Daughter Macbook 'Hard drive other space

Magic_x_uk · 29 Jan 2021 at 07:27

Hi,

Daughter was gifted a macbook from her uncle 6 months or so ago.
I don't know much about apple laptops but it is running Catalina.

The hard drive is 121gb I think.

She keeps getting 'need more space' when trying to do updates via app store.

I had a look and the hard drive in disc utilities has a greyed out bar of around 98gb of other.

I cannot do anything with it.

I get this pop up on one screen.
Enter a password to unlock Macintosh HD. But none of her passwords work.

There is not much stored on the laptop, just some of her school work.

What is the best way to start again and get this 98gb as usable space ?

As never done a restore etc on Apple laptops.

Or maybe someone knows about this hard drive other area

Thanks

Ryan-3 · 29 Jan 2021 at 08:35

If you have the space, download and run Clean My Mac X from the App Store. That'll show you what the 'Other' consists of. It's likely temporary files that have built up over the years.

Magic_x_uk · 29 Jan 2021 at 08:41

Ryan-3 said:
If you have the space, download and run Clean My Mac X from the App Store. That'll show you what the 'Other' consists of. It's likely temporary files that have built up over the years.

Okay.

But 90+ gb of temp files seems a hell of a lot doesn't it.

But still don't understand the password needed to unlock the macintosh HD bit

Ryan-3 · 29 Jan 2021 at 08:45

The password should just be the password for unlocking the laptop itself, unless it has somehow been set by her uncle from encryption?

It's a lot, but it's amazing how quickly you can build up the temp files though when you're not clearing them out regularly.

Feek · 29 Jan 2021 at 08:49

If she was given it and it wasn't erased before she got it, I'd load a fresh install of macOS Catalina. That way you're not getting any cruft left over from a previous user and who knows what might be there.

I've never seen temporary files or caches grow to that sort of level.

Here are the keyboard combos you can use on boot for the various recovery modes. I'd be tempted to with option-command-r

Magic_x_uk · 29 Jan 2021 at 09:20

Thanks guys.

Feek,

Yes. Was thinking may put what small school work she has on a USB thumb drive then do a restore.
Never done this on ios stuff before. As I am a Windows user.

She is signed in with her apple ID. So I presume I will sign in again when it has all restored.

Will this restore, delete this password protected 90+gb part of the hard drive and make it all as one then.

Again. Thank you.