System Storage Taking Up Way Too Much Space in macOS Sierra

You have to take into account all the other files on your Mac, not just iTunes.

For example the text messages on my iPhone determine the size of the backup my iPhone does on the cloud.

You need to look into how many notes you have and how many text you sent on the macbook. iTunes isn't the only thing taking up space in the system storage tab. It would also be easier for us to help if you submitted a screenshot of the actual Documents>iTunes folder so we can see the size of the folder. That will give us all the info we need to determine the issue. My library is taking up space on my MacBook Air mainly because I use Apple Music and the library takes up space if I use it on my MacBook. Some files are stored on the mac. When I went to my iTunes Music folder in Finder I found what was taking up all the space. It was a movie I purchased on my MacBook Air. One movie was taking up 7GB of data. Go into iTunes and find the movie then select remove download and you can see in the iTunes folder in finder where the folder was removed and the space is now back when I go to System Information. I can delete it and still watch it on all my devices because of the purchase history option. Now what is taking up all the space is a folder titled Album Artwork.

My iTunes Library on my iMac is 4,185 albums, 176 days, 435.37GB so I'd say I'm doing great for having that available on my MacBook Air anytime I want and the System Storage is only now 35.1GB.

Do some digging around in Finder and I'm sure you will find the file(s) taking up all your space. Till then submit the screenshot with more info on the breakdown of the files within iTunes and I'll be able to tell you where to look next. There are a lot of folders you will need to look into if iTunes is not the issue. For instance you will have to go into your Caches folder and see what is in there. There is a lot that can be done, but I don't want to list them all here and misdirect you when you probably don't need to go into these folders.

HERE IS HOW TO FIX THIS!!!

• Open terminal using spotlight search.
• Type the following.... sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
• Enter your account password
• Then you will see something like this... com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-29-064147
• Next, type... tmutil deletelocalsnapshots and copy the last part of your com.apple.TimeMachine code from earlier. (the numbers.) mine were 2017-12-29-064147
• So in my case, it would look like this.... tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2017-12-29-064147
• This cleared my storage from 127GB to 1.2GB!!!

Hope this works for you. 🙂

Also visit this youtube video if you can't figure it out.

How to Clear System Storage on MacOS High Sierra - YouTube

I fixed mine (System storage eating 130GB) by deleting 2 ICloud Archive folders and an extra Desktop folder. I suspected something had happened when I'd clawed back files from iCloud six months ago after realizing I couldn't work offline. I thought I'd stopped the iCloud crap, but realized that files were still being saved to iCloud archive folders, though not being uploaded to iCloud. Then there was this weird extra desktop folder I found. I moved them to trash and my system storage went to less than 40GB with 106GB in the trash. Nearly pressed empty trash then - but be cautious.

It was harrowing, because it was confusing about which files were in my reg folders and which were in the iCloud folders I wanted to delete. It did not help that the folders in the trash bizarrely still showed up on the Finder window margin. I thought those folders were kept and nearly Emptied Trash - but those folders were actually in the trash. Be cautious and look for "trash" written inconspicuously on a grey bar in the finder window when you click on the left margin folders to view the files. I carefully moved files around into different folders then pressed empty trash. Currently the system storage reads 29GB. Success.

Deeper info: When I did Command I on the icloud a archives and extra desktop folders, they were nothing - nothing could explain the huge system storage load. But one or more of those folders was doing something on a system level that sucked my GB dry. I suspect it was that extra desktop folder that I think was generated while I took back my folders from cloud. I removed the archive icloud folders from trash to test what it did to system storage before I deleted them forever. Putting them on my desktop did nothing really to system storage. However the extra desktop folder couldn't be removed from trash to test it's GB burden ("do you want to replace the existing desktop?"). I said F it , put back the Archive icloud folders into trash and deleted the them all. Went from system storage using 130 GB to 29 GB in that instant.

(I'd dealt with Apple Support 3 times, BTW. I deleted timemachine snapshots, I turned off timemachine, I didsome otherstuff they told me to do which was PAINFUL and did so, so, so little. Still had 130GB system storage).

What fixed this was my intuition and anger: I figured it out. I hope this helps someone else.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I was on the phone with support. Try this...

1. Start your mac in Safe mode by holding the shift key before the power key

2. Check your storage About This Mac/Storage etc. (In safe mode, mine showed accurate usage)

3. Restart in normal mode

4. Repeat step #2.

All was fixed. Good luck!

