macOS 12.2.3 continuously fills free HD space with 'Other' files

Provide a full/absolute path to these "other files".

Have you gone to the About This Mac, Storage and clicked Manage?  How much RAM does your Mac have?  Is it an M1? Did you wait for the storage to load and identify all the files?  It starts with a large other until it loads and figures out the files' category.

Apple OSX 12 Sierra is quite dated now and the tools that are provided to show you what is using up space are quite crude.  OTHER is a catch-all for a huge range of types of files and folders which are commonly found but are not strictly photos, music, etc.  OTHER are usually genuine files and data and cannot easily be assumed to be wasted space or unnecessary.

I've used 3rd party tools which help to visualise and also manage files like -
Grand Perspective - http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
Disk Inventory X - http://www.derlien.com/?utm_source=bmc
for a once-off you can use the Trial version of Daisy Disk too
https://daisydiskapp.com/

These help you drill down into the space used on the hard drive and identify where the space is being used.

Still need to solve... How to prevent macOS Big Sur 11.2.3 from filling nearly all free HD disc space with macOS ‘Other’? I have tried temporary offloading of data & App files to attached drive, which does not help..

I cannot get any work done!! I mean ANY.. Nothing...Nada. Other$ is continuously filled with [???] preventing running ANY applications. I have run Clean My Mac - no help

To be repetitious... My Mac OS [Big Sur 11.2.3, 250GB memory]  *Will not run any apps!!

I have ordered a new M1 MacMini with 8Gb memory and 1Tb HD. I am **Very** reluctant to Migrate OS and Data from current above to new MacMini. Current MacMini has 16GB memory and 250Gb HD.

Help!! I have tried 'cleaning' Apps - of course, they will not run- for reasons as above.

Clean My Mac is a rubbish application and I'd delete it to free some space to begin with!! ;-)

In terms of getting HD space .. for example there are several cache and memory swap files on OSX that are generated on the fly and cannot be deleted (or if you do they have to be regenerated) .. these will be amongst the thousands of files classed as OTHER.  I really would advise you to not focus on the term OTHER but instead look at the contents of your user HOME folder and the subdirectories.

You need to tell us the size of the HD on the device in terms of the space left and you really need to get to about 5-10% free space on the HD for the system to work optimally.  Once the HD is full or close to full with only 1 or 2GB free it will gum up and apps won't run as the temporary swap files that certain apps create will consume the remaining free space every time you start them.  You should be aiming for 10GB free on your 250GB HD at all times.

I recommend you focus on large data files like VIDEO or Photo Libraries which can be easily moved to an external HD .. and of course you need to bin them from the HD and Empty Trash and repeat until you get 5GB or more of free space at an absolute minimum.

Greetings all,
Seems, I have not made my issues clear. For several days, I have off-loaded several GBs of Data, Music, Photo and unused Apps to attached HD.

Each time I have done this, I have watched the available HD space decrease over a few minutes. ie. Apple--System Preferences--Storage

The most recent was deleting, as suggested, Clean My Mac App. I sat and watched the newly-available HD space decrease from 783.5 Mb to 29.9 Mb. The Mac mini HD is 250 Gb.

As this is a repetition of previous results, I was not at all surprised.

I have ordered a new Mac mini with M1 Chip and 1 Tb storage, should be in my office Tuesday 04.11.2021, and I don’t want to migrate this problem to new Mac!!

That is, seems to me I cannot migrate all content (Apps + Data) to new Mac without importing this problem…

Seems to me It would not be to wise (possible)?  to migrate my data files to new Mac independently of former Apps.

PS: many of the data files are in my iCloud Account.

Do you only have iCloud?  Do you have other cloud sharing services?  Dropbox?  Box?  Onedrive?  Do you have any of those save files on the OS instead of having it set to sync on use?

I really don't think you have a PROBLEM or BUG or anything of the sort.

It sounds like data is being generated on the device or copied to the device from another source such as a Cloud-based account every time you free up space.  There are cases of a rogue process on a computer generating junk data or huge log files but its not common.

As I mentioned before you need to free up 5GB to 10 GB of space on your computer not a few hundred MB.

