Hidden files filing my drive

How to delete Time Machine snapshots on your Mac

Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Then >>

Understand, we are all working Remotely from all around the world. 

Therefore, we do not have the On-Hands experience the User ( you ) has with this computer.

The next best thing for us to having an actual On-Hand experience  with this computer is to follow the steps below

Download the Application Etrecheck directly from a well Respected ASC Contributor. And Safe to use.

The application is free or paid from added features. 

Run the application with Full Disc Access ( Security & Privacy - Full Disc Access ).

It will take a Snap Shot -  both the hardware and software.

 The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information. 

Post back the Full Report - copy and paste - using the Additional Text Icon ( 3rd Icon to last )

We can have a look at the report for possible issues and may have possible suggestions to resolve the issues.

How has the User ( you ) determined the issue is in the Home Folder and not elsewhere ?

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how can I clean it out?

Free up storage space on your Mac

OmniDiskSweeper Safe to use

GrandPerspective 

How to delete Time Machine snapshots on your Mac

See used and available storage space on your Mac

Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

The final word from Apple on Managing the " Other/ System Data “ Category

Other / System Data: Contains files that don’t fall into the categories listed here. This category primarily includes files and data used by the system, such as log files, caches, VM files, and other runtime system resources. Also included are temporary files, fonts, app support files, and plug-ins. You can't manage the contents of this category. The contents are managed by macOS, and the category varies in size depending on the current state of your Mac.

There are a number of hidden folders, so it is normal that the total is greater than the sum of the visible ones; but 500GB does seem very excessive.

Please start by telling us what I asked above.

Also: one common use of a large amount of space is Time Machine local snapshots.

Paste the following line in a Terminal window, and tell us what output you get:

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

The local snapshots are from the last day, so that seems all right.

The Etrecheck report that P. Phillips requested may well help us.

Also, in order to know which subfolders contain all that extra data, please paste the following in Terminal and then post the first few lines here (ignoring a few errors that will appear at first):

EDIT - I had an error in the previous version!

du -d 1 ~ | sort -n -r

NOTE: the command above does not make any modifications. The du command will just list the sizes (in 512-byte units) of the folders under your home folder; and the sort command will order them in decreasing order, so largest will be on top of the list.

Some places where large items might be found and manually deleted:

Monterey Disk Utility > View > Show APFS Snaphots can manage snapshots.

iOS backups: connect the device via USB > open a Finder window > select the device in the sidebar > General > Manage backups... (the same folders are cryptically named at ~/Library/Application Support/Mobilesync/Backup). Leave at least one local (or iCloud) backup unless you want to live dangerously.

iOS update files: ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates (and iPad Software Updates).

To cents here.

iCloud was not and is not designed by Apple to be used as a Storage Place to off load files from the Internal Drive to make Space on the Internal Drive.

It is definitely not like an External Drive where files are often off loaded from the Computer to be Archived.

iCloud is designed to make changes on one Device and those Changes will be reflect to all Other Devices using the same Apple ID and iCloud enabled.

Be careful!

If you remove them from Mobile Documents, they will be removed from your iCloud Drive.

It appears that you have a large allotment in your iCloud. By default the contents of your iCloud Drive will be on your mac as well, so you can access them even if you are offline.

You may want to consider this: in System Preferences->Apple ID, check "Optimize Mac Storage". This will allow you to have some content only in iCloud, and the copy on your mac may be deleted to recover some space. However, I don't see a way to directly manage what is kept and what is not, or how much is too much.

It could be a cache or log gone wild.

In Finder, press Command-Shift-G and paste

~/Library

Select the Caches folder and press Command-I. How big is it?

Glenn Radford wrote:

over 500gb of hidden files.

Over 500GB where? In the Caches folder?

Where exactly did you get this value of 500GB?

A little guide on how

How to delete Time Machine snapshots on your Mac

How To Delete Time Machine Backups & Snapshots