I noticed after my update to MAC OS 12 Monterey that my System Data Folder swelled to an incredible 320 GB, which is 1/3 of the FULL HD. Before the update (was running BIG Sur), the Folder was called Other and was only about 40-50 GB. Any suggestions? It eats disk space unnecessarily. Now also the backups etc are huge. Would appreciate any input. Best, Dino
iMac 24″, macOS 12.0
It turned out to have nothing to do with the system for me. Fortnite was hiding its content in the system folder. I went into Terminal and drilled down. I started with
du -hcd2 /System/Volumes 2> /dev/null
which looks in the given folder (/System/Volumes) and lists all the folders under it and the folders those contain, and the amount of data in each. I found the biggest of those and iterated.
du -hcd2 /System/Volumes/Data/Users 2> /dev/null
Until the culprit was revealed. So, I deleted the old, old version of Fortnite that runs on Apple. Ironically, this is one of our kids' macbooks, and they just wanted space to install xcode to get ready for Fortnite Creative 3.0, but I don't think they'll miss 2-year-old Fortnite.
Just to be pedantic, I'll explain the command. 'du' shows how much disk is used. '-' means options, h means use 'human readable' notation (GB, MB, KB), c means print a summary amount and d2 means go two levels deep. That's just so I don't get too much data to navigate. The '2>/dev/null' bit at the end discards error messages.
I hope this helps!
Good for you. It's not about "getting lucky" it's about not blindly deleting files. The OP and whoever else looks at this thread can do their own research. I looked into both before using them.
Clearly, it's not just me that uses these apps with no problems:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253309995?answerId=256195209022#256195209022 -> HW Tech's suggestion
Sorry to know I am not the only one with this problem/glitch. At the moment one half of my 1TB drive is now dedicated to 'System Data,' a whopping 513.02 GB! Come on, APPLE, really? My iMac is only three years old, and the only solution is to get a larger internal drive? I already had to wait for a month for this update to gain access to my external drives and to have Bluetooth stay active after restarts.
I revealed the hidden folders and found the Volume Folder. However, I did find a folder with my Username. Instead I found
The Volume Folder replicating itself - I'm guessing to infinity. Or maybe to 512 GB of System Data. I'm wondering if I should delete either the first one or the third iteration of the folder, clear trash and then restart the computer? Already updated the Time Machine - just incase. Thoughts?
Following the post by @Svilcata19 I eagerly updated to 12.2.1, and things got far, far worse - went from 349Gb to 549Gb! Does this make me suspect the old system files are in there somewhere? Bin emptied, restarted.... went up to 564Gb!
The [p09 - Data - Data … looks like an older OS installation.
Macintosh is a Monterey installation and it looks like that is what you are booted into.
Macintosh - Data is your current Data volume.
I don't know what [p09 is nor do I understand how you got to this point.
Do you have any idea what it is?
Good work there :-))
Empty Space - it is suggested to keep at least 15% to 20% of the Drive Total Capacity as Empty Space for good operations of the computer and for additional updates to Monterey to download, expand and install.
I've been struggling with this as well. When using Grand Perspective on a 256GB drive, it gives the "Size of Scanned Files" as 94.6GB, and then has "Miscellaneous Used Space" as 34.8 GB. Looking at the same drive in Apple's "System Information" it shows the total used space as 136 GB. How do I free up the "Miscellaneous Used Space"?
Here are my screen shots.
Thanks for quick reply. I did what you advised. Here is the outcome.
Any update on this? I have same problem, though 1/2 drive filled with system data.
One more thing.... When senior support tells you to go to genius bar, they get to close out your support case. Sending you into hours more repeat "troubleshooting."
-Oh well, this seems like an OS problem, I'm also having the same issue on my Late 2015 iMac:
Monterey is using most of my hard drive for system data. isn't there any fix for this?
The same here! 611GB for System Data! Cannot use my MacMini!
I have the exact problem. Very frustrating. Just wondering if you could give me more information on how you fixed your problem and how you removed the backup to get your System Data back. Cheers
After MAC OS 12 Monterey update that System Data Folder swelled to incredible 320 GB
