4

About This Mac - Storage

My iMac has roughly 780gb in total and is running out of space (1TB partitioned for Windows using Bootcamp). I saw in 'About This Mac' that my system files are taking up 421gb while my actual documents and files are using only 388gb. I went into 'System Information' on my iMac to see if there was a way I could delete any of these, but 'System' is grayed out.

I used ncdu to try and find the files taking up so much space, but tells me that the hard drive has 388gb of files, and does not include the system files. How do I find the system file/files taking up all the disk space?

System Information

Also, I do not have time machine turned on. Using MacOS High Sierra on an iMac from mid 2010.

KeeperOfKale
  • 141

5 Answers5

3

I like to use CleanMyMac 3.app to take a look at my disk usage and help me clean up any disk space that could be reclaimed.

This includes unused language files in the system, huge system log files that need to be trimmed/rotate/deleted, user cache files, mail attachments, left over iPhoto junk, left over iTunes junk, empty trash bins, large and old files that may not be needed any more, etc....

It can also help remove things left behind when you just dragged a file to the trashcan and didn't remove all the other files that might be associated with it but are in other directories.

DaisyDisk is another good tool for helping you to visualize how much disk space is being taken up by what kinds of files.

Hope that helps!

Brad Knowles
  • 154
0

I tend to use grand perspective to figure out what is going on when I run out of space. It gives a nice visual and you can open the file locations.

After installation, run the program > Select a folder to scan (you'll want Macintosh HD) > Wait for the visual to pop up. The huge squares are the space hogs. If there is a cluster of a similar color, they may also be taking space. Then, right click and open their locations in finder to figure out the folder system. One thing, give it a lot of time when you do the scan, it will take a while.

Overview from site:

GrandPerspective is a small utility application for Mac that graphically shows the disk usage within a file system. It can help you to manage your disk, as you can easily spot which files and folders take up the most space. It uses a so called tree map for visualisation. Each file is shown as a rectangle with an area proportional to the file's size. Files in the same folder appear together, but their placement is otherwise arbitrary.

Talos Potential
  • 201
0

The problem for me was a deleted user account folder that was retained. In my case, the folder was called Macintosh HD/tim (deleted).

David Hariri
  • 101
0

Might want to check mail logging - may have massive useless connection log files.


⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Containers⁩ ▸ ⁨com.apple.mail⁩ ▸ ⁨Data⁩ ▸ ⁨Library⁩ ▸ ⁨Logs⁩

Turn off mail connection logging: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/223390/huge-apple-mail-logs-connection-logging-enabled

I just free'd up over 650Gb of space by removing the log files and turning off connection logging. Not sure why it was on in the first place!

smuskal
  • 1
0

I had a similar problem - on macOS Monterey, a "System Data" slice of close to 100 GB showed up, but I had no idea what might take up this storage. For me, I finally found the culprit to be:

/Library/InstallerSandboxes

Please note: I deleted this folder on my Mac and so far no negative side effects have shown up. But be advised that you do this ON YOUR OWN RISK! If you have important data on your computer, always make sure you have a working backup in place before trying stuff like this!