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My Macbook Pro's System Data files were taking up over half of my hard drive (350 gigs) after I updated to Monterey OS, up from about 15 gigs before the update, so I followed the instructions in this article to clear local Time Machine snapshots. That just made the situation worse, adding 100g to the system files. Any ideas what could be happening?
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.3
Hi logit_en_SF,
Do you get any notifications at any point that you are low on storage? These may be temporary purgeable files that will clear automatically when space is needed.
Some of your data may not be immediately obvious from the Storage Management Window as it might be stored in your user's Library folder or hidden. Temporarily enable showing hidden files when viewing the File Browser in Storage Management by doing the following.
The File Browser will show the sizes of items in the "Documents" and "System Data" categories. Folders and files that are already represented by categories in the sidebar—other than "Documents" and "System Data"—will be dimmed. Closing the System Information window will disable showing hidden files in Storage Management again.
Take care.
Hi logit_en_SF,
Do you get any notifications at any point that you are low on storage? These may be temporary purgeable files that will clear automatically when space is needed.
Some of your data may not be immediately obvious from the Storage Management Window as it might be stored in your user's Library folder or hidden. Temporarily enable showing hidden files when viewing the File Browser in Storage Management by doing the following.
The File Browser will show the sizes of items in the "Documents" and "System Data" categories. Folders and files that are already represented by categories in the sidebar—other than "Documents" and "System Data"—will be dimmed. Closing the System Information window will disable showing hidden files in Storage Management again.
Take care.
Hello Alma
Yes, I had restarted, but that did not help. Each time I restarted there was more data in the system files.
Since the files are in the system data the suggestions in the support link are not helping.
I did make progress by doing the following: I booted in safe mode and used first aid on my disk. Then when I restarted the files in my system data storage dropped from 456G to 69G.
Unfortunately since then running my computer normally (using Google Chrome and Adobe CC, nothing weird) causes that system data number to keep climbing up. As you can see from my screenshot it's already up to 76G after just a few hours of normal Photoshop and Google Chrome use.
Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, logit_en_SF!
We understand you're seeing System Data consuming too much storage on your MacBook Pro. We'd be happy to provide information to help you out with this.
Since clearing up local Time Machine snapshots, have you restarted your MacBook? Give that a try.
If that doesn't help, go through the steps in this article to free up storage:
Free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support
Have a great day!
Thanks for the help.
I wasn't getting messages from iOS about low storage, but I was from my other programs that require disc space, like After Effects and Maya. They didn't want to open at all.
I already have all my hidden files visible (runnning that script in Terminal is one of my basic setting up tasks that I always do)
so there's nothing surprising or weird living in my Systems and Library folders as far as I can see. The numbers just aren't adding up to what the storage manager says is on my drive; it's maddening.
Is it really possible that iOS was storing 300G of temporary purgeable files in some hidden corner of my drive? That seems ridiculously excessive. Like I need a defragger excessive, which is I think what first aid did to resolve the problem, but the problem is recurring. Currently that "systems data" category is back up to 93G.
logit_en_SF,
If you'd like some help more specific to your issue, we'd recommend reaching out for additional support here: Get Support
Take care.
System files taking up over half of storage
