Clear system data on Mac by revealing hidden files

System Data taking up too much space?

What is System Data and why does it take it so much space?

This is a common frustration, maybe even the biggest annoyance about being a Mac user. There’s a big chunk of files stored on your Mac that are completely hidden, they can eat up hundreds of gigabytes of storage, and locating them can be hard.

The best way to reveal and clear System Data

If you’re reading this you’ve probably already cleared everything you can on your Mac. Follow these steps to locate System Data and clear it. WARNING – Doing this will reveal a lot of hidden system files on your computer that are hidden for a reason. Delete only files you are sure can be safely deleted.

Open Finder
In your Menu Bar click “Go -> Computer” or use the shortcut Shift + Command + C
Change your Finder view to a List view – you can do this by using the keyboard shortcut Command + 2
Open the View Options by using the shortcut Command + J and make sure “Calculate all sizes” is checked
Hit Shift + Command + . to reveal hidden files
Organize your view to sort by Size

Now you have a list view of every folder and hard drive on your computer, organized from largest to smallest. System Data is always going to be inside Macintosh HD, but if you want you can use this view to sort through your external drives as well.

After setting up your Finder window like this, simply go through all the folders indentifying files and folders that take up a lot of space. Reminder – Be sure to double-check what can and cannot be deleted, don’t delete anything you’re not sure about.

So where is my System Data?

A common location for System Data is under Users – username – Library. In many cases, you’ll find a folder called “Caches” that contains temporary cache files for the applications you use, and because cache files are temporary files that get re-generated over time, these are usually safe to delete. In my previous tutorial I had someone comment that they got rid of over 900GB of cache files by following this method.

Follow those steps and you should be able to clear up a significant chunk of System Data.

Quick Tutorials