Look how huge is the system storage:
Is anyone having the same problem than me? I do not konw why this is happening.
MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS High Sierra (10.13), 13", 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM, 3,3 GHz
I went to Launchpad then "Other", then to "Terminal". When that opens, you'll see a prompt after your user name. Then type this:
sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
Be sure to include the spaces and the "/" at the end.
It will ask for your password which is the same password you use to unlock your Mac.
Then it will list the snapshots you have on your system. The rest is explained in JamBeats post from earlier in this thread. I'll paste it here:
Sep 29, 2017 7:09 AM in response to rafaelalvesgb
Turned to our good friend Google and I found that Time Machine local backups were the reason and 'sudo tmutil disablelocal' command was supposed to help, if only "disablelocal" verb had not been removed from High Sierra. So back to square one.
Did some digging a.k.a. opened the manual for tmutil. I found that there were two useful verbs "listlocalsnapshots" and "deletelocalsnapshots". Used the first one to get the exact date stamps required for the second one and deleted all local snapshots manually.
Result: "System" went from 158GB to 20GB.
Step by step I went as following:
Code:sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
This resulted:
Code:com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-09-27-005259
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-09-27-104645
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-09-27-114218
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-09-27-124220
I took these four date stamps and followed the next command with each as following:
Code:tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2017-09-27-005259
So in the end if i double checked with
Code:sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
there were no snapshots and after checking "About This Mac -> Storage" I was overjoyed!
Hope this helps!
Credits to Mac Rumors user: lainvoo
=====
I had about 8 snapshots in my original listing. After doing this procedure, my system storage size went from over 1.2TB to just over 20gb.
Hope that helps! Thanks again to JamBeats for posting the process.
Hi, jb64, thank for your help. Your post was very useful.
But, I have some questions about the support article that you mentioned:
1) If was really the Time Machine snapshots the cause of the huge system storage, why my Finder window include local snapshots in their calculations of the storage space available on a disk, as you can see below? The amount is the same of "About This Mac". This seems not right.
2) I'm not a IT guy (actually, I'm a lawyer), but, if I understood correctly, sometimes the OS uses speed of SSD (instead use memory). This action of macOS storage snapshots does not make the MacBook be slow?
Anyway, I schedule a call with AppleSupport to see this matters more accurately and after orientation I'll post the proper informations here.
just adding to the frustration here...
The terminal commands with "tmutil deletelocalsnapshots [filename]" helps a bit, but does not solve the problem. Hope the guys at Apple will sort this out soon...
I am guessing that the guys in Apple know about this problem. I will wait for the next macOS update. Hopefully it will solve the issue.
They know but I would not hope for an update to solve the issue: was on a chat with Apple Support for about an hour...
For OS High Sierra 10.13.3:
Suggestion 1) "Have you looked over your iTunes backups as many times they are the cause of large system files. You can follow the steps in this article to locate them. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204215"
Didn't work for me.
Suggestion 2) in Terminal "run the following command: $ tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 999999999999999"
--> "command not found"
Suggestion 3) "try only: tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 999999999999999"
still high system storage
Suggestion 4) "for this one, can you please go to Apple logo > System Preferences > Spotlight. Click the Privacy tab. Then drag your hard drive (Macintosh HD) to the spotlight reindex window. Clicked “OK” when asked to confirm."
didn't work either
Suggestion 5) "we may want to consider reinstalling the software on your Mac to remove bugs, glitches and corrupted settings on the system without deleting any data from your Mac. How to reinstall macOS Would there be anything else?"
Come on, there must be a smarter way than a new installation, no?
Meanwhile system storage eats up 600 GB and I have only 12 GB available left. This is frustrating...
I too am having this issue on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014). I had very little on my computer this morning before System started becoming a monster.
Oddly enough, after restarting the computer, the system storage increased by 2GB while the total increased by almost 100GB. I really do not know what's going on. Anyone has any idea about what is happening?
