macOS High Sierra – Huge System Storage

This looks like a very promising solution, but it's not working for me. When I try listlocalsnapshots, there are no results. I've tried numerous times, going back and enabling root user, etc. But no change.

I used to run Time Machine, but stopped a while back. So it's not currently configured on this machine. Yet all the symptoms of the issue match perfectly, and the problem didn't appear until the High Sierra upgrade.

Any other suggestions?

Hey Guys,

I'm so frustrated, I've read and tried through every suggestion (clearing up TM backups, Spotlight, Daisy Disk) and nothing seems to be working. I've basically deleted music, pictures, etc. in an attempt to free up space from "System". It's taking 235 GB out of my 250 GB available! HELP

I was having the same problem and just found a solution.

In my case, I had a 250gb hidden folder used by the Mail app filled with what was likely just runaway draft messages. If you use IMAP for a Google or Gmail account, this could be your issue as well.

First, in Mail, delete all the Drafts for that email account. Then, to prevent this in the future, go to the preferences for that account in Mail and change the Mailbox Behavior for Drafts to "On My Mac".

Quit Mail.

Then, use OmniDiskSweeper, free download from the highly reputable OmniGroup, https://www.omnigroup.com/more

After you open from the Finder though. Quit and open it again using Terminal so that it will have permission to look inside hidden folders. In Terminal and type:

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

Then in OmniDiskSweeper, select the drive and click "Sweep"

After the sweep, I was able to drill down through the biggest folders along this path:

[user]/Library/Mail/V5/B83...(long code)/[Gmail].mbox/Drafts.mbox/4D3......(long code)/Data/

Inside that "Data" folder is a set of folders named with a single numeral (e.g., "0"). I think there were nine or ten. And within them, there was 250gb worth of coded files ending in ".emlx" scattered deeply through uncountable more single numeral folders.

To be safe, what I did was open that Data folder in the finder (there's a button in OmniDiskSweeper. Then in the Finder, open each one of the numeral folders which it contained. So I had nine or ten open single numeral folder windows (actually I did it in Finder tabs).

I then selected and trashed the contents of each one of those single numeral folders under Data. Literally millions of .emlx files and their folders.

Once I was done. I re-indexed spotlight via terminal: "sudo mdutil -i on /" waited an hour then restarted. After another hour or two, the Storage graph under About this Mac confirmed it. I had cleared 250gb of space with nothing lost (except maybe some old email drafts).

Hope this helps.

I had the exactly same problems and deleted the Antivirus folder completely. Now the system storage has reduced from 239GB to 22.74GB!! Just hope this action will not invite virus to the computer or affect the use of the computer in anyway. I am wondering whether the entire symantec should be removed or not. What have you found out with your IT department?

Thanks!

I had the same problem. googled about it tried different things, nothing work.

eventually, I decided to reset my MacBook Pro, reinstall the OS, and restore it from Time Machine.

in the restore option, you will see the file and document restore option the did categorized the those miscellaneous files into one check box item, and make sure you don't check that one.

happily using my MacBook Pro now with the received ~100GB

The problem in my case was apple mail logs. The logs were taking up 220 Gigabytes, almost half my hard drive!!!

I deleted them and recovered the space

To Turn this off, go to Mail, Window, Connection Doctor and turn off logging

@Gin-Luke is a life saver. I was able to use du utility to investigate what was taking up most of my space.

get the details at command line with: man du

for me its was:

1) ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/iOS DeviceSupport => 20g

2) ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archive => 11g

3) ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker => 11g

Hi mate

Im having the same trouble currently with over 300gb worth of system.

When I follow your instructions i only get this.

Any help would be greatly recieved

Kind Regards

This may be the same trouble.

"System space" not correct / .mobilebackups issue?

OmniDiskSweeper shows you the files on your drive, largest to smallest, and lets you quickly Trash or open them.

https://www.omnigroup.com/more/

thx man this helped from over 300 GB to 41 GB not bad

This worked great. Thank you.

Hi What exactly did you do? Thanks!

Hi - what exactly did you do to solve the issue? Thanks.

Thank you very much, I was getting frustrated over this issue. 600gb recovered !!!

👍