Harddisk full with "other" files

125 GB of my MBP 320 GB harddisk is used by "other files".
Only through OmniDiskSweep have I been able to at least identify my real user files and delete some not needed files to keep the MBP operational. I only have about 160 GB of real, accessible user files (i.e. fotos, music, documents).
The rest which eats up my hard disk apparently files automatically created by Apple software and not accessible via the finder. I hardly find this user friendly at all!
Appreciat your advice how to reduce these "other" files safely!

First, don't rely on the Storage depiction from About This Mac. Select your drive's disk icon. Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. Disk information is in the top panel: Capacity, Used, and Available.
What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It?- Apple Support Communities

Similar Messages

Ipod classic full with "other files", restoring not helping.

Hi.
I've read other threads about this problem on various devices. It's an 80GB ipod, 37 with music, 35.5 GB of other. I've restored it, and it fills with other files again when I do the new long sync. It's not enabled for disk mode or manual syncing. Windows autoplay opens when I plug it in, though, which is strange. I've looked at the ipod in Windows explorer and there is a folder with 35.3 GB of data: in multiple folders of 3.95GB. Those folders have long serial-number-like names. No music seen from winows explorer, but it's there on the ipod. Not even seen in hidden folders: weird.
Sometimes when windows recognizes the ipod on plug-in, it says the disk should be scanned and fixed. I think I did it eventually, although I felt that all tinkering should happen from within itunes.
I am not syncing photos, notes, calendar, contacts, or anything other than music and podcasts. my podcasts are not so many.
So I took a leap and deleted the 35.3-GB file from within Windows explorer. It seems to have worked: itunes and the ipod now shows that space as free.
I have no idea what all this is about, or how it happened. I'm sharing this to contribute to the conversation, since it's helped me to read other folks' posts.
Any ideas? Speak up...

Wow: got another solution.
CrashPlan, the backup software, thought my ipod was drive E:\ and was backing up my computer to it. Crazy!
In case anyone else has this issue: check your backup software!

Ipod touch full with 'other files' - can't see how to get rid!

My ipod touch has 17.5GB of 'other' files but I can't see how and it won't let me sync all of my songs I've clicked through all the summary bits. I've unticked all videos, TV programmes etc so they shouldn't sync onto the device but nowhere can I see anything about other files! VERY VERY VERY FRUSTRATING! Please help!
Thanks in advance.

An "other" larger than about 1 1/2 GB indicates corrupted files.
What is the Other on my iPhone and How to Remove It
What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It?
Next, usually restoring from backup eliminated the corrupted files. However, sometimes restoring to factory settings/new iPod is required.
To restore from backup see:
iOS: How to back up
To restore to factory settings/new iPod see:
iTunes: Restoring iOS software

My start up disc is full i have a macbook air, i back everuthing up with time capsule and have movies all my music libraries and photos onto that too so as i have free space, but my max still says my startup disc is full with "other"

my start up disc is full i have a macbook air, i back everuthing up with time capsule and have movies all my music libraries and photos onto that too so as i have free space, but my max still says my startup disc is full with "other"

First, empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the available space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as "Backups." The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight as described here. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can also use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Proceed further only if the problem hasn't been solved.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Hard disk of macbook air 55% full of "other" files

I have a 2010 macbook air with 250Gb drive - my startup disk appears to be almost full. When I check "about this mac" and look at storage it says 134Gb is taken up with "other" files. Please can someone help me get rid of some of these (I've already removed most duplicate files and used both Omnisweeper and mackeeper to find out whats going on. Please help.
Cheers
Charlie

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the Storage display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then restart the computer. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation—not the mythical 10%, 15%, or any other percentage. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Ask for instructions in that case.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS or GP can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install the app you downloaded in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator. Ignore any other messages that appear in the Terminal window.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Iphone storage full with other

Hello,
I have an iPhone 5 and my storage is full with other. I don't have many apps on my phone but still it's full.
What can I do?
I already emptied my phone & put the back up on my phone, but now it's fuller than it was.

Sometimes this is caused by a corrupted iTunes metadata file and gets fixed by downloading a new song. More likely, you'll have to restore.

My Macintosh HD is almost full of 'other' files?

