All my SSD is taken up by System file space?

[827538]

Uploaded an image of my file usage. For some reason my SSD is swamped with 'System'. I have no idea why this has happened or how to undo it?
Any help would be appreciated - I'm on the latest version of macOS Mojave.

https://imgur.com/a/r2asleK

 

[harriska2]

Yeah, that ain't right. Mine has like 23 GB of System.

 

[827538]

Yeah, that ain't right. Mine has like 23 GB of System.

Exactly, something is wrong and I can't figure it out. I've been through everything with no luck. Tried using Cocktail and CCleaner to see if they could find anything and nope.

 

[Honza1]

It may be OK, depends on what have you been doing recently. It is TimeMachine, even if you are not using it, it keeps snapshots of the deleted data for some time. This has been discussed here and if you would just do little search before asking again, you would find excessive threads where people cry, yell, and scream. If it is those backups, there are instructions how to delete manually the snapshots (and list them to check what is saved). Just google it, it is well known.
If it is snapshots, doing nothing may be best - those snapshots are deleted by system when it starts running out of space - or within something like 48 hours - or when TimeMachine disk is attached. If you do "Get Info" on the main drive, snapshots used space should be under "purgeable".
And before you say "I do not use Time Machine"
>>>(in which case what is your backup solution? You know every disk will fail, the question is only how soon?) <<<
this is on ALWAYS in Mojave. I have never seen anyone successful in switching it off. There may be manual commands, but surely not from GUI.
If this does not show as purgeable space and does not heal itself in 24-48 hours, then you have problem which call to Apple may help to solve.

 

[jbarley]

Are you running Mojave?
Are you using the APFS file system?
Is Time Machine running on your system?
if the answer is yes to the above questions then maybe try this...
Download and run Carbon Copy,(free to try) then check your boot drive for Time Machine snapshots.
CMD+A to select them all and then delete them to free up the space.
I monitor and manage my snapshots closely.
If you've never checked this before you could have a ton...

 

[Honza1]

Are you running Mojave?
Are you using the APFS file system?
Is Time Machine running on your system?
if the answer is yes to the above questions then maybe try this...
Download and run Carbon Copy, then check your boot drive for snapshots.
CMD+A to select them all and then delete them to free up the space.
I monitor and manage my snapshots closely.
If you've never checked this before you could have a ton...

View attachment 826570

If it is really snapshots then managing them is waste of time/effort. They manage themselves just fine on their own and will be deleted when space is needed (or after some time). Since this is SSD and APFS, deleting snapshots takes literally no time.
Bigger issue would be if these were not snapshots but some other reason. That could be bigger issue and cause eventual crash of system.

 

[Fishrrman]

If you want to see what's eating up that space, download "DiskWave" (small and free):
https://diskwave.barthe.ph

Then, open it.
Go to DiskWave's preferences and choose to make normally-invisible files VISIBLE.

Now, just look around.
It will show you in plain English what is using your space.
Largest files will be listed first.

Give this a try, and get back to us.

 

[827538]

It may be OK, depends on what have you been doing recently. It is TimeMachine, even if you are not using it, it keeps snapshots of the deleted data for some time. This has been discussed here and if you would just do little search before asking again, you would find excessive threads where people cry, yell, and scream. If it is those backups, there are instructions how to delete manually the snapshots (and list them to check what is saved). Just google it, it is well known.
If it is snapshots, doing nothing may be best - those snapshots are deleted by system when it starts running out of space - or within something like 48 hours - or when TimeMachine disk is attached. If you do "Get Info" on the main drive, snapshots used space should be under "purgeable".
And before you say "I do not use Time Machine"
>>>(in which case what is your backup solution? You know every disk will fail, the question is only how soon?) <<<
this is on ALWAYS in Mojave. I have never seen anyone successful in switching it off. There may be manual commands, but surely not from GUI.
If this does not show as purgeable space and does not heal itself in 24-48 hours, then you have problem which call to Apple may help to solve.

I backup the data that is important in iCloud, the rest I don't care if it is lost.

The reason I don't think it is Time Machine is I've never used it, I've run the Terminal commands to list snapshots and I have none.

It definitely is something else as Apple is warning me I am running out of space and it is causing all sorts of issues and has been going on at least a week.
[doublepost=1552751094][/doublepost]

If it is really snapshots then managing them is waste of time/effort. They manage themselves just fine on their own and will be deleted when space is needed (or after some time). Since this is SSD and APFS, deleting snapshots takes literally no time.
Bigger issue would be if these were not snapshots but some other reason. That could be bigger issue and cause eventual crash of system.

It's definitely something else, I'm getting all sorts of warnings and problems as my disk runs out of space.
[doublepost=1552751454][/doublepost]

If you want to see what's eating up that space, download "DiskWave" (small and free):
https://diskwave.barthe.ph

Then, open it.
Go to DiskWave's preferences and choose to make normally-invisible files VISIBLE.

Now, just look around.
It will show you in plain English what is using your space.
Largest files will be listed first.

Give this a try, and get back to us.

Thanks, running it now, so far nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[dsemf]

Try the following command:

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

The path at the end can be expanded to drill down, such /Users to see usage by user.

DS

 

[827538]

Found it using DiskWave. There was data from programs I’d long since removed consuming a huge amount of space. Deleted them and now things are back to normal.

I appreciate everyone’s help!

 

[Fishrrman]

Didn't I tell ya that DiskWave would "do it"...?

 

[harriska2]

I downloaded it too. Found that stupid Luminar is taking up gigs of space even though I don't use it as a DAM. I really hate that program.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Found that stupid Luminar is taking up gigs of space even though I don't use it as a DAM. I really hate that program."

If you hate it, why not just get rid of it?

 

[harriska2]

"Found that stupid Luminar is taking up gigs of space even though I don't use it as a DAM. I really hate that program."

If you hate it, why not just get rid of it?

Yeah, I admit it is stupid of me. But darn if I'm going to get rid of something that cost $60. There are a couple filters that work really well that I can't get anywhere else but mostly I use Affinity. Luminar used to sell the filter separately but no longer do so.