How to Clear 'Other' Storage on Mac: Step-by-Step for 2026

If you have ever opened About This Mac and seen a large grey or purple "Other" or "System Data" bar consuming gigabytes of your disk, you are not alone. Knowing how to clear Other storage on Mac is one of the most common questions macOS users ask, precisely because Apple's storage categories are vague about what actually lives there. This guide walks through what those files are, which ones are safe to delete, and how to get rid of them without breaking anything.

What Is 'Other' Storage on a Mac?

The label has shifted across macOS versions. On macOS Monterey (12) and Ventura (13), System Settings shows a "System Data" bar. Older releases and third-party disk tools still show the broader "Other" category. Regardless of the name, the same types of files tend to end up there:

• Caches — browser caches, app caches stored in ~/Library/Caches and /Library/Caches
• Log files — system and application logs in ~/Library/Logs and /var/log
• Temporary files — files in /private/tmp and /private/var/folders
• Plugins and extensions — browser extensions, QuickLook plugins, Spotlight metadata
• Document versions — auto-saved document revisions stored by macOS in ~/.DocumentRevisions-V100
• Virtual machine images and disk images — .vmdk, .sparseimage files that do not fit neatly into Media or Apps
• Application support data — data stored in ~/Library/Application Support by apps you may have already uninstalled

The reason these files accumulate is that macOS does not aggressively purge them on its own. Over months and years, they quietly fill your drive.

Before You Start: A Word on Risk

Disk cleaning is permanent. There is no Undo once you empty the Trash. Some files labeled as caches are actively used by running apps and will be rebuilt automatically; others are orphaned data from apps you deleted years ago. This guide distinguishes between the two. When in doubt, move items to the Trash and wait a day before emptying it.

Step 1: Find Out What Is Actually Taking Space

Apple's built-in storage view gives you category totals but not a breakdown of individual files. To see exactly what is large and where it lives, you need a more granular view.

Option A: Built-in macOS Storage Management

1. Open Apple menu > System Settings (macOS Ventura and later) or System Preferences > Storage (Monterey and earlier).
2. Click Manage (or the i icon next to your disk).
3. Review the categories. Click Documents and then Unsupported Apps or File Browser to explore large items.

This gives a rough picture but skips many hidden folders entirely.

Option B: Visualize with Crumb

Crumb includes a Visualize tab that renders an interactive treemap of your entire disk. Every folder and file — including the hidden paths that Apple's tool omits — appears as a proportionally sized block. You can click into any block to see what it contains, making it straightforward to spot a 14 GB virtual machine image or a cache folder that has ballooned over time. If you are not sure whether a particular folder is safe to remove, Crumb's built-in AI can explain what the folder does and what the removal risk is before you delete anything.

Step 2: Clear Application Caches

Application caches are generally the safest category to clear. Apps regenerate them on next launch, so deleting them does not cause data loss — only a slightly slower first launch.

1. Quit all open applications.
2. In Finder, press Shift + Cmd + G and enter: ~/Library/Caches
3. Review the folders. You will see one folder per app (e.g., com.apple.Safari, com.google.Chrome).
4. Select folders for apps you use and delete their contents (not the folder itself, to avoid permission issues).
5. For system-level caches, repeat for /Library/Caches — this requires your administrator password.

You can also clear caches from Terminal for a specific app:

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/*

Safe to delete: Yes, for most app caches. Rebuilt automatically.
Caution: Do not delete the entire ~/Library/Caches folder itself; just its contents.

Step 3: Remove Log Files

Log files record app and system events. They are useful for debugging but serve no ongoing purpose once they are old. Clearing them is safe.

1. Open Finder and navigate to ~/Library/Logs.
2. Sort by date or size. Delete log folders for apps you no longer use, or clear all contents if you are not actively debugging anything.
3. Check /Library/Logs as well for system-wide logs (requires administrator access).

From Terminal, to remove all user-level logs at once:

rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/*

Safe to delete: Yes. Logs are historical records, not active data.

Step 4: Clean Up Temporary Files

macOS stores temporary files in /private/tmp and in per-user session folders under /private/var/folders. The system is supposed to clean these at restart, but they can accumulate on machines that rarely reboot.

1. Restart your Mac. macOS clears /private/tmp on reboot automatically.
2. For per-user temp folders: in Terminal, run getconf DARWIN_USER_TEMP_DIR to find your specific temp directory, then inspect its contents before deleting.

getconf DARWIN_USER_TEMP_DIR

Safe to delete: Mostly yes, but only when the files are not actively in use. Restarting is the safest method.

Step 5: Remove Leftover Application Support Data

When you drag an app to the Trash, macOS removes the .app bundle but leaves behind support files in ~/Library/Application Support, preferences in ~/Library/Preferences, and sometimes caches and containers. Over time these orphaned files can add up to several gigabytes.

1. Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support in Finder.
2. Look for folders named after apps you have already deleted. These are safe to remove.
3. Check ~/Library/Preferences for .plist files matching uninstalled apps.
4. Check ~/Library/Containers for sandboxed app data from removed apps.

Identifying orphaned support files manually is tedious. Crumb's Uninstall tab scans for an app's known leftover locations and presents them as a checklist before removal, so you can confirm what gets deleted rather than hunting through Library folders by hand.

Step 6: Find and Remove Large Hidden Files

Virtual machine images, old iOS backups, and disk images frequently appear as "Other" because they do not match Apple's media or document categories.

• iOS/iPadOS backups: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/ — safe to delete if you back up to iCloud or no longer need a specific device backup
• Virtual machine images: Check ~/Documents and ~/Library/Containers for .vmwarevm, .utm, or Parallels .pvm bundles
• Xcode derived data: ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData — safe to delete; Xcode rebuilds it on next build
• Simulator runtimes (Xcode): ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Caches and Runtimes — can be several gigabytes; delete old simulator versions you no longer test against

From Terminal, to delete Xcode derived data:

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData

Quick Reference: Other Storage File Types

What Not to Delete

Not everything in "Other" is expendable. Avoid deleting:

• ~/Library/Keychains — your saved passwords and certificates
• ~/Library/Mail — locally stored email messages
• ~/Library/Cookies — deleting these logs you out of all websites
• Any folder you cannot clearly identify — use Crumb's "Is this safe to delete?" feature or search the folder name before removing it

Conclusion

Clearing Other storage on your Mac is not a single button — it is a series of targeted removals across caches, logs, support files, and large hidden items. Working through each category methodically, and checking what you are deleting before you empty the Trash, keeps the process safe. If you want a faster way to find the biggest offenders without navigating dozens of Library subfolders manually, the Visualize tab in Crumb gives you an immediate picture of where your disk space has actually gone.