System Storage Taking Up Way Too Much Space in macOS Sierra

By default, that would be where your stuff gets stored. On some newer versions, you have an option to look for large files that you might want to delete. If you are showing the hard drive on the left side on the finder (probably named something like Macintosh HD) you can right-click it and select "Manage Storage". The dialog that comes up will show the different areas like Documents. Click on Documents or messages or whatever folder is of interest, and it will show you the large files. Another way to get to this tool is to click the apple in the top left of the screen and select "About This Mac", then in the dialog that pops up, click Storage on the top of the dialog and then click the button "Manage"

Just ran into this, too. Some was TM snapshots, but the real issue seems to be the way that HS Sys info is calculating "System":

When I run Sysinfo from my lean admin account, I get 410 GB "System" (Uggh). When I run it from my everyday user account, I get 220 GB "System" (now WHAT?).

As my iMac is multi-account, I have Photos and Lightroom DB in the Shared folder (close to 400 GB). Photos is about 190 GB in the System-Photo-DB... which Sysinfo shows as "Pictures" in my everyday user account... but not from my admin account (where I have not set up Photos)...

If I do the math, it kind-of stacks up and shows a user-confuser style of counting in Sysinfo. Apple: this is NOT the integrity of user-friendly systems I pay for, this is undergraduate level programming... but maybe they have the more competent staff engaged in tax evasion programming....

My System storage is 600+ gig Atm it’s driving me nuts.

Everything I delete goes to system 😡

I just moved the whole photos folder to a external HD, deleted it of the Mac, emptied the trash and reboot. Did sweet f all just increased the system folder.

Been on the phone with Apple support for 3 weeks. No one can suss it out. Any ideas ??? Thanks in advance 😊

One thing I noticed is that any large change in what is on the disk will cause a large increase in the time machine local snapshots which show in that system space. It should show as recoverable, but you can verify whe

(Continued) if you are using time machine, you can verify without turning time machine off by deleting a few of those local snapshots as described in my post above. Delete a couple of them from a time just after when you made a big change like moving photos and see what it shows.

I have this problem too, and at the most inopportune time!

I've been trying to write my WIP High Fantasy novel and what's taking up most of my space?

82.74 of System Space!

This is so infuriating, especially for a writer. 😠

I have no idea how I'll be able to purge it, I know nothing of caches, so I'm too afraid to delete any.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

If you aren’t getting warnings about not having enough room to save your work, then you probably don’t have anything to worry about, but you can check one thing to be sure. When you look at the drive’s space, does it show you how much is purgeable? Any amount of space that is purgeable is available to use, because the system will automatically purge that and use it when your drive gets low on space. But if there is no purgeable space and your available space gets low, then you need to do something.

Hey how are you ?

Sorry I can’t give you any help, just let u know my experience !!

Maybe a little. Download a program Malwarebytes and do a scan. I found a thing called jdi back up and deleted it but I think it was to late.

I have had the best Apple technician on the phone for hours I mean hours probably 6-7 hours in two days. The fine man went through every folder on the Mac and for the life of us we could not find where all this storage was going. I’m up to 990 Gb on system storage and every time I delete something over it goes. To cut a long story short I’m pulling everything of the Mac on to an external HD and wiping the operating system then reinstalling it. I think this is the only way to go. This is the fourth technician and buy far the best. This guy was excited about trying to fix this issue, like it was a challenge for him. Hats of to Apple. Awesome support.

I can’t remember his name but I will post it tomorrow when I speak to him. If anyone can fix it this dude can 😀

Very serious problem indeed!

My system storage jumped from approximately 30GB to 75GB. I was clearing some space in iTunes and other useless app and everything became untouchable system files!

I might have been able to solve the issue by going to ~/Library/caches using Go To Folder and deleting the cache files that were created today, as I was clearing space in my MAC.

Weird stuff, took the best part of my day from me!

I just got off the phone with Apple Care with the same problem. I’ve Googled this problem and spent too much time on the phone with Apple trying to figure it out.

I don’t know if this is the solution yet...I’m still waiting for the Time Machine to finish it’s backup...but the Care rep I spoke to thinks the 9 days of local snapshots my computer was storing because my external drive was not attached was taking up all the extra space showing up under system.

Does this sound like it could be your problem?

I’ll update as I learn more. I sure hope the solution has finally been uncovered!

Right! That’s the problem. The Time Machine’s idea of “low” and mine are two different things. It just kept storing snapshots because I had a bit of storage left. It got to the point I couldn’t back up my phone because it took up so much space.

I can report once I did the Time Machine backup the hard drive stats went back to normal and I was able to backup my phone.

I’d say problem solved.

Wanna share the end of my Story: I also was someone with macOS High Sierra taking up all my space on the HD. Because no solution came up - even with contact of support, i decided to freshly set up my mac. the odysee started, i got errors after error during the installation. at the end brought the mac to the store - they set it up with mac OS High Sierra. At home I took hours of time to reinstall all my apps - then something in an update went wrong. mac down again - at the end they had to change the motherboard - costed me several hundred bucks...

Hope you are more lucky...

My systems folder would grow larger with everything I deleted of it. Time machine would not let me back up. So I ended up dragging anything I wanted to a external HD. Wiped the OS and reinstalled with the help of a Apple technician. It was the only way :) good luck guys !!

I found out my system had 90GB of system storage that was taking up way too much storage. I used an app called Privacy Cleaner which is free. It wasn't perfect but did allow me to clear 40GB of logs and and another 10GB of stuff.

I have just formatted my drive and installed High Sierra and everything was fine. I re-downloaded 36GB of Music purchase on iTunes and and about 42GB of photos from iCloud Photo Library. My system storage showed 7.9GB

When I reset my Mac, photos is only 9.68GB and System shows 39.9GB.

It’s definitely displaying my Photos Library as System, wish this could be fixed.