Sequoia 15.2 update - System Data ~300GB - 350GB

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Level 1

7 points

Sequoia 15.2 update - System Data ~300GB - 350GB

Since udpating my MacBook Air M2 1TB recently I noticed sluggish performance and then starting yesterday I started having 'out of space' notifications. looking into it, I noticed the system data had ballooned to >250GB. After doing clean up of about 250GB of after effects, photoshop and Xcode projects (removed old iOS versions) my system data went up to 300GB. I then went into /Library/Caches and /User/Library/Caches and cleaned those up. I turned off spotlight to try and isolate where this massive amount of system data was coming from. I restarted my MacBook Air and then noticed my system data had gone up to 350GB. after backing up my desktop and documents, I set those to store in iCloud. I then did a restart again and now my system data is currently bouncing between 310GB and 317GB. this issue did not exist until I upgraded to 15.2

here is a list of my storage:

Applications 61.77GB

Developer 53.67GB

Documents 50.26GB

iCloud Drive 42.16GB

Mail 0.5GB

Messages 8.53GB

Music 0.18GB

Music Creation 23.29GB

Photos 2.51GB

TV 0.26GB

Other Users & Shared 0.48GB

MacOS 20.95GB

System Data 317GB

I do not have Time Machine backups stored locally. I have cleaned my adobe cache files (in the past these could get very large. currently at 900mb).

it currently shows that 577GB of my 1TB drive is being used. of the 577GB, system data is 317GB?!

on my 2020 M1 MBP running sequoia 15.1.1 my system data file is 16.27GB.

I'm about to backup everything and do a complete re-install, but based on similar posts I'm wondering if this is a sequoia issue and I'm just setting myself up to have to deal with this all over again in a matter of time.

MacBook Air, macOS 15.2

Posted on Dec 24, 2024 3:56 PM

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Answer 1

PRP_53

Level 10

94,867 points

Dec 25, 2024 5:14 AM in response to buddychin

When the Operating System sends out an " 'out of space' notifications.

It usually means exactly that

There is Purgeable Space and there is Empty Space.

Purgeable Space which is Controlled by the Operating System. When the Operating Systems decides the computer needs additional Empty Space, it will move a portion of the Purgeable to Empty space

AFAIK - there is no User Actions to hasten this transition from Purgeable to Empty Space

It can day or longer before this will occur.

You may what to check View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac

Have there been or are there other User accounts on this machine ?

Has another user account been removed but has the User Account Folder Not been removed ?

Delete a user or group on Mac

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Answer 2

buddychin Author

Level 1

7 points

Dec 24, 2024 5:12 PM in response to tbirdvet

thanks for the reply. my downloads folder is less than 2GB. and I've tried most all solutions I've seen. aside from my previously mentioned attempts I've also done:

cleaned up spotlight index, removed all folders from spotlight and functionally turned it off
cleared all adobe cache
1st aid on HD (also did this in safe mode)
wrote a bash script to list all folders (incl hidden) and their sizes from my HD volume

and yes I understand that it contains systems files that I cannot control but this issue didn't exist prior to my upgrade and does not exist on my MBP M1. to me to say it seems large is an understatement given:

my files/apps = 260 GB
system data = 317 GB

this seems like a hard drive leak (not sure the term for it, but like a memory leak with RAM) that's causing the system to continually consume more space.

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Answer 3

AlWeir

Level 4

3,921 points

Jan 12, 2025 5:03 AM in response to buddychin

It might be com.apple.mediaanalysisd directory that is the culprit.

Mac Using Tons of Storage?

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Answer 4

tbirdvet

Level 6

15,629 points

Dec 24, 2024 4:54 PM in response to buddychin

What is the size of your downloads folder? I have about 89GB in my system data with Sequoia 15.2. Yours seem large but can contain many Apple files that you cannot control. If you Google this topic you can find many discussions on how to possibly clear up some space.

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Answer 5

Jan 12, 2025 2:38 AM in response to buddychin

I have a 1TB hd on the mac and a 1TB backup disk - not ideal but up until just before Sequoia 15.2 it was working fine, even through multiple macos upgrades. Suddenly Time Machine erased all other backups and only kept one, and I got the error "no space left for backup" when I try to make an incremental backup from there.

Do you also have Garageband or Logic installed? Maybe some change in the backup structure now includes all the sound libraries?

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Answer 6

tbirdvet

Level 6

15,629 points

Jan 12, 2025 4:43 AM in response to buddychin

Check your users, shared directory for relocated files. I had many that was using space that I deleted.

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Sequoia 15.2 update - System Data ~300GB - 350GB