System taking up too much space on SSD

[neotim]

My MacBook is out of storage and "System" is taking up too much space (see images below). I've tracked it down to the /Volumes/ folder in the root directory. Whenever I tried this code in the terminal, there are none listed:
sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

So, it seems there are no local snapshots, just a SparseBundle that's showing up as Zero bytes in Finder, but there's obviously something massive in that Volumes folder. Need help please... I need to recover my lost drive space!

[doublepost=1538011395][/doublepost]BTW, here's the entire "du" list:

Timothys-MBP:~ neotim$ sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

Password:

0 /.HFS+ Private Directory Data

1 /home

1 /usr

1 /net

0 /.PKInstallSandboxManager

0 /.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware

1 /bin

0 /Network

1 /sbin

6 /Library

0 /.Trashes

8 /System

1 /.fseventsd

3 /private

1 /.DocumentRevisions-V100

0 /.vol

469 /Users

29 /Applications

1 /dev

375 /Volumes

0 /cores

888 /

888 total

 

[Weaselboy]

That Backups.backupdb file there is an actual Time Machine backup. I have seen this before and have no idea why the happens. As long as you are sure you have your real TM backup on an external drive, you can just delete this one.

 

[haralds]

That Backups.backupdb file there is an actual Time Machine backup. I have seen this before and have no idea why the happens. As long as you are sure you have your real TM backup on an external drive, you can just delete this one.

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/Backups.backupdb
[doublepost=1538104039][/doublepost]You also might want to do it from the Finder by doing an "open /Volumes" or using the Finder's "Go To Folder..." menu item.

I've had some trouble with large files deleted with rm creating huge snapshots that were hard to find and get rid of.

 

[sescrook]

I recently tried to clear some space for a Mojave install by uninstalling some Steam games (~25gb) and removing Garage Band related tools (~10gb). As others have experienced, the total hard drive space used didn't decrease and I still have only about 8-10gb remaining (out of 200 after a Bootcamp partition).

I've done the following:

-reindex spotlight

-run a time machine backup with my external drive

-remove time machine backups (there was one there locally, now I've checked that it's gone)

-I used omniDiscSweeper as root, and it shows 138gb used when it ads together everything, however the "drive list" still lists 188.5 used (about the same as shown with About the Mac/Storage). (Screenshot attached)

I downloaded and looked around Carbon Copy Cloner and it also showed no snapshots.

I tried DaisyDisc and it did list ~60 gb as "hidden files" but no methods I've seen let me figure out where those are.

I downloaded and tried running Onyx for the heck of it.

Does anyone have any other ideas or success with any other approaches?

 

[Weaselboy]

Does anyone have any other ideas or success with any other approaches?

Run this in Terminal and give it a couple minutes to finish. It will show hidden and system files not shown by some of those apps you mentioned. You can post the results here for us to take a look.

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

 

[sescrook]

Thank you so much for responding! I did look at that previously and it gave me a similar lower number to when I ran OmniDiscSweeper as root:

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /
0 /.HFS+ Private Directory Data
1 /home
1 /usr
2 /.Spotlight-V100
1 /net
0 /.PKInstallSandboxManager
0 /.PKInstallSandboxManager-SystemSoftware
1 /bin
0 /Network
1 /sbin
7 /Library
0 /.Trashes
8 /System
1 /.fseventsd
du: /private/var/db/ConfigurationProfiles/Store: Operation not permitted
du: /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000y800007k/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond: Operation not permitted
du: /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond: Operation not permitted
du: /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/0/com.apple.routined: Operation not permitted
du: /private/var/folders/gy/3q8q2b8x0d79rjck8pn4f1fr0000gn/0/com.apple.LaunchServices.dv: Operation not permitted
du: /private/var/folders/gy/3q8q2b8x0d79rjck8pn4f1fr0000gn/0/com.apple.nsurlsessiond: Operation not permitted
du: /private/var/folders/gy/3q8q2b8x0d79rjck8pn4f1fr0000gn/0/com.apple.routined: Operation not permitted
7 /private
1 /.DocumentRevisions-V100
0 /.vol
73 /Users
32 /Applications
1 /dev
0 /Volumes
0 /cores
127 /
127 total

OmniDiscSweeper summary still shows ~190, as does About this Mac / Storage (which has actually shown dropping memory available... now there are only 6.5gb free when yesterday there were about 11.

 

[Weaselboy]

Are you sure you have no Time Machine snapshots lingering?

Try this and see if it find and deletes any.

listlocalsnapshotdates / |grep 20|while read f; do tmutil deletelocalsnapshots $f; done

 

[sescrook]

Are you sure you have no Time Machine snapshots lingering?

Try this and see if it find and deletes any.

listlocalsnapshotdates / |grep 20|while read f; do tmutil deletelocalsnapshots $f; done

Thanks again for the quick response! Doesn't seem to do anything, here is the output:

Xx-MacBook-Pro:~ $ tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
Xx-MacBook-Pro:~ $ tmutil listlocalsnapshotdates / |grep 20|while read f; do tmutil deletelocalsnapshots $f; done
Xx-MacBook-Pro:~ $

edit: tried the same w/ sudo in front and had the same results

 

[sescrook]

Any other ideas? I've done nothing since the other day and I'm down to 2gb of free space. I just got a "critical disk space" warning.

 

[sescrook]

Following up in case anyone else tries all of the above with no success. I tried to reinstall the operating system, but that didn't work because there wasn't enough disk space. I ended up manually backing up my important documents, restoring the hard drive through disk utility after rebooting holding down command + r, and reinstalling the original OS. Then I upgraded to the newest OS and brought my important files back onto the local hard drive.

Pretty much the worst case scenario, but my five year old computer feels like new again and that stupid System part of storage only takes up about 15gb.