You need to copy DATA (files, videos, photos etc, etc.) to an external HD .. then once they are safely copied you DELETE them and empty the trash and ensure you've deleted/moved at least 10GB of data off the Mac Mini HD.

Then reboot the MacMini and see what happens.  You can open the Activity Monitor application to see what processes are running which may give a clue.  You should also be able to see what data is being written to your computer which is consuming the space.

I'd have little worries that using the Apple Migration Assistant to move from the current to the new M1 mac would "bring across any problem" but you should ensure that the MacMini is at least running well enough to be able to run the Apple Migration Assistant application on the current MacMini

From previous Comment…
“You need to copy DATA (files, videos, photos etc, etc.) to an external HD .. then once they are safely copied you DELETE them and empty the trash and ensure you've deleted/moved at least 10GB of data off the Mac Mini HD.”

More from User… Been there, done that,

I am currently using a iPad with 250Gb memory (same as Mac mini under discussion) which runs same OS/Apps and has 221 Gb available. This iPad was just recently made known to me.

This suggests to me that the Mac mini has serious issues preventing normal performance.

So, perhaps I can migrate from the iPad to new Mac mini which will have 1 TB memory?

Hoping this is a solution…

You cannot migrate from an iPad with iOS to a Mac running OSX .. they're completely different operating systems.  This is a dead-end and simply not an option.

If this problem is not yours but you're requesting for a 3rd party we really need to get the bottom of the FREE SPACE issue.  

We still have not had a clear confirmation that the user has properly moved and deleted and freed up 10GB or more of space on the Mac.  Without this there simply could be a swap file or system data consuming the space quite normally.

I've worked with Macs for 30 years and this sounds like an issue where some process or app is consuming data and HD space and without access to the device or better information we simply cannot resolve.  Its unlikely a FLAW or BUG in OSX but instead a simpler matter of limited space and a HD too small for the data being stored.  Quadrupling the data space to 1TB should be more than enough as long as you can get the Migration to work.

Today, I have attempted to boot Man mini (Mac OS Big Sur, latest update. After waiting a couple minutes the opening screen appeared and I was able click on App icon and wait - and wait…

I spent 15 minutes waiting for logon to complete and visit (just looking at home page) 3 web sites.

As I expect new M1 Mac mini to arrive tomorrow, how can I copy/move what Apps/Data Files I need from current Mac to M1 Mac?

If I seem desperate, you are correct - I need to get working on new (Working!!) Mac mini. As migration does not seem feasible, how do I (copy) get data (no apps copied) to new M1 Mac Mini same App?

As the new Mac can be reverted to Factory Settings very easily I would first attempt a standard Migration by running the Apple Migration Assistant application and copy all data and applications and user profiles from the old to the new mac.  This will take several hours to complete.  If the new Mac has issues after the Migration you can always factory reset the new mac and try another route. No data is lost as the old Mac still has all the data.

Thanks to all who contributed to this discussion. As matters are now, I cannot access the troublesome Mac - it will not even boot!!

The good news is the new M1 Mac with 1 TB memory and is faster is sitting on another office desk. I am writing this from my iPad which can access the inaccessible Mac mini. Hopefully I will be able to port the Appa data to the new Mac mini using this iPad Pro - suggestions are indeed welcome!!

Seems I cannot even boot the rogue Big Sur to access the dats. As I can still access  the data from the iPad Pro, I assume the issue is with the logon not the OS or data. Does anyone recognize this virus (?) or whatever it is that prevents logon?

As suggested, I am planning to migrate data [and some non-Apple Apps] from this iPod Pro to the new Mac mini - seem a valid approach to activate the new Mac mini? I will not inherit the Virus which prevents accessing the Computer?

Hoping this will work…I have no experience with Migration…

You can't boot because the disk is full.  Boot it into target mode and connect to the new Mac.  Use the filevault key or the user password to decrypt the disk.  Delete any junk files.

You can also copy user data over to the new Mac, either manually or using Migration assistant.  You could also clone or copy the data off to a backup disk.

After you've copied over the necessary data, you should probably boot into recovery mode, erase the disk and reinstall.  There's obviously some process filling up the disk.

Why bother using the iPad Pro as an intermediary.  Just connect the old Mac while in target mode to the new Mac.