This is essentially what all third party apps do when they scan your disk. This will recursively go through all the files and folders in your current directory and aggregate a list of their sizes. (for d in * do du -hs $d done) | gsort -h (If you don’t have Homebrew it’s highly recommended, but if you really don’t want to install it, you can change the command below to sort -n though it will make your life slightly harder). To see what files are eating up most of your space, you’ll need to scan your disk. This guide is on cleaning up system or hidden files that most users typically ignore or aren’t aware of. If you have enormous personal projects or media archives, then you should take care of that yourself (and you probably wouldn’t be here right now). OSX lumps files, caches, hidden files, and system files all under “Other”.

Most likely, the “Other” Category will be the largest consumer of your available disk space.

If your breakdown is dominated by media files, you can comb through your personal videos and pictures and back up/delete them as necessary. Last updated: 01/2017 See What is Taking Up Space It also assumes basic command-line knowledge. Disclosure: This writing is a result of my own findings.

How to clean up your mac hard drive