System Data
how to free up the 'system data' on my iMac 24" it's taking 27 gb of space.
iMac 24″, macOS 12.1
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You can't. The system is on a read only volume of your hard drive for security purposes. Are you getting that size value from the About This Mac graphical indication of storage?
What does the Info pane for the system folder indicate the size to be? As far as freeing up more storage space on your boot drive the files that you have control over are located in the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Movies folders. You can use either of these two free apps, GrandPerspective or OmniDiscSweeper, to find the largest files on your drive so you can determine if they can be deleted or moved to an external HD for storage.
Note: you can empty the Downloads folder after the apps and/or updates that were downloaded have been installed or applied. Many users have found a couple of Gigabytes of files in their Downloads folder which are no longer needed.