Deleting system storage

[high heaven]

I have no idea why but I have tons of files on the system. I tried to use third-party apps to delete unnecessary files from the system but it didnt change anything. I already searched on google but I found nothing to solve this problem. Any idea?

 

[casperes1996]

I'm gonna take a guess here... In Terminal:

"sudo tmutil disable"

"sudo tmutil enable"

Did that get rid of a lot of it? (restart may be required for it to show)

 

[high heaven]

I'm gonna take a guess here... In Terminal:

"sudo tmutil disable"

"sudo tmutil enable"

Did that get rid of a lot of it? (restart may be required for it to show)

Nothing happened.

 

[hobowankenobi]

First identify what using your space. Lots of tools, but I think Disk Sweeper is easiest of the free ones.

Run it (select the drive, click Sweep), let it show you everything sorted by size. Give it a few minutes to complete.

See if there is anything out of the ordinary eating space.

Warning: don't delete things that you can't ID.

 

[maflynn]

Download and use OmniDiskSweeper. It will provide a sorted list of what's consuming your space.

 

[casperes1996]

Nothing happened.

Hmm. Right. Figured it was local time machine backups. Guess not. The commands I listed flush the local backup cache without touching the actual backups.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Download DiskWave (small free app) from here:
https://diskwave.barthe.ph/

Open DiskWave.
Go to preferences and choose to make normally-invisible files VISIBLE.

Now, open DiskWave's main window.
You should figure out what to do next...

 

[high heaven]

OP:

Download DiskWave (small free app) from here:
https://diskwave.barthe.ph/

Open DiskWave.
Go to preferences and choose to make normally-invisible files VISIBLE.

Now, open DiskWave's main window.
You should figure out what to do next...

Well, it just doesn't make sense. There are 100gb but when I check the folder inside, it's less than 6gb.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Well, it just doesn't make sense. There are 100gb but when I check the folder inside, it's less than 6gb.

I have seen this with Disk Wave....I like it but don't think it is getting updated. I just tried it the other day (on a Mac running 10.13) and it was similar to what you got.

Too bad. I nice tool with an easy interface.

Disk Sweeper is up to date and works well, tested through 10.13. Just ran it to replace Disk Wave. Worked great.

----------

One other tip, at least for Disk Sweeper. Occasionally, running it as an admin user does not show everything.....and the numbers don't add up.

If that happens you can run it as the root user......and it will see everything.

I probably only need to do this about 1 out of 20-30 times I use it. Run it from your regular admin account first, but if you need to you can run launch it as root from the Terminal.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote (regarding DiskWave):
"Well, it just doesn't make sense. There are 100gb but when I check the folder inside, it's less than 6gb."

Hmmmm....
Just wondering...
Is your drive formatted to APFS.... or to HFS+ ??

Also... did you take the important step of going to DiskWave's preferences, and putting a check into the box "Show invisible files"?

It's possible DiskWave isn't fully compatible with APFS, if you're using it.

I have no experience with APFS.
I won't touch it.
Right now, and for the near future, I remain an "HFS+ only" kind of guy...