

Although your Mac should automatically delete old Time Machine snapshots whenever your storage is full, there may be times that you need some of that storage sooner. However, macOS could store snapshots of the backup locally on your Mac’s hard drive. Ideally, when you use Time Machine to back up your Mac files, you use an external drive. Using these third-party apps will not only free up storage on your Mac but also resolve the issue of your Mac running slow.

Some of the most popular ones include CleanMyMacX, Intego Mac Washing Machine, MacKeeper, among others. There are several third-party software that you can use to clean up your Mac of junk or unnecessary files.

Get Rid of Unwanted Files Using Third-Party Software Take note of the system files that you may delete mentioned in the below methods to fix the issue of your Mac’s System Data getting too big. macOS System Data is Huge - How to Fix ItĪside from using third-party software to clean up your Mac and free up storage, you can also do it manually by yourself. I will recommend some of this software in the later part of this guide. You can do it manually if you have the time, or you can use third-party Mac cleaners to speed up the process. So, how do you reduce system data on Mac? The good news is, some of the files in the System Data can be discarded to free up space. Can You Delete Files in the System Data?Īs mentioned, users were wondering how come the system data on their Mac is big, even bigger than their data files like photos, movies, documents, and others combined. These are Application leftovers, temp files and caches, disk images, plug-ins and extensions, archives, and other files that don’t fit in other categories. So, the question is, what exactly is System Data? There are several files that are included in the System Data tab on Mac storage. In short, Apple split the Other Storage on Mac into two separate tabs. Apparently, Apple changed the previous nomenclature “Other Storage” and replaced it with “System Data.” Aside from that tab, Apple also added the “macOS” tab. When Apple shipped macOS Catalina, many users were surprised to find a new tab in Storage settings called System Data. What is System Data on Your Mac’s Storage? Read along to find out how to fix it when macOS System Data is huge. So, in this guide, I will share with you some of the things I did to fix this problem and eventually free up some precious storage on my Mac. That’s definitely not normal, so you start asking, why is your Mac’s system data so big? I can certainly feel you, as the same situation recently happened to my less-than-a-year-old MacBook Air. Upon checking System Settings > General > Storage, you find that more than half of your Mac’s SSD is being used by System Data. So after several months of enjoying your Mac, it suddenly slows down.
