmost caution, as the above operation can cause the deadlock of the OS. To solve this, it may be sufficient to restart the Mac. However, to avoid any kind of problem, before proceeding with the deletion of the data I suggest you to make a copy of files.
Having said that, to proceed with the deletion of temporary files and cache, first of all proceed to close active applications at the moment, then log in to Finder selecting the relative icon (Quella with the smiley face) that you find on Dock bar, select the menu go located at the top left, press and continue to hold the key option (the one marked with the symbol ⌥) on the computer keyboard and select the item library that appears.
Next, open the folder Caches, select the items in it, right click on any of them and choose the option Move to Trash from the context menu that is proposed to you. Afterwards, right-click on theicon of the Cestino you find on the Dock bar, select the voice Empty the trash from the menu you buy and press the button Empty the trash, to confirm your intentions and thus the removal of the files.
However, keep in mind that some applications allow you to delete temporary files and caches without having to put your he to the Finder, acting through the relative ones internal menus. For example, with Safari you can do this by starting your browser, clicking on the menu Safari located at the top left and then on the item Pref Renze present in the menu that appears.
Afterwards, access the section Advanced that you find in the window that is shown to you and check the box next to the option Show menu Sviluppo nella barra dei menu. Finally, click on the menu Development appeared at the top left and choose the option Clear your cache da quest'ultimo.
Same goes for the messaging application Telegram, which allows you to clear the cache by going to the menu Settings> Data & Storage> Storage Usage> Delete All.
Delete plugins and extensions
As I told you, too Plugin and extensions applications, such as those installed to expe the functionality of the browser, help to fill the space on the Mac hard drive, albeit to a much lesser extent than other elements.
In order to get rid of the elements of this type that you no longer need, you need to intervene on settings of the individual programs. As a practical example, if you want to remove the extensions you use with Safari, first start the browser, click on the menu Safari which is at the top left and on the wording Pref Renze annessa to the menu che compare.
In the window that is now shown to you, access the section Extensionsselect l 'extension you want to remove from the list on the left and press the relevant button Uninstall that you find on the right. If in doing so a warning appears stating that the extension you are trying to remove it is part of an application and that therefore you have to delete the reference program to finalize the operation, respond to it by clicking on the button Show in Finder and proceed with the removal of the application, as I explained to you in my guide on how to uninstall a program from Mac.
As for the other browsers, the procedure to be implemented to remove plugins and extensions varies from program to program. If you want to find out how to act with Chrome and Firefox, which are two of the most popular browsers on Mac, you can follow the instructions I gave you in my guides dedicated to how to delete Chrome extensions and how to delete Firefox extensions.
Unfortunately I cannot provide you with more precise information regarding other programs, as I am not aware of the exact applications in relation to which you need to go to act, but I can suggest you to search on Google, using keywords such as "How to delete plugin [application name]" o "How to delete extension [application name]" and to try to see if information about it is agolable among the reonts, preferring the instructions provided directly by the reference developer.
Programs to delete More on Mac
Putting into practice the instructions I have given you in the previous lines, have you not yet been able to delete Other on Mac or in any case not completely? Then you can consider resorting to the use of special programs to clean the Mac. Among the various solutions agolable, I recommend you CleanMyMac X.
It is, in fact, one of the best known all-in-one solutions for the security, cleaning and optimization of macOS. Thanks to it it is therefore possible to keep the Mac constantly “in shape”. It is compatible with all versions of the Apple operating system (including macOS 11 Big Sur). Alternatively, you can subscribe to MacPaw's Setapp service which for $ 9,99 / month (with a 7-day free trial) allows you to access a wide range of paid applications for macOS without paying for individual licenses. With a small addition to the monthly fee, you can also access many applications for iOS / iPadOS.
To download the free version of CleanMyMac X on your Mac, connect to the official website of the program and click on the button download for free. Afterward, open the package .dmg ottenuto, trascina l 'CleanMyMac X icon in the folder Applications macOS and start the software, right-clicking on it and selecting the item apri, in order to open the application going to circumvent the limitations imposed by Apple on the applications of non-certified developers (an operation that must be performed only at the first start). Next, accept the terms of use CleanMyMac X and press the button OK.
Now that you see your Mac's main CleanMyMac X window, grant the application all permits required. Afterwards, I recommend that you immediately click on the button Scan to perform a complete system analysis and find out what are the useless files that can be deleted to free up disk space, the security problems on the Mac and underste if there are settings that can be changed to increase system performance.
When the scan is complete, click on the button starts to allow CleanMyMac X to automatically fix any problems it finds. Alternatively, you can intervene "manually" on the individual areas by clicking on the button Cleaning to choose which superfluous data to delete, on that Protection to eliminate any Mac malware and erase traces of online activities or on that Speed to access the tools that allow you to optimize the performance of the operating system.
You can also decide to intervene directly on the individual areas of the program, by selecting the various items that you find in the left side menu. If so, keep in mind that you may have asked for more system permissions: accept without problems and follow the instructions on the screen to be able to use it.
In the specific case of the files that occupy the Other section on Mac, you should be able to find them by selecting the item Large and old files attached to the side menu and then pressing the button Scan. Next, choose how to sort the files found by i filters on the left, select the ones you want to remove from the list on the right, choose the removal method you prefer from the drop-down menu at the bottom (if you have no special needs, you can also leave the default option selected) and press the button Remove.
The agolability of a assistant CleanMyMac X, which is placed in the menu bar and allows you to monitor the status of memory, be, disk, etc., as well as quickly access various program functions. There is also a system of real-time protection against malware and other cyber threats. If you don't care, you can disable the assistant and / or the anti-malware protection by going to the menu CleanMyMac X at the top left, by selecting the item Pref Renze from the latter and accessing the section Menu and / or to that Protection in the displayed screen.
On macOS 11 Big Sur and later there is also the possibility to add a convenience widget of CleanMyMac X, to monitor the disk space occupied and start the Smart System scan. You can activate it by pressing the button Scegli widget of the macOS Notification Center. For more information about using the software, I suggest you read my specific guide on how CleanMyMac X works.
