System Storage Taking Up Way Too Much Space in macOS Sierra

This was my problem.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7683120?answerId=32683243022#32683243022

Read through 11 pages of replies that basically solved nothing or wanted me to install freemium crap apps. I had over 200GB of .txt log files from Apple Mail logging connections. Are you kidding me!?!? This just kept filling up my drive and filling up my drive. The more I cleaned out files the worse it got.

Apple you can't have a log file take the system down. Please put some kind of limit in place.

I turned off connection logging in Apple Mail and cleaned out the log files. Problem solved.

I have the same problem, but my "System storage" takes up more space every time I delete something. It's now taking up about 80 GB of storage and thats about 90% of my hard drive, because I have an 128 GB MacBook. I hope there is a solution for this nonsense that is happening with "System storage" taking up most of the space than it should. Look at Windows users, they don't seem to have the problem.

Forgot to say: When I get home from shooting, the videos are transferred to a desktop, and deleted from the laptop. The mystery cache files apparently stay behind.

Until Adobe re-fixes this bug, I'd like to find a way to write a script (or something) to clear this folder with one click. Any ideas would be appreciated.

You could try creating a folder on an external drive named Common. Use an alias or Symlink in place of Common folder. See if this saves the cached data to the external drive.

Users>"YourUserName">Library>Application Support>Adobe>Common>Media Cache Files

For easier creation of symlinks, you can add this script http://cl.ly/ImZ5 to "User/Library/Services" and right click on finder items to create symlink.

More info:

How to Create Symbolic Links at Command Line of Mac OS X

https://gigaom.com/2011/04/27/how-to-create-and-use-symlinks-on-a-mac/

I really wouldn't get so caught up in trying to figure out what Apple chucks into the "System" section (and why) because it appears not to be consistent across every user - from what we currently are seeing. I would use Finder with "Get Info" to do a quick check that nothing major is amiss and then forget about it. FWIW my "System" section reports 83Gb which on first look is quite large for what we traditionally think of as the system part of the OS as previously reported via Finder, but if I use "Get Info" I see that the OS System folder is actually 8.07Gb and the Library folder is 4.92Gb - thats 70Gb different, and guess what, my mp3's in the Music folder amount to just that - but Podcasts and Mobile Apps are reported under the iTunes section!

Why this new reporting system for disc space breaks out part of our media and puts some under "System" but the rest still under "iTunes" is a strange one to understand, but as long as everything all adds up why should we worry!

Since my last post Apple has released iTunes 12.6 which for me seems to have resolved the issue of some of my iTunes storage being miss shown under System - not sure which release it was (had two in a couple of days of each other) but now the bar graph and table report sizes for various areas of the OS almost the same as Finder does. So a previous reported System size of 83Gb is now displayed closer to 13Gb, iTunes on the other hand was 6Gb but is now shown as 76Gb which is what iOS apps, podcasts and MP3's add up to.

It might be worth a look to see if the new iTunes install has had a similar change to how System Information reports its information on your setup.

I'll try this. I thought I had the problem solved by deleting Adobe video editing cache files, but unless they're saving somewhere else other than the original place I found them, something is hogging 150 GB of system space 😟

I had a similar problem and I have easily solved it. Maybe my answer might help you.

I've downloaded a program called DaisyDisk which showed me that my System actually takes only 5 GB of the disk space.

Then I've downloaded the OmniDiskSweeper which shows you the files which takes the most space. In my case it was Adobe's Application Support Cache folder. I've deleted this folder and problem has disappeared.

The system is not actually taking up that much storage. It is actually miscategorized. To see if the system is truly taking up that much space:

-go to finder

-select go at the top of the screen

-go to computer

-select "Macintosh HD" (or whatever you have named your Hard Drive)

-command a - select all

-command i - get info on all folders

After the information loads in the top right of each box will be a GB amount. Normally it is the user folder that is taking up all the space.

This one didn't work for me, but something very similar did. I went Control+Shift+G to open the search bar, typed "~/library/", opened "Caches" folder>"Adobe">"Lightroom">"Video">"Media Cache Files" and deleted several 1.2GB+ movie files of movies that I'd previously had and thought I had deleted

This worked for me. Control+Shift+G to open search bar, typed ~/library/ and then >Caches>Adobe>Lightroom>Video>Media Cache Files and deleted several 1.2GB+ movie files of movies that I'd previously had on my Mac and thought I'd deleted

Have you found a solution for this yet? I'm wondering if it has to do with my Mac caching the changes for time machine backups, but I turned off time machine and it is the same size.

I'm a developer so it's possible that it has to do with lots of packages I've installed for programming, but I doubt it'd be this large.

Being a novice, I was a little bit skeptical about all of this, my "system" was taking up over 600GB of room, which seemed ridiculous.

Based on my experience, readers might want to know, 1) My issue seemed to be created by Stamps.com, and

2) the OmniDiskSweeper, which is a free program, solved the problem for me. It ran a scan of the hard drive and led me to the problem.

Thanks to those who recommended the program. I was getting the dreaded "hard drive is almost full" message before I realized that I had a problem.

I'm having the SAME issues on masOS Sierra! It's quite frustrating and slows me down from doing A LOT. Very time consuming. I can't free up any space on my phone until I free up stolen/hidden space on the mac 😠. Plus, most of my photos/videos don't transfer to my external hard drive from iphoto. VERY frustrating! They need to fix this problem ASAP!

I know this thread is old, but when sweeping my disk, I found a ridiculous amount of my system storage was being taken up by system diagnostics, under Users>library>logs>crashreporter>mobiledevice, within which was the name of my iPhone, only taking up 200 Mb, and another "iPhone" followed by a bunch of random numbers/letters. Under that was diagnosticlogs>sysdiagnose> and then hundreds of system diagnostics reports I had never known existed. Obviously I was wondering if for whatever reason there should be 70+ gigs of random, unrecognized, iPhone system diagnostics, and if these are at all necessary. Please let me know if I can go ahead and clear this from my drive or if it is an essential thing to keep.

Thanks