What is "Other" storage on Mac?

What "Other" / "System Data" actually is

In macOS Ventura and later, Apple renamed the "Other" storage category to "System Data." Regardless of the name, it's a catch-all for files that don't fit neatly into Apps, Photos, Documents, Music, or System categories.

This includes:

• ●App caches (~/Library/Caches) — temporary data that apps create for performance
• ●App support files (~/Library/Application Support) — databases, configs, plugins
• ●Preference files (~/Library/Preferences) — app settings stored as .plist files
• ●Container data (~/Library/Containers) — sandboxed app storage
• ●Log files (~/Library/Logs) — diagnostic and error logs
• ●Saved state (~/Library/Saved Application State) — window positions, open documents
• ●Browser data — cookies, local storage, service workers, IndexedDB
• ●Time Machine local snapshots — temporary backup copies
• ●Spotlight index — search index data
• ●System and app temporary files in /tmp and /var

Biggest culprits

The single largest contributor to "Other" storage is leftover files from uninstalled apps. When you drag an app to Trash, macOS only removes the .app bundle — the caches, databases, and support files stay behind in ~/Library.

How to check your storage breakdown

1. Open Apple menu → About This Mac.
2. Click More Info, then scroll down to Storage.
3. Hover over the colored bar to see the breakdown. The gray "System Data" segment is "Other."
4. Click Storage Settings for a detailed view of what's using space.

How to clear "Other" storage

1. Remove app leftovers

   This is the biggest win. For every app you've ever deleted, leftover files may still exist in up to 11 ~/Library subdirectories. Use Zapper to find and remove them automatically, or follow our manual cleanup guide.

2. Clear browser caches

   In Chrome: Settings → Privacy → Clear browsing data. Or manually delete ~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome.

3. Delete old Time Machine snapshots

   If you use Time Machine, local snapshots can grow large between backups. Connect your backup drive and run a backup, or use tmutil deletelocalsnapshots in Terminal for specific dates.

4. Clear application caches

   Open ~/Library/Caches in Finder (press ⌘ Shift G) and delete folders for apps you no longer use. Be careful not to delete caches for apps you still use — they'll just rebuild them.

5. Remove old logs

   Check ~/Library/Logs for old log files. These are usually safe to delete.

Automate the cleanup

The fastest way to reclaim "Other" storage is to remove leftover files from uninstalled apps. Zapper scans all 11 ~/Library subdirectories in parallel and uses word-boundary matching to find every related file without false positives.

Files move to Trash (reversible with ⌘Z), so you can always undo. One-time $9.99 for up to 3 Macs — no subscription.