Home Forums Mac Software Mac Operating Systems Unusual disk storage for SYSTEM FOLDER

In "About This Mac", the storage shows usage of 250 GB = 90 GB used for documents, apps and mail . . . 160 GB used for SYSTEM, which seems really high to me.

So, I did some digging around the internet and discovered that several folks believe it is linked to the TIME MACHINE'S "SNAPSHOTS" retained on the MBPro HD (instead of getting deleted by the system). A couple of solutions were provided, but seem to be applicable only to High Sierra. I am using Sierra.

Anyone else have this problem? Any ideas of what is going on? Any solutions (that work)?

Snapshots is new in High Sierra/APFS, so it can't be your problem.

You might try d/l'ing one of those "Where's my space gone?" apps. (I use GrandPerspective.)

More: GP might not find what you're looking for, because it doesn't scan all your invisibles, in which case you'll need to look for an alternative.

Not quite right. Snapshots has been around before High Sierra (see Apple Support article), but only on portable Macs until High Sierra was released. Then Snapshots are used on all APFS formatted disks. Note that Snapshots has a "self-cleaning" process if free disk space becomes limited.

I stand corrected; thanks.

Note: "Local snapshots are captured only when Back Up Automatically is selected in Time Machine preferences."

Yes, I am using a 2011 MBPro.

What amount of GB should the "System Folder" require? I thought around 8 GB.

Even if the Systems Folder took up 40 GB, I still have 120 GB or so usage "unaccounted" for.

200 plus GB remain on the disc, so the auto delete would not likely kick in yet to free up space. I am just wondering what the clutter is, if it is just that, and how to get rid of it. I like things tidy.


UPDATE: I just noticed in the article linked above that snapshots are only created when the Time Machine is set to automatically backup. I have never had mine set to that - always MANUALLY backup a few times a day (not hourly).

So, when all is said and done, snapshots cannot be responsible for gobbling up GBs in the System Folder.

Any other ideas?

METHODOLOGY:

I checked About This Mac > Storage on my system and under System it showed a total of 48.96GB but DaisyDisk shows the total stored in the /System folder is 8.6GB. (There is also a PreviousSystem Folder of 4.4GB.) I have looked at a number of possible permutations of folders and files using Daisydisk and I could not come up with anything resembling About This Mac's reported 48.96GB. As a further check of what was included in the number, I ran OnyX, rebooted and About This Mac reported System had grown to 97.9GB but as I was typing this post I left About This Mac open and System slowly shrank to 47.1GB. Daisydisk on the other hand showed no change in the size of the System folder.

CONCLUSION:

I have no idea what About This Mac is lumping under the rubric of "System", but it is unquestionably a lot more that just the contents of the actual System folder and apparently includes no few dynamic elements, such as Swap files, cache files, as well as other temporary files used by the system. Possibly even some "files" in RAM. Personally I am inclned to largely ignore it in the future and rely on Daisydisk or a similar utility for an actual value for disk management purposes.

Thanks a bunch, joemikeb.

I was going nuts, too, as the number of SYSTEM GBs "About This Mac" would fluctuate.

UPDATE: I have Grand Perspective already and ran a scan of the Systems Folder. GP says that folder takes up 8 GB. Makes more sense to me.

Sure would like to know where "About This Mac" gets its info.