And, before that, it was more oddly than ever. Look at this:
Someone said to me that could be a problem with Time Machine. I don't think so, because my backup is updated until today, as you can see below:
In "About This Mac" it was possible see the amount of storage destined to TimeMachine. In mine this it is not shown. I do not know if it is because my backup is updated or if it is because there is a problem.
Any suggestions or solutions?
I reinstalled the system (but not from "zero" yet). The performance has improved a little bit, altough MacBook Pro is still heating.
Which folder in the TimeMachine Preferences I have to delete? Just one or all folders? If first option, I should to delete any folder or a specific one? In this last case, which one?
In this developers forum, did anyone raise the possibility of duplicated files?
It is possible AFS taking time to be implemented, probably, because I'm with FileVault turned on?
Today, I went to "About This Mac" again and, for my surprise, the system is was with "just" 404,55GB, and 264,74GB of free space (before was 249,69GB):
Maybe is a problem with spotlight also. I do not know. I will monitor the discussion and give updates until I find a solution for this.
Turned to our good friend Google and I found that Time Machine local backups were the reason and 'sudo tmutil disablelocal' command was supposed to help, if only "disablelocal" verb had not been removed from High Sierra. So back to square one.
Did some digging a.k.a. opened the manual for tmutil. I found that there were two useful verbs "listlocalsnapshots" and "deletelocalsnapshots". Used the first one to get the exact date stamps required for the second one and deleted all local snapshots manually.
Result: "System" went from 158GB to 20GB.
Step by step I went as following:
sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
This resulted:
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-09-27-005259
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-09-27-104645
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-09-27-114218
com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-09-27-124220
I took these four date stamps and followed the next command with each as following:
tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2017-09-27-005259
So in the end if i double checked with
sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
there were no snapshots and after checking "About This Mac -> Storage" I was overjoyed!
Hope this helps!
Credits to Mac Rumors user: lainvoo
Gin-Luke, thank you for your contribution. Your tip was very helpful and useful. I follow the steps of that post and find this:
Now I can understand a little bit the situation. But I think there are still remain problems. Lets go talk about them.
1) My user folder has 100GB of photos and 1,24GB of Music, as you can see in the photo below (I used "Get Info" function on all folders that are in my user folder), but I could'nt find the other 170GB of storage. I think this is a system problem. Any ideas?
2) Actually, it appears that users folder's storage (function "Get Info") is higher than informed on Terminal: 296,66GB, instead of 273GB. It might be a Spotlight problem?
3) Shouldn't the macOS consider iPhoto Library as "photos" instead files of System? Isn't this a error/bug?
4) The system normally has 40GB up to 50GB of storage. So, considering that mine is with 532GB, and my user folder has 296,GB, I still have 185GB (approximately) that still has origin unknown. Any ideias about it?
I have the same problem. The system takes up 130GB! Less than what you have but in about the same ratio, strange. It's very surprising that that it takes so much memory to run the system. Applications and Documents take up far less space!
Thanks for the help! My 2TB hard drive was getting full with less than 100gb free and Time Machine kept reporting that I didn't have enough space on my time capsule to do a backup. So I moved 1.2 TB of files to other drives and deleted them from my MacBook Pro (High Sierra) but the system file storage was indicating about 1.2 TB. Your procedure cleared out that whole extra system storage block so now I have 1.2 TB free. Thank you!
Thanks for this solution, this has allowed me to reduce the storage used on my daughters MacBook Air within System Files by over 50%, whilst it is not reduced to the level on own MacBook Air, I am happy this is helping resolve the issue. Thankyou.
I cut and pasted the commands given below in Terminal... worked perfectly. Thank you. Took my system memory down from 340GB to 22GB.
Question. Does this affect Time Machine's ability to restore from backed up files?
It doesn't work for me.
I repeated exactly as you (JamBeats) suggested, and it didn't solve the problem.
Interestingly, the backup snapshots are gone, but the system still takes about 313 GB of my SSD (see the screenshot).
I am guessing that the guys in Apple know about this problem. I will wait for the next macOS update. Hopefully it will solve the issue.
macOS High Sierra – Huge System Storage
