"System" utilizing 440+ GB

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Level 1

4 points

"System" utilizing 440+ GB

Like others, I've encountered the unfortunate system utilizing heavy storage. I've read the posts and see that for most people, iTunes back ups, Photos.app back ups, Time Machine files, and similar are generally the culprit. For me, so far, that doesn't seem to be the case.

I have a 500 GB drive and 440 GB are being used by "system." I'm running macOS Mojave latest version.

So far, I've tried:

- Running sudo OmniDiskSweeper to determine anything hidden and being categorized as 'system'

- Rebuilding spotlight index

- Disabling Time Machine back ups and running tmutil commands to list/wipe all pending back ups

- Disabling FileVault

- Calling Apple Support (they told me the problem was likely emails on my computer.. ridiculous)

Any help or advice is appreciated. Thanks, all.

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016), iOS 12.1, null

Posted on Nov 1, 2018 11:45 AM

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Answer 1

leroydouglas

Level 10

202,516 points

Nov 1, 2018 12:13 PM in response to briansays

Checking Mail logs is not out of the question—I have seen anywhere from 12 GB to 342 GB of log connection activity files.

From the Finder>Go>Go To Folder, copy&paste:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs/Mail

You would be safe to delete all those .txt logs.

Don't forget to empty your trash, reboot if necessary to recover your HD/ SDD free space

From terminal.app you can get a quick look of your Disk space, copy and paste:

df -H

If you are still having problems tracking down

File size, missing GB, from the Terminal.app copy &paste:

sudo ** -h -d 1 /

will list the items in root with the sizes, including invisible items.

and copy &paste:

sudo ** -h -d 1 ~/

will list the items in the home folder with the sizes, including invisible items.

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Answer 2

briansays Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 1, 2018 12:31 PM in response to leroydouglas

The screen shot I posted earlier (OmniDiskSweeper output) matches the results of sudo ** -h -d 1 /, which shows a total of 104 GB used (out of 500 GB). This generally matches the totals of OmniDiskSweeper:

Only exception is the /private directory, which is 25 GB. Still, that doesn't explain 'system' utilizing over 400 GB.

my-macbook-pro$ sudo ** -h -d 1 /

0B /.HFS+ Private Directory Data

1.0K /home

510M /usr

1.0K /net

0B /.PKInstallSandboxManager

0B /.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware

2.5M /bin

0B /Network

1.0M /sbin

6.3G /Library

6.7G /System

0B /.PKInstallSandboxManager (from old Mac) 2

408K /.fseventsd

25G /private

19M /.DocumentRevisions-V100

0B /.vol

45G /Users

21G /Applications

8.0K /dev

21M /Volumes

0B /cores

104G /

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Answer 3

briansays Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 1, 2018 12:13 PM in response to leroydouglas

Hi - thanks for the response.

I do not store or use a mail app locally (I use gmail.com for all email).

Trash is empty and I've rebooted countless times in trying other steps.

Using df -h, disk utility, and all other methods still show 17 GB free (when I should have somewhere north of 250 GB free).

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"System" utilizing 440+ GB

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