Hey.
I have a 13" Macbook Pro that has 4 GB of memory, and recently it has been notifying me that my disk space is almost full. I thought this to be rather odd, seeing as I barely save anything onto my computer except for music and any necessary files. Everything else goes onto flash drives and external memory disks. I looked at the space on my Macintosh HD drive (which was the drive that was nearing capacity) and almost the entire disk drive was full of 'other' files. I have no idea what to do, because I can't find these 'other' files and it's starting to concern me.
Thanks.

I don't think you are correct with the drive size? My guess is the drive size is 500 GB.
If you have only 2.31 GB free on a 500 GB drive, no wonder your Mac is having troubles. You should never let the free space go below 15 % which in your case is 75 GB.
Do you have Time Machine enabled?
Allan

When I watch tv shows in Front Row that I've bought off iTunes the audio gradually falls out of sync with the video. It does not happen with other files that I have converted into mp4s. Any ideas for fixing this? It's a huge bummer...

When I watch tv shows in Front Row that I've bought off iTunes the audio gradually falls out of sync with the video. It does not happen with other files that I have converted into mp4s. Any ideas for fixing this? It's a huge bummer...

I too have the same problem. The audio drop out of sync in about 5 sec in not uncommon for the audio to be 30+ sec behind video. Apple needs to fix this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! its a joke, my iphone is all messed up after the last update as well. at one time not to long ago apple products and software were top rated, not so much any more, more and more problems are showing up and apple is unwilling or unalbe to fix the many issues. Apple needs to fix the audio sync problem, it not the computer hardware or other software it ITUNES!!!!, there is no workaround other then hitting pause and hitting pause and hitting pause to temp fix the problem.

EA1 - File Compare With Other File... Does Not Work

I open a file in the SQL Worksheet, select File > Compare With > Other File..., nothing happens! Is this part of the Version Control feature that is yet to be implemented?

I have it logged.
Thanks
Sue

My hardrive keeping filling up with "other" files. How do I delete them and keep them from building back up?

I am new to Apple/MacBook this year, so far I am just plain frustrated. My harddrive keeps filling up with "other" files and I dete them and they always come back from using apple mail. I have used tech support and filters but it still happens over and over. Any help here? I would SO appreciate it!

Boot in safe mode by shutting down, then restarting and holding down the shift key, keeping it down until you see the Apple logo on the display. Safe mode is slow to boot and run.
While in safe mode, use a tool such as the one linked below to explore your volume and find out what's taking up a lot of space:
OmniDiskSweeper - Products - The Omni Group
Don't launch any other applications. After completing this test, and deleting some files, reboot as usual (not in safe mode.)

Mac Mini, the main hard drive is almost full with a file type "other." what is it and how do i get rid of it

I have a Mac Mini 'server.' it has 2 500gb hard drvies, the main drive has 440gb of 'other' files on it. when i restart my computer it looses another gig or 2 to the 'other file.'
how do i get rid of it? it is something that appears on the iphone and ipad as well.
any idea's
thanks

The 'other' is unlikely to be a single file in a single folder, it could be thousands of files. You are therefore going to need to track the culprite down more.
There are utilities you can buy that will visually show you which folder is the biggest. However you can also do this in Terminal.app free of charge.
If you launch Terminal.app from the Utilities folder then do the following commands -
sudo du -h -d1 /
This will show which folder at the top level of your boot disk is the biggest i.e. contains the culprite. You then need to
cd bigdirectory
and do
sudo du -h -d1 .
(the full stop at the end is needed)
Which will do another check in the bigdirectory and let you see which sub folder or file is the culprite, you may have to repeat this a few times till you find what you are looking for.

Hard drive is full with 'other'

i am trying to figure out why my computer is running slow.
I saw that my Hard Drive is almost full.
most of it is filled up with "Other". how can i find out whats taking up almost 450GB on my computer?
thanks

