how to clear system data

how to clear system data on macbook

Posted on Sep 28, 2022 9:23 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 28, 2022 1:04 PM

We cannot trust the Storage report as to where the usage really is, 4 suggestions, especially what “Other” or :system:” is…


And apparently Apple has a new way of hiding files & more than a few find out the only way is to Backup, then Erase the Drive!?


Have you emptied the trash lately?


You may find neuroanatomist's User Tip helpful: What is "Other" storage on a Mac, and how can I clean it out? - Apple Community


Terminal code to clean DocumentRevisionsfolder…

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/313102/what-will-occur-if-the-documentrevisions-v100-folder-is-deleted

macos - What will occur if the .DocumentRevisions-V100 folder is deleted? - Ask Different (stackexchange.com)


System Memory OS 10.12.6 Sierra - Apple Community

System Memory OS 10.12.6 Sierra - Apple Community


4 suggestions…


Look for iOS backups…

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup


OmniDiskSweeper shows you the files on your drive, largest to smallest, and lets you quickly Trash or open them.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more/


Purging local backups

Please note that although this doesn't affect your remote backup from Time Machine, this will get rid of the redundancy (at least until the next Time Machine backup) that a local backup disk will provide. If you need such redundancy or are worried about the recovery of your data then you would be best served to let macOS determine when to purge these files.

Start Terminal from spotlight.

At the terminal type tmutil listlocalsnapshotdates. 

Hit enter.


Here, you'll now see a list of all of the locally stored Time Machine backup snapshots stored on your disk.

Next you can remove the snapshots based on their date. I prefer to delete them one at at time. Once my "System" disk usage is at an acceptable level, I stop deleting but you can delete all of them if you want to reclaim all of the disk space.


Back at the terminal, type tmutil deletelocalsnapshots YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS , where will be one of the dates from your backup. This will be in the form of xxx-yy-zz-abcdef. Try to start with the oldest snapshot.

Hit enter.

Repeat for as many snapshot dates as required


http://www.thagomizer.com/blog/2018/03/27/cleaning-up-time-machine-local-snapshots.html


tmutil deletelocalsnapshots /  # deletes all the snapshots


Thanks to BobHarris file sizes, Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal:...


sudo du -hx | sort -h 


sudo du -hx ~/| sort -h 


1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 28, 2022 1:04 PM in response to markeith98

We cannot trust the Storage report as to where the usage really is, 4 suggestions, especially what “Other” or :system:” is…


And apparently Apple has a new way of hiding files & more than a few find out the only way is to Backup, then Erase the Drive!?


Have you emptied the trash lately?


You may find neuroanatomist's User Tip helpful: What is "Other" storage on a Mac, and how can I clean it out? - Apple Community


Terminal code to clean DocumentRevisionsfolder…

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/313102/what-will-occur-if-the-documentrevisions-v100-folder-is-deleted

macos - What will occur if the .DocumentRevisions-V100 folder is deleted? - Ask Different (stackexchange.com)


System Memory OS 10.12.6 Sierra - Apple Community

System Memory OS 10.12.6 Sierra - Apple Community


4 suggestions…


Look for iOS backups…

/Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup


OmniDiskSweeper shows you the files on your drive, largest to smallest, and lets you quickly Trash or open them.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more/


Purging local backups

Please note that although this doesn't affect your remote backup from Time Machine, this will get rid of the redundancy (at least until the next Time Machine backup) that a local backup disk will provide. If you need such redundancy or are worried about the recovery of your data then you would be best served to let macOS determine when to purge these files.

Start Terminal from spotlight.

At the terminal type tmutil listlocalsnapshotdates. 

Hit enter.


Here, you'll now see a list of all of the locally stored Time Machine backup snapshots stored on your disk.

Next you can remove the snapshots based on their date. I prefer to delete them one at at time. Once my "System" disk usage is at an acceptable level, I stop deleting but you can delete all of them if you want to reclaim all of the disk space.


Back at the terminal, type tmutil deletelocalsnapshots YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS , where will be one of the dates from your backup. This will be in the form of xxx-yy-zz-abcdef. Try to start with the oldest snapshot.

Hit enter.

Repeat for as many snapshot dates as required


http://www.thagomizer.com/blog/2018/03/27/cleaning-up-time-machine-local-snapshots.html


tmutil deletelocalsnapshots /  # deletes all the snapshots


Thanks to BobHarris file sizes, Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal:...


sudo du -hx | sort -h 


sudo du -hx ~/| sort -h 


This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

how to clear system data

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