So I was trying to migrate to a new mac. I attempted to migrate a few times with no success. Finally I decided to simply hook an external hard drive to the new machine and copy the files over and then install the software. However I suddenly had hardly any space on my 1tb mac. The system was using half. I spent days on trying to figure it all out. Turned out to be this. Despite deleting the users created when I had tried to migrate my old mac over, I went under the computer and looked under users and found they still were there. I deleted all of the users that had been created in my attempts to migrate, which didn't show up when I went to login to the machine and had to choose a user. This solved my problem. I don't recommend using migrate...wasted over a week trying...each time letting the migrate go for 16 hours or more with no success. Hope this helps someone. 🙂

I had the same issue. After some digging, I found out that '/cores' folder is taking up all the space(110G !!).

The whole purpose of that folder is to send in crash reports to Apple.

Adding in some relevant conversations:

Is it safe to delete core dump files from Mac?

macos - OS X El-Capitan - /cores directory taking up a lot of space? - Ask Different

If it really is taking up a lot of space and you wouldn't want that:

1. Use this command to free up space.

sudo rm -f /cores/core.*

2. Command to prevent future occurances

sudo launchctl limit core 0 0

Final Remarks I just think this is too poor service from Apple allowing to eat up all the users' disk space just for development purposes.

I had a hidden file in Application Support file taking up around 50Gb but was listed as System Storage . It was associated with another User profile on my MacBook that I deleted (maybe why the file was hidden even to the admin profile?). Helpful lil app called OmniDiskSweeper found it for me and I could delete it thereafter. Really reccomend it.

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 been researching this issue because i also have it, I have found the best solution to the problem which is to use OmniDiskSweeper, the app allows you to see what is taking up all of the space on your MacBook and allows you to delete it straight away. Here is the link to the website to download the app: https://www.omnigroup.com/more , i hope that all of you can fix the problem using my solution because it worked for me and is easy to operate.

There is also a video tutorial here for all of you. :) enjoy!

Don't rely on that method to get the actual size of the system folder. I get 31 GB as my system size but the folder itself is only 13 GB when selecting it and using the Get Info on it.

but the folder itself is only 13 GB when selecting it and using Get Info on it.

The method with the higher number is known to be either very inefficient or includes files elsewhere on the hard drive that are associated with the system.

So when you want to know sizes use the Get Info method.

I also have faced this issue. I had lots of google backup files which i couldnt find very easily. Then I went to Task bar>Go>Go to folder and searched

~/Library/Application Support/

You may delete all unwanted files. I could free up almost 60 GB !!

It wont ham you even if you delete the entire folders. you may loose some saved passwords and files. Mac will restore other settings to the factory settings. Do it at your own risk if you are going for a complete delete

Have you tried deleting items in the ~/Library/Caches directory. I had the same issue on my mac.

My mac has 500GB flash storage and i detected the same storage capacity problem.

I navigated to the caches folder and discovered the file size was quite big (around 330GB).

After deleting the contents from the cache folder i proceeded to restarting the mac. logged in and emptied the trash.

if you try emptying the recycle bin, the Finder app usually prompts you that "the files could not be deleted as it is in use"

I just got off the phone with Apple support (highly recommend opening a case with them so they can work with you via phone/screenshare to troubleshoot exactly what is taking up all that storage).

In my case, the Mail app was connected to 3 Gmail accounts. We found that I had "Log Connection Activity" checked off, which was creating massive amounts of log data over the past few years. The Apple specialist had me uncheck that and helped me delete 50 GB of log files. Back in business!

Hope this helps others, but in case your system storage issue is not due to old gmail logs (could be some other app), definitely contact Apple Support so they can help identify exactly what is taking up all that storage. I wish I wouldn't have wasted hours and hours searching online forums, when in less than an hour the Apple Specialist cleared up my issue over the phone!

Attention any photographers on this thread!

I have this issue quite often and a lot of the time my Lightroom catalogue will be listed under 'System'. To clear your catalogue or transfer it somewhere else, go to; About This Mac > Storage > Manage... > Documents > File Browser > Pictures > Lightroom.

I have the incorrectly reported system storage issue at least once a month and this usually fixes it for me. However, this time my Lightroom catalogue is only taking up 11GB and my Storage still reportedly takes up 142.99GB... I don't use iTunes and haven't backed up my phone to my Mac lately or anything like that so I'm super confused as what's going on this time.

I even went to the Genius Bar 5 days ago and had it checked out. Got diagnostics run which all came back positive. We checked and I had 130GB free and the system was only taking up around 40GB. I haven't really done anything since so I'm extremely curious how my System has tacked on another 100GB ;/

I've just had to delete my entire portfolio and asset folder from my mac and place in cloud storage to free enough space to use this, thanks to my system files. Why can I not view it to even confirm they are indeed system files?