system uses half of my 1T internal drive. No room left

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Judy Author

Level 4

2,312 points

system uses half of my 1T internal drive. No room left

what should I do?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Feb 8, 2021 2:55 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

a brody

Level 10

85,366 points

Feb 8, 2021 3:28 PM in response to Judy

Apple menu -> About This Mac -> Storage -> Manage Storage

That will help you locate large files that are unessential.

Note interrupted Time Machine backups and iCloud backups may temporarily store things directly on the Macintosh HD itself, and not in a normal subfolder of your user folder. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy those folders to other drives while not connected to the internet, and look at your iCloud Apple Menu -> System settings to make sure you are only backing up that which is necessary.

Use Etrecheck to see if there are any optimizers installed on your system. You should remove everything called Cleaner, MacCleaner, MacKeeper, Zeobit, and Macpaw. Some things may need to be removed with Devon Technologies EasyFind while booted off safe mode. Safe mode is booted by holding the shift key. If you have any doubt of any file, ask us here first:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250002463

You should not be using any system optimizer. Just backups and diagnostic tools.

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Answer 2

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,656 points

Feb 8, 2021 11:58 PM in response to Judy

The first thing to be aware of it the Storage section under About This Mac is

known for reporting inaccurately.

Try rebuilding the Spotlight index,

How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac – Apple Support

Move the Macintosh HD (or the name you gave your disk) in to the Privacy panel.

Quit System Preferences.

Open System Preferences> Spotlight> Privacy highlight Macintosh HD and press the minus button.

The mac will start rebuilding the Spotlight index.

Check by clicking on Spotlight in the menubar and enter word, if it is indexing you should see a progress bar.

If re-indexing has not solved your problem then run this app, https://www.omnigroup.com/more

this will give an accurate account of the storage used. When the app has created its overview you can look at

the Users folder in the output and see what each user has stored, you can then delete files from there.

Do not delete any files or folders in any System or Library folders or any files you do not understand.

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Answer 3

Judy Author

Level 4

2,312 points

Feb 9, 2021 6:35 PM in response to Judy

I learned a lot with this problem. However, nothing was working.

So I called Apple Support and explained it to a sr. engineer.

He knew what to do for the problem from what I was explaining.

Nothing to do with Time Machine

He found a log file that was greater than 444 GB itself.

I didn't need any of those log files so they were trashed, and I now have 523 GB free space. YAY!

The problem actually came from mail. The short explanation:

1. Mail --> Window --> Connection Dr. --> Log Connection Activity --> TURN OFF

2. User --> Library --> Containers --> com.apple.mail --> Data --> Library --> Logs --> Mail --> the files to the --> TRASH

Thanks for your help.

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Answer 4

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,656 points

Feb 9, 2021 1:27 AM in response to Judy

Have you tried Omni Disk Sweeper, it gives an accurate description of your mac disk usage.

And where items are stored.

If you really are running with only 2GBS of free space then you run the risk of the mac locking up

and becoming unusable.

If your hard drive is showing on the Desktop click on it and then press Command and - i

to get the info panel up. Under General you will see Capacity, Available and Free Space

levels. The entries there are accurate.

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Answer 5

Eau Rouge

Level 8

42,656 points

Feb 9, 2021 1:57 AM in response to Judy

If Time Machine is switched on switch it off.

In Software Preferences> Time Machine which disk is selected as your Time Machine disk.

Read this article,

https://www.macworld.com/article/3260635/how-to-delete-time-machine-snapshots-on-your-mac.html

Did you use OmniDiskSweeper.

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Answer 6

Judy Author

Level 4

2,312 points

Feb 9, 2021 4:20 PM in response to Eau Rouge

My free space was down to 1.7 G today. So I couldn't install OmnidiskSweeper.

I turned off time machine and shut down. I disconnected the 3 drives I was using for backup.

One is a WD 3T passport, another is a 2T WD MyCloud. The 3rd one a 2T Time capsule I've been using for ages.

I restarted holding the shift key down. The free space went up to 4 GB.

I installed Omni Disk Sweeper, https://www.omnigroup.com/more

Omni Disk Sweeper showed my whole drive in column view with file sizes visible. It also shows where everything is stored. I did not see anything that used many gigabytes at all. I discarded only a few of MY folders that were not needed anymore.

Omni Disk Sweeper reports that my internal drive uses 283.6 GB.

About this Mac reports a total of 387.13 GB used, and 564.42 GB in use by the System.

And 3.64 GB available.

What should I do now?

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Answer 7

Judy Author

Level 4

2,312 points

Feb 8, 2021 6:41 PM in response to a brody

The past several days I have removed 30 GB of stuff from my files. I think I’m all set and then the next day I come back and storage space is gone again.

but my files use only 1/2 of my terabyte drive. The other half is used by the system and it’s calculated as one big lump of space.

I think the interrupted back ups make the most sense. I have three drives i back up to and when the space starts disappearing I keep getting messages that back ups can no longer be made and the space goes down exponentially.

so where can I find these interrupted back ups on the Mac drive itself. What might be the names of these files? Can I just throw them away myself?

I don’t have any optimizers or the other types of files you mentioned.

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Answer 8

Judy Author

Level 4

2,312 points

Feb 9, 2021 1:03 AM in response to Eau Rouge

reindexing with spotlight solved the problem of searching my smart mailboxes and finding files.

My files and apps, etc. occupy half of 1 T. Thus I would expect roughly half of the drive would be free for use. but the system uses it up. I have 2 GB free space left and can't use my Mac. Whether free space is accurate or not, I can't use my Mac.

I had previously removed 40 GB of things and thought I would be fine. Backing up started working again. But I watched as the space dwindled down to 2 GB. Several times this happened. And it wouldn't back up again as there was no space. I think the problem is connected to this.

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