Macbook Air M1 2020, Systemdata taking 90gb of 245gb

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Level 1

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Macbook Air M1 2020, Systemdata taking 90gb of 245gb

As stated above. Why is Systemdata taking up more than a third of my entire hard drive? I've had this Macbook for 9-10 months and no heavy programs on it. Still running out of storage and noticed the Systemdata clogging most of the hard drive.

How do I clean up? I've tried (as suggested elsewhere on this forum) to reboot in safe mode and then reboot again, but no luck.

Specs: macbook air m1 2020, MacOS Monterey 12.0.1

Thanks

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.0

Posted on Feb 21, 2022 11:16 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

lllaass

Level 10

210,453 points

Feb 21, 2022 12:48 PM in response to niksoerum

Maybe this will help:

After MAC OS 12 Monterey update that System Data Folder swelled to incredible 320 GB

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Answer 2

Halliday

Level 4

2,677 points

Feb 21, 2022 2:17 PM in response to niksoerum

Welcome, niksoerum, to Apple Support Communities!

It’s been a long time since I was running macOS 12.0.1 (Monterey). (I’m running 12.2.1, currently.)

What I can tell you is that System Data is a “catch all” storage category for Time Machine Snapshots, various assundry system caches, various Logs, etc.

Such is not intended to be managed by the user.

On my M1 Mac Mini, with 2TB SSD and 16 GB unified RAM, I, currently, have 15.75 GB macOS and 83.66 GB System Data.

That’s probably not much different from what you have shared with us.

I’m sorry that rebooting into Safe Mode didn’t help, since that’s what, usually, helps the most (since that clears a number of the caches).

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Macbook Air M1 2020, Systemdata taking 90gb of 245gb

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