how to *actually* fix the big block of "other" or "system data" that randomly appears in system information.
There is a very common issue in macOS where a big block of "other" or "system data" will show up on the system information panel. There is almost no documentation about this and while being a normal functionality of the system, its still very confusing and a stupid way of categorising files on the system.
These files are usually library entires which cant be automatically linked to a specific app, and might not even show up under the total storage of your library folders. and apple has no obvious way of looking for and deleting these files.
I have seen dozens of threads about this issue and nobody seems to have any answers and apple support is usually no help with this. but after a long conversation with apple support recently, i've figured out a way of clearing it out.
IMPORTANT NOTE: THESE ARE LIBRARY AND SYSTEM FILES. DO NOT MESS AROUND IN THESE FOLDERS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. DO NOT DELETE FILES/FOLDERS YOU ARE NOT COMPLETELY SURE ARE SAFE TO DELETE.
Step 1: Find a list of large files hidden in these areas.
A) Open a new terminal window and paste the following command:
sudo ** --si -xct 1000000000 /System/Volumes/Data | tee >(grep -ve $'*\t' > ~/Desktop/DiskSpace.txt) | sort -nr > ~/Desktop/SortedDiskSpace.txt
B) Type in your password (note: no characters will show up for security reasons, but your password is being entered)
C) allow access to every folder Terminal asks for
D) Open the two .TXT files which are now on your desktop
Step 2: look through those lists and delete files YOU KNOW ARE SAFE TO DELETE AND WHICH YOU DO NOT NEED
A) Copy the path to a folder which you're able to delete
B) Click back onto your desktop
C) press CMD+Shift+G to open up the "go to folder" Window
D) Paste in the file path and press enter to open that folder in finder
E) Find and delete those files you don't need/want
Apple, please fix this. do a better job of categorising Library files, stop locking down the file system (or at least have an option to switch to a full unlocked UNIX file system for advanced users) and provide a full suite of built in file and data management tools to stop confusing customers with unlabelled and unaccessible folders taking up hundreds of GB of data.