I would consider myself an Apple fanboy but in recent times I’m drifting away more and more. Today I want to share my feelings about ‘System Data’. I will also share what helped me temporarily resolve this issue (IT ALWAYS COMES BACK).
What is System Data?
If you truly want an answer as to what it is you’re out of luck. It seems like nobody really knows what it is – and this might be because ‘System Data’ accounts for everything Apple doesn’t have a specific category for.
What I can tell you though – and might not even have to cause you already know this – is that it’s very annoying and probably useless. It takes up the majority of my disk space and I don’t know what it is. You can delete it but after a few months it just builds up again. I don’t understand why.
My main issue
My main problem with it is that sure I can delete it manually but I don’t want to spend one hour per month trying to find out what the problem is. If Apple can reserve this space for useless stuff they can also get rid of this reservation once I need the space. I DON’T WANT TO RECEIVE A MESSAGE WITH “LOW STORAGE” JUST TO FIND OUT 80GB OF MY ALREADY SMALL 250GB DRIVE IS RESERVED BY ‘System Data’.
How is this accepted?
Just today I wanted to sync a photo from my phone to my Mac via iCloud.
Sync is stopped because I don’t have enough storage. This awesome feature is completely ruined just by doing weird things with ‘System Data’. Now I have no choice but to figure this out again and obviously I also have to write an article on this issue. I will make sure to leave detailed instructions as to what I did to resolve it this time. And I’ll try to add updates the next time this happens.
I’ve read this on Reddit: ‘It’s not a bad job, I think it’s completely intentional to boost storage usage and push people into more expensive macs or iCloud’ and I strongly think this as well. It’s so stupid it has to be on purpose.
I’ve also seen this and thought it was funny:
Resolution
Two disclaimers: Do not delete anything you are unsure of. This could potentially harm your computer and result in data loss. I am just sharing what worked in my case. Also I was only able to remove 17GB this time. If I find a way to get rid of more, I will update this part of the post.
The easiest way I found was to go to the library folder and sort by size. For this to work you have to check a box on the ‘View Options’ window. Right click on any Finder window and click on ‘Show View Options’.
Then check the box ‘Calculate all sizes’. From here on you can click on the Library
Hold down the alt key and click on Library. You can search through this folder and find whats taking up the most space.
This time my issue was:
/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_iOSSimulatorRuntime – 17GB (Xcode, so my own fault kinda)
Final words
Obviously Windows is worse and has its own issues. There is always a tradeoff. I still appreciate the security features Apple offers and the broad application library. But Linux is starting to look better each day. I will try and switch to linux, slowly moving my workflow over. Many Apps are available but tools like Logic and Final Cut will be missed.
Feel free to share your experience with ‘System Data’. I wonder if someone can top the 1.91 TB I found online.