What is "Other" and What Can I Do About It?- Apple Support Communities
Things You Can Do To Resolve Slow Downs
If your computer seems to be running slower here are some things you can do:
Start with a visit to: OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney.
Boot into Safe Mode then repair your hard drive and permissions:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions Pre-Lion/Mountain Lion
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Repair the Hard Drive - Lion/Mountain Lion
Boot from your Lion Recovery HD. When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Restart your computer normally and see if this has helped any. Next do some maintenance:
Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For situations Disk Utility cannot handle the best third-party utility is Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced since Tiger. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard or Lion and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems. For more about malware see Macintosh Virus Guide.
I would also recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX 2.4.3, or Cocktail 5.1.1 that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. There is no confirmation that this version also works with Lion.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Data Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. SyncTwoFolders
6. Synk Pro
7. Synk Standard
8. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
Additional Hints
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity as free space.
Add more RAM. If your computer has less than 2 GBs of RAM and you are using OS X Leopard or later, then you can do with more RAM. Snow Leopard and Lion work much better with 4 GBs of RAM than their system minimums. The more concurrent applications you tend to use the more RAM you should have.
Always maintain at least 15 GBs or 10% of your hard drive's capacity as free space, whichever is greater. OS X is frequently accessing your hard drive, so providing adequate free space will keep things from slowing down.
Check for applications that may be hogging the CPU:
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time, then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Often this problem occurs because of a corrupted cache or preferences file or an attempt to write to a corrupted log file.

Ipod is full with ''others''

Hi,
When I connect my Ipod (30GB) to Itunes, it shows on the capacity bar on the bottom of the Ipod settings that my Ipod is full capacity with half music and the other half ''others'' and I have no idea what is my ipod full with. I have checked everything and I don't even have photos or video's on my Ipod.
Please help me!
thanks,
Danie

Hi, welcome to Apple Discussions.
"Other" is the measure of used space on the iPod not taken up by Audio, Video & Photos. This includes the iPod's library and artwork plus any files you may have copied to your iPod in disk mode. The overhead for the library & artwork data is typically 1-2% of the size of the media, e.g. for 100Gb of Audio & Video expect to have around 1.5Gb of "Other". This information is needed for the iPod's operation and cannot be removed.
If you have significantly larger amounts of "Other", not related to files you've intentionally placed on the iPod, then these are probably disconnected copies of your media files or iPod libraries left over from failed sync operations. The only way to recover the space is to do a full restore.
If you have copies of all your media in your iTunes library this isn't a problem, but if you've been manually managing the content then I guess you'll want to try to recover the files from it first. See this post by Zevoneer on transferring files from the iPod to your computer. Some of the tools rely on the iPod having a healthy library which yours obviously doesn't however the manual method mentioned towards the end of the post would work.
tt2

Problems with my storage is almost full with OTHER

I have a mac book pro about 2011, I have upgraded to lion and wanting to upgrade to Maverick. My storage however is almost full with, what apple calls other. What is Other and how can I either cleanup or find out what it is? I cannot seem to get rid of it and it keeps climbing. My music is about 4gb, Movies about 55gb, apps about 7gb, photos 15gb, and my back is sent to and external. NEED SOME HELP.
Did I click on some website that is giving me some virus.
Any help is appreicated

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the Storage display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Reboot and it should go away.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS or GP can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install the app you downloaded in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
sudo /Applications/GrandPerspective.app/Contents/MacOS/GrandPerspective
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

My hard driver is apparently full - but it is full of "other" files. I have cleared downloads and removed my music and pictures, but it still thinks it is full - how do I access and delete the files?

I am having real trouble with the mac book air and i dont know what to do. It thinks it is full, i get warning messages every day, but when i check how the storage is being used it is 45.79 GB of "other" and I can't work out where to locate and delete these files. I have removed all my music and pictures, there are nearly no documents on the bloody thing, i have cleared the downloads, I have run a cc cleaner programme but nothing seems to touch this "other" amount. Its so annoying as it is getting to a point where i can't use the computer properly anymore. Do you have any clue what it could be or how i can deal with it?
It did this last year but not as bad, i never solved it then i just removed all my own files but now "other" is taking that space too. On a windows computer you would be able to click through and view what was taking up the space but you can't seem to do that on a mac. could it be a virus that makes the hard driver think it is full?
Any ideas what I can do?

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article.
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of the data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
When Time Machine backs up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of recently deleted files. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown asBackups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself. If you followed bad advice to disable local snapshots by running a shell command, you may have ended up with a lot of data in the Other category. Reboot and it should go away.
See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.
You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.
Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size with the largest at the top. It may take a few minutes for ODS to finish scanning.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Harddisk full with "other" files

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