MacOS Sequoia filling up with system data

After updating my system, I always shutdown, then startup in Safe Mode. I had a fair amount, not super large amounts of System Data like some of you and after starting up in Safe Mode, then restarting it was significantly reduced. After updating to Mac OS 15.2 release candidate beta I had over 10 GB of Apple Intelligence in the Info button next to Mac OS in System Settings/Storage. This was reduced to 5.8 GB on my MacBook Pro M1 14 inch after starting in Safe Mode, then restarting normally. I would give it a try.

I'm having the same issue. Most of my data is stored on hard drives so my macbookpro doesn't really store much but applications. Since upgrading to Sequoia the system data takes up 250GB which makes me wonder if this is a way for apple to force users to purchase iCloud space. Can't seem to wonder why it's taking up so much space.

This has become a huge problem for me. I have 3 Mac's and all of them have had this issue since updating to Sequoia. I have a new Mac Pro that is 3 months old with a 1TB harddrive and the System Data has been growing every day. It got to 600GB and I loaded an older version of the machine in and watched the system data. It just seems to grow unchecked until I run first aid. This reduces the system data down to less than 1GB of space. Over time it grows. Right now it is 383GB and it has been 5 days or so since I ran first aid on the hard drive. HELP from someone from Apple would be helpful.

I'm having this problem too! I spent an hour plus on the phone with Apple Tech Support last month. The fix we stumbled upon was to boot into Safe Mode. After booting into Safe Mode, my System Data shrunk from 365GB to 45GBs. I switched my Time Machine backup schedule from daily to weekly thinking that was the culprit, but I'm still having to boot into Safe Mode every 1-2 weeks to shrink my System Data.

If you have Time Machine running look at deleting some of it's snapshots on Disk Utility. I try to usually keep six months worth of snapshots.

So, if I understand correctly, each week or so I need to go into safe mode, delete the system caches to free up 560GB of system data? I am not sure this is a good long term solution.

Then start off loading photos, videos, documents and what ever else you don't really need on your Mac.

Everything you store on iCloud is still stored on your Mac, taking up room.

So if turned off Desktop and Documents and Photos and off loaded them to a external SSD you would gain 127 GB on your internal SSD and free up space on you iCloud. A win-win.

For me '/Users/abc/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/EdgeUpdater' uses 17.97 GB.

Check out the YouTube video in this thread posted by TechSiren. That helped me get 100 GB back.

Glad to know that worked for you @ScSe

@AlWeir You can right click or secondary click on the files and click on "remove download". That will store the files only on your iCloud and won't take up space on the Mac.

Glad to know that worked for you @ScSe