You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

System Data

how to free up the 'system data' on my iMac 24" it's taking 27 gb of space.


iMac 24″, macOS 12.1

Posted on Feb 8, 2022 11:28 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 8, 2022 11:35 AM

You can't. The system is on a read only volume of your hard drive for security purposes. Are you getting that size value from the About This Mac graphical indication of storage?


What does the Info pane for the system folder indicate the size to be? As far as freeing up more storage space on your boot drive the files that you have control over are located in the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Movies folders.  You can use either of these two free apps, GrandPerspective  or OmniDiscSweeper, to find the largest files on your drive so you can determine if they can be deleted or moved to an external HD for storage.  


Note: you can empty the Downloads folder after the apps and/or updates that were downloaded have been installed or applied.  Many users have found a couple of Gigabytes of files in their Downloads folder which are no longer needed. 


1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 8, 2022 11:35 AM in response to francesf

You can't. The system is on a read only volume of your hard drive for security purposes. Are you getting that size value from the About This Mac graphical indication of storage?


What does the Info pane for the system folder indicate the size to be? As far as freeing up more storage space on your boot drive the files that you have control over are located in the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Movies folders.  You can use either of these two free apps, GrandPerspective  or OmniDiscSweeper, to find the largest files on your drive so you can determine if they can be deleted or moved to an external HD for storage.  


Note: you can empty the Downloads folder after the apps and/or updates that were downloaded have been installed or applied.  Many users have found a couple of Gigabytes of files in their Downloads folder which are no longer needed. 


System Data

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.