How to clear 'System Data' or 'Other' Storage on a Mac

Our favorite setup: 

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If you still need more space after this we recommend getting an external SSD drive:

A common frustration among Mac users is the System Data. Your computer runs out of space, you start to investigate what's taking up all your space only to find out that some mysterious "System Data" eats up hundreds of gigabytes with no further explanation of what it is or what's actually taking up all that space.

There are a few different things that fall under System Data but the easiest way to check and clear up some of that space is to access your Library folder, which is hidden by default. The reason Library is hidden is because it contains some system-specific files that are needed for your computer to operate normally, so be cautious when poking around here.

A typical cause for bloated System Data is cache files. These are temporary files created by your applications allowing them to operate faster. The downside is some applications are not the best about clearing the cache, which means they end up taking a lot of space on your hard drive without you ever noticing it.

In this quick tutorial, we do a scan on one of our laptops, see what's taking up space there and how to easily calculate which folders are taking up the most space. It's good to check this first if you're running out of space and System Data is to blame.

Another common reason for System Data to get out of hand is Time Machine backups. Time Machine is a great way to back up your computer to an external hard drive. A rather annoying issue however is the way it behaves if you keep your external drive unplugged for a long time. When this happens Time Machine keeps storing backups hidden on your system until you plug in your drive again, but sometimes this can cause your system to simply run out of space. An easy fix is to plug in your drive and let the backup catch up, or to disable Time Machine backups altogether if you don't need them (we're strong supporters of backups but using a cloud-based service ourselves). There are ways to clear the temporary Time Machine files from your system but that gets rather technical, so that's a tutorial for another time.

[quick-tutorials]

Our favorite setup: 

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[quick-tutorials]

Just a reminder everyone - don't delete or move anything in your Library folder unless you're 100% sure it can be deleted. Cache files are temporary files that will be re-created so those are generally speaking safe to delete. Anything else, please proceed with caution.

[SKKRRR-tzvc]

ty bro. there are a lot of videos. they made 10+ mins video they show a lot of useless things but this is the best video.

[leeviikonen]

I love you in an intense non-platonic manner for posting this, you beautiful human being.

[BenjaminCudjoe-no]

Man you just saved me a whole lot of headache. I just couldn't understand or figure out why my mac was out of storage. THANK YOU!

[musk.singhal]

Thankss Mannnn!!! Some hidden screen recordings that were never saved in the main recordings folder were taking up 100GB+ space.

[DavyJones]

The best video that helped me find out I had downloaded many series in prive video app which i forgot about. I deleted almost 50gb

[harshitchaudhary]

Man i had only 2 gb of caches but it still shows 100gb of system data idk i cannot see big files

[yilingu]

Removed 161G system data on my mac! You are the hero!!!

[evaagjj]

thank you very much for this amazing video!! I spent months trying to find the solution for this problem. You saved my time

[hel]

i have watched a LOT of tutos and yours is the one that saved me! i had 130GB of system data

[JuiceWRLD-pifz]

?? i have 70GB of System Data and there’s nothing in library over 4.5 GB everything else is like 10 mb or kb

[OfficialClintJames]

This video is straight fire. The "calculate total size" was a gamechanger

[XingChen.]

Trying to software update and system data took 3/4 of my storage. Finally can update now. Thx

[weisun]

This is a very compact yet effective video! Thanks bro!

[Davidrodriguez-sdst]

I owe you my life who ever you are. You are the Batman of system data. Thank you

[giacomorauso]

SEI IL MEGLIO! Ho visto altri tutorial simili ma trascuravano piccole banalità che non capivo come il "option k" e "command k" il tuo è completo è chiaro meriti un segui, grazie

[anniepinky]

Thanks for the video !!! Finally I get the RIGHT tutorial video for me!!

[esmethrivingthroughlearning]

Thank you, this was so helpful and in just around 2 mins!

[juanargueta]

Question i have 622gb of system data but when i go to library it only shows like 100gb so wheres the rest