I get alerts that my device is out of storage. When I check my storage, 85% is taken up by 'System Data' with no options to optimize or delete the files. This started the last time I updated my MacBook. This is now preventing me from updating my MacBook because I am out of storage.
Tough to tell anymore...
We cannot trust the Storage report as to where the usage really is, 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, or clone then clone back which seems to leave some huge temporary files behind!?
Carbon Copy Cloner seems to accomplish it...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
But a few suggestions to look at... 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…
macos - What will occur if the .DocumentRevisions-V100 folder is deleted? - Ask Different (stackexchange.com)
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
Tough to tell anymore...
We cannot trust the Storage report as to where the usage really is, 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, or clone then clone back which seems to leave some huge temporary files behind!?
Carbon Copy Cloner seems to accomplish it...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
But a few suggestions to look at... 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…
macos - What will occur if the .DocumentRevisions-V100 folder is deleted? - Ask Different (stackexchange.com)
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
How do you resolve excess System Data on your MacBook?
