Mac Studio Harddrive is almost full with System D

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Mac Studio Harddrive is almost full with System D

I have an M1 Mac Studio with a 500GB harddrive. I have almost all my documents, music, and photos on an external harddrive and suddenly I got a message saying the harddrive was full. When I do a system check it shows 473 of 494 GB are used. The graph bar shows documents, applications, mail and OS take up about 20% of the data and the rest of the 473 GB is system data. What on earth is going on here? What system data could use that much space? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Posted on Dec 16, 2023 8:26 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

133,405 points

Dec 18, 2023 10:10 AM in response to spinosaurus

since other may find your post be searching...

Even though you have solved your problem for now, this article suggests several free tools that can help you FIND those big Boat anchor sized files and directories. They just identify -- they modify NOTHING. Removing the stuff they find is up to you.

What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how… - Apple Community

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Answer 2

spinosaurus Author

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Dec 16, 2023 9:34 AM in response to spinosaurus

I figured it out, sorry. Somehow in Mail, the record log connection was turned on so there was over 300GB of login activity stored. What a crock. I turned it off and deleted the logs so all should be fine.

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Answer 3

spinosaurus Author

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Dec 18, 2023 12:21 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks Grant, that’s a great article and I will reference it for future cleaning. I am always skeptical of adding additional hardware that I’m unfamiliar with, but the sources here have been mostly reliable. These forums are really fantastic to solve most problems.

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Answer 4

BDAqua

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245,489 points

Dec 18, 2023 5:02 AM in response to spinosaurus

Thanks my friend! :) 👍

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Answer 5

spinosaurus Author

Level 1

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Dec 18, 2023 6:43 PM in response to Yellowbox

thank you Ian

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Answer 6

Yellowbox

Level 7

21,197 points

Dec 18, 2023 4:48 PM in response to spinosaurus

Hi spinosaurus,

spinosaurus wrote:

I figured it out, sorry. Somehow in Mail, the record log connection was turned on so there was over 300GB of login activity stored. What a crock. I turned it off and deleted the logs so all should be fine.

I have given you an Upvote for your solution. Keep up the good work!

Regards,

Ian.

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Mac Studio Harddrive is almost full with System D

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