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User profile for user: maddyjmae
maddyjmae Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Recurrently cluttered "System" storage

I've had this MacBook for about a year. It has 500GB of storage and within a few months it was saying that I was out of memory. I took it to a computer shop to look at it (since there was NOTHING on the hard drive) and they found that it was the "System" folder that was full. They couldn't explain it and told me it should empty automatically. They were unable to find a way to empty it and their only solution was to completely reload everything on the computer and start again (which worked). They had thought it might just be some weird glitch and probably wouldn't happen again. Now, it's been about a year and I'm getting the same message. With about 20GB on the computer itself, the rest is, once again, in the "System" file.


Does anyone know how to delete this data (and/or prevent it from accumulating)?


Thanks!

Posted on Apr 20, 2019 10:08 AM

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User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,849 points

Posted on Apr 21, 2019 10:14 AM

I suggest you try the following. If you are unable to remove or transfer files elsewhere, then it's because you don't have sufficient free space on the drive and the directory is now corrupted.


How to Free Up Space on The Hard Drive


  1. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
  2. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
  3. Also, see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
  4. What is 'Other' and 'Purgeable' in About This Mac?
  5. Files That Make Up the 'Other' Storage Category, and How to Remove Them
  6. Free up storage space on your Mac.
  7. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
  8. Be sure to Empty the Trash to recover the space.
  9. Replace the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
  10. Use OmniDiskSweeper or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.


If the above is no longer feasible, then you are stuck. You will not be able to access your files for backup. You will have to reformat the disk and install macOS from scratch.

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User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,849 points

Apr 21, 2019 10:14 AM in response to maddyjmae

I suggest you try the following. If you are unable to remove or transfer files elsewhere, then it's because you don't have sufficient free space on the drive and the directory is now corrupted.


How to Free Up Space on The Hard Drive


  1. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
  2. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
  3. Also, see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
  4. What is 'Other' and 'Purgeable' in About This Mac?
  5. Files That Make Up the 'Other' Storage Category, and How to Remove Them
  6. Free up storage space on your Mac.
  7. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
  8. Be sure to Empty the Trash to recover the space.
  9. Replace the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
  10. Use OmniDiskSweeper or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.


If the above is no longer feasible, then you are stuck. You will not be able to access your files for backup. You will have to reformat the disk and install macOS from scratch.

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User profile for user: maddyjmae
maddyjmae Author
User level: Level 1
8 points

Apr 20, 2019 2:31 PM in response to Kappy

Thank you very much for your reply.

I followed your instructions - which worked (again, thank you).

Unfortunately my computer continues to tell me that my computer is "almost full" (and won't download anything else) - and the "about this mac" storage still reads the same sort of numbers. I don't see any disk icons (or anything else) on my desktop (sorry to be dense!) - but disk utility also tells me I only have 72 MB free.

May have to resort to reloading again after all - perhaps there's just something genuinely wrong with this computer. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my question though!

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User profile for user: Kappy
Kappy
User level: Level 10
361,849 points

Apr 20, 2019 10:25 AM in response to maddyjmae

Two things might be involved. The first is Time Machine snapshots. The second is APFS snapshots.


Time Machine Snapshots


Open the Terminal in the Utilities folder and enter or paste the appropriate command line. Press RETURN and enter your admin password when prompted. It will not be echoed. Press RETURN again.


     To turn them ON: sudo tmutil enable

     To turn them OFF: sudo tmutil disable


Note that turning them OFF will also delete all existing snapshots. For more about snapshots see: About Time Machine local snapshots.


APFS snapshots are only accessible to users through Carbon Copy Cloner which can turn them on or off and allow you to manage them from within CCC.


You need to understand that both snapshots will be purged when more space is needed on the SSD. So, you really don't need to do anything about them. However, until any of them are removed they still use space on the disk.


Get Correct Storage Information


Do not use the information from the Storage section of the About This Mac dialog. Ignore the Storage information as it is typically wrong. To find out the correct information for any disk: Select a Desktop disk icon. Press Command-I to open the Get Info window and look at the topmost panel displayed. You will find the disk information displayed for Capacity, Available, and Used. If you have more than one disk/partition then repeat for each one on your Desktop.


The categories found in the Storage section of About This Mac are simply an arbitrary way of displaying files on your drive. There are no such categories actually on the drive.




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Recurrently cluttered "System" storage

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