Level 1

81 points

MacOS Sequoia filling up with system data

I have a 2023 Mac Studio M2 with 1 TB SSD and a week ago there was 600GB of free space. I updated Adobe CC yesterday and when I reopened After Effects I got the message that I didn't have enough disk space for the cache. I checked and there was only 90GB free space. I then restarted the machine, deleted the Adobe cache (6gb), deleted my Time Machine snapshots, deleted all the other caches. I ended up with 258GB of free space. A check of the storage list shows that I still have 492GB of system data and I can't get rid of it.

Any suggestions?

Mac Studio, macOS 15.0

Posted on Oct 17, 2024 12:49 PM

Top-ranking reply

JethLaq

Level 1

42 points

Posted on Mar 13, 2025 7:08 PM

With the help of Apple support and many hours of troubleshooting and diagnostics we were able to identify the problem and regain the disk space from System Data. The culprit in my case was Carbon Copy Cloner a backup and disk cloning utility of which a snapshot was occupying 416GB of disk space when it should not have been.

To get rid of this I booted into recovery mode while holding "Command & R" while starting the computer

Ran Disk Utility and selected View > Show APFS Snapshots > selected the snapshot and deleted it.

Upon restart my disk usage was somewhat back to normal. I have a 1TB drive and used space was 444GB but Available space said 998GB. Clearly there was some lingering calculation challenges but Apple said that would sort itself out in time or would update correctly if an OS update was done.

Sure enough after I updated to Sequoia 15.3.2 everything appears to be back to normal.

Fingers crossed that things remain that way and hopefully this may help some of you also experiencing this issue!

View in context

72 replies

Feb 23, 2025 8:31 AM in response to DGaryC

same problem. I just downgraded to Sonoma, and so far so good.

Mar 6, 2025 11:53 PM in response to DGaryC

Go to this link and follow steps to disable spotlight.

I just did and reclaimed 160 GB on my iMac with 512 SSD.

Get Raycast as an alternative to Spotlight. It is free and does much more.

[Edited by Moderator]

AlWeir

Level 5

5,523 points

Oct 17, 2024 2:01 PM in response to DGaryC

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

Nov 28, 2024 1:42 PM in response to AlWeir

@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.

Dec 9, 2024 1:23 PM in response to iBookmaster

Yes, that’s right. Safe mode also clears system caches which is a part of the system data storage. You can manually delete this folder as well under your user library.

DGaryC Author

Level 1

81 points

Oct 17, 2024 2:19 PM in response to AlWeir

I'm sorry, that's not very helpful. If you looked at my screenshot, you'd see that the system data doesn't relate to my documents and videos. I had all the documents, photos, and videos that I wanted to keep and still had 600GB of free space.

DGaryC Author

Level 1

81 points

Oct 17, 2024 3:04 PM in response to AlWeir

Thank you, but no. I want to keep the Desktop and Documents data that is synched to my MacBook Pro and is necessary for my business. I want to get rid of the 490GB of SYSTEM DATA that wasn't there last week. Forget about the small stuff. I was happy when 400Gb was used, and 600GB was free. And I'd rather not have to wipe the SSD and reinstall every 12 months. I had enough of that when forced to work in a Microsoft windows environment! And before you ask, my first Mac was a Quadra 700 in 1992.

wurliman

Level 1

8 points

Oct 18, 2024 6:17 PM in response to DGaryC

I also have a lot of System Data after upgrading to Sequoia. It's only 60 GB, but that's 1/4 of my 256 storage capacity. Is this a glitch in the system? Is any of this data non-essential and purgeable?

albk691

Level 1

26 points

Oct 22, 2024 1:41 PM in response to DGaryC

I'm also drowning in (428GB of) System Data. It seems it doesn't even matter if I'm removing other files from my laptop, I'm not getting any space back.

What seems even weirder is that I can't seem to find where these 400GB are hiding...

albk691

Level 1

26 points

Oct 22, 2024 3:44 PM in response to DGaryC

First of all, thank you SO much for the extremely quick response!

I'd say about 10 minutes after I posted my previous message - and while I was using Disk Inventory X to scan for any hidden huge folders - my Mac suddenly decided it felt 200gb lighter..

I'm not sure if the actual folder scanning did anything or it just randomly felt like unclogging the drain, but I'm not sitting comfortably at 'only' 200gb system data...

ScSe

Level 1

20 points

Nov 12, 2024 7:07 AM in response to DGaryC

I have the same issue since upgrading to Sequoia: lots of space before, full disk after.

As @DGaryC said, this has nothing to do with normal files in Documents, Downloads, Photos, etc. It's a sudden bloating of System Data after upgrading to Sequoia.

BenGott

Level 1

38 points

Nov 27, 2024 7:03 AM in response to DGaryC

Exact same story here with Mac M1 Pro - Sequoia update exploded the system data and deleting items from documents seems to only shift data from there to system. I trashed 260GB of video from documents and saw a corresponding increase in system data. I don't use time machine. Other fixes suggested don't do anything. Lack of free space seems to be causing other buggy issues with performance and random rebooting. Would love an actual update to fix this, or easier way to downgrade to macOS 14.

RoniW

Level 1

4 points

Dec 9, 2024 6:41 PM in response to DGaryC

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.

DGaryC Author

Level 1

81 points

Dec 30, 2024 5:08 PM in response to DGaryC

Here's an interesting update to my original post. Since bringing my system data down to a manageable level (<100gb), I've had a steady 600gb free on my 1tb drive for a month now.

But I've recently been downloading all of my Vimeo video files to archive locally. I'll download around 100gb worth, then copy them to an external SSD and delete the files in my Downloads. I've downloaded a total of 250gb so far, and deleted the files from my MacOS drive, but suddenly my System Data has blown out by... 250gb!

It appears that deleting the files from my MacOS HD doesn't actually delete them.

I suspect Time Machine has something to do with this. But I've deleted my TM snapshots and if anything, my System Data has grown.

jkknyc

Level 1

43 points

Feb 4, 2025 7:53 AM in response to DGaryC

I'm not as technologically sophisticated as anyone in this thread. But to my simple mind, it seems counter-intuitive that I should have to delete photos, videos and other documents I keep on my hard drive just to allow the system data to take up 75% of the total volume. I mean: isn't that the purpose of my hard drive, to store stuff I want?

I'm not sure when the system data started to balloon like this, but my machine is really struggling under its weight (1.5 TB out of 2 TB total storage).

(Mac Mini 2018, Quad-Core Intel Core i3; Sequoia 15.3)

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MacOS Sequoia filling up with system data