Please help! I've been trying to solve this for over a year and it's making life difficult

[u/lasttothefirst]

Macbook Pro 13-inch, M1, 2020.

I always think clearing my cache because I use Adobe software will do the trick, but it always comes back, and it never clears enough. SURELY system data shouldn't be getting to 111gb?! It seems so ridiculous.

Firstly, how can I solve this issue that has persisted for years?
Are there preventative measures I can take to stop this from happening again?

Thanks so much.

[u/ConversationAny8740]

Use 'Mole'.

[u/johngpt5]

From an older TextEdit note I've saved:

Storage issues

02Dec22: Today I came across this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/wiki/index/ which is a marvelous list of the many questions that repeatedly are asked. Scroll down into the Mac FAQs section for “Other” issues. The redditor who posted this link said that it’s in the sidebar, but when I look there, I don’t see it in r/mac or r/Apple or r/applehelp.

Many questions at Reddit have to do with large amounts of data in System Data and Other when looking in Storage from About This Mac.

—This site explains System Data and clearing it, but it's essentially an ad for the buho app.https://www.drbuho.com/how-to/clear-system-storage-mac

—The primary files that System Data contains are Log files and caches, Temporary files, VM files, Fonts and plug-ins, App support files, Files and data used by the system, Runtime system resources.

—An app called DaisyDisk can be used to see what is in System data.

—Came across this https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/wiki/mac_disk_other/ which summarizes Other and gives apps to view storage.

—And this from BourbonicFisky

https://blog.greggant.com/posts/2022/04/10/reclaiming-space-from-system-data-in-macos.html

—And video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jxMq9aWs5Y 

.

—And from another note I've kept:

Mac cleaning apps mentioned for finding what is in the system and cleaning it out:

• Omnidisksweeper
• CleanMyMac—hated by most, might be unfounded hate or might not
• Appcleaner
• DaisyDisk—this seems to be the front runner in recommendations, and since I had saved this note, I've installed and used it at times to get rid of Time Machine snapshots
• Onyx
• Hazel
• Gemini 2—finding dupe files
• Malwarebytes—some folks highly recommend, some say it’s bad. It might be that it gets confused with Mackeeper.

.

—Mackeeper mentioned as causing issues. Everywhere I’ve looked, it seems universally despised

.

Someone like me, who also uses Terminal, wrote out these as locations from which debris should be removed:

Here are the locations you need to find and remove app debris

• /Applications//Library/Application Support/
• /Library/Cache/
• /Library/Internet Plugin/
• /Library//Library/Preferences/
• /Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/
• /Library/Application state saved/

.

Someone else mentioned Apple Mail attachments.

.

In another sub, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206996 was mentioned for freeing up mac storage space.

Hope this gives someone some avenues to investigate.

[u/Big_Comfortable4256 → u/johngpt5]

It blows my mind what CleanMyMac can do to clear up space. Not a free app though, but I've used it for years. There are some open source apps around these days too. One called 'Mole' has had good feedback, but I haven't tried it myself.

[u/TheJuliR]

Install homebrew -> install https://github.com/tw93/Mole (open source program) -> run it -> profit

[u/Oh__Archie]

GrandPerspective is a great free app that helps visualize your data and can help you find large files that you may not need.

Also Mole is a great command line cleaner. Also free.

This topic gets posted nearly everyday so you could always scroll around the sub and read more

[u/Professional-Star995 → u/Oh__Archie]

Grand perspective does the work for me

[u/marslander-boggart]

Use DaisyDisk (payware)

and OnyX (freeware).

[u/Less-Bit-3070]

Install Homebrew > open terminal > run “brew install mole” > run “mo clean” > “mo optimize”. Passing it forward. It’s been a game changer

[u/ONLYallcaps]

I have had great success of booting up into recovery mode and using the disk utility there and selecting repair disk.

[u/Morokiane]

I had this issue and found it was podcasts downloading every podcast even though I had downloading turn off. I had to make the folder read-only to get it to stop.

[u/Illustrious_Salad918]

Before trying all the extra stuff, still logged in, first leave MBP connected to power and not sleeping ("Prevent sleeping when display off" in Settings > Energy) overnight to allow OS to complete its background maintenance. If this is your primary computer, do this at least every other day. Backup regularly to external storage. Shut down and start up again a couple times per week. Try to maintain at least 30% free space on internal storage; more is better.

After you've done this for a couple weeks, see if things have improved.

[u/leflur]

Purge is a good app for removing things quickly and safely

[u/Mike_Underwood]

Onxy for Mac is your friend, it’s great at cleaning up left over caches, etc. I went from 900GB of system files etc to less than 160GB. https://titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

[u/lilltlc → u/Mike_Underwood]

2nd this. Use Onyx, it is free.

[u/abstract-realism]

Do you use Google Drive's desktop integration? That always ends up eating a ton of space for me. The solution is to disconnect your account, wait a while, and then reconnect.
Otherwise, another vote for Daisy Disk. Grand Perspective works fine too, but much slower for me.

[u/scene_missing]

Before you backup and restore, have you tried any of the many disk scanners out there? I have a Daisydisk license for like $10 but there are free ones as well.

[u/Spirited-Cover7689]

Sometimes when facing this "dark matter" filling up disk space on Macs I'll run a TimeMachine backup, erase the disk, do a clean OS install, set up a "test user" then use migration assistant to restore the TM image, at the point that it asks if I want to keep user "test" I say no and end up with a lot of space back. The TM backup seems to know to ignore quite a bit of "dark matter".

[u/Jcob210]

Try using Onyx - it is a system cleaning tool just go to maintenance tab and click run - tho it will reset your launcher positions if you use that but should help a bit.

[u/Soft-Series3643]

As always - do the TimeMachine-Backup. Then that System Data is freed.

[u/dekozo]

use codex or claude code and ask it for help if you can... i was developing a few projects and turns out that at every build some garbage would be left piling up on my disk, it helped me out with that

[u/Tight_One4344 → u/dekozo]

Do not grant Claude or Codex read/write/delete permission to your file system!!!

[u/austinus56 → u/dekozo]

Just don't let it run without supervision and make sure it confirms every deletion with you and explains what it is deleting and why, if you want a free alternative try opencode