"System Data" on my Studio HD

[Mark F]

My iPhone recently had an error message that the latest IOS update could not be installed because of insufficient space. As I store very little on the phone I investigated and found that almost the entire storage has been allocated to "System Data". I have no idea what this is but decided to look at my Mac's internal 1 TB drive to see what it showed and to my surprise found about 111 gigs of System Data. I've just spent about a half hour reading some of the earlier posts here but really do not understand what this is or where it is. One post referred to deleting a folder in the User/Shared area but I do not have that folder and anyway the entire User/Shared area size is measured in MB and not gigs. (BTW, the external drives used for Time Machine are turned on.)

The spreadsheets and Word documents on my drive are no where near 111 gigs. I doubt if they would be 1 gig. I do have a few thousand photos but I can easily identify those in their folders. I'm wondering what kind of data would take up 111 gigs? From the research I've done for my iPhone problem there does not seem to be a way to get rid of its System Data which is problematic since I cannot update IOS. But I'm hoping there is a better answer for my Mac.

Thanks.

 

[MacInWin]

System data is many things. Some cache, some temporary, some are backups waiting to be moved to exernal drives, etc. I would suggest you get OnyX, from here (Get the version for your particular version of macOS): Titanium Software | Operating System Utilities for Mac - OnyX
It's free, or you can donate. Leave the defaults as they are after it is installed and run "Maintenance" on your system. OnyX will clear out the accumulated stuff you don't really need for you. Again, get the proper version for your version of macOS.

For the iPhone, do a full power-off shutdown and then restart. That will get rid of some of the same things OnyX will clean out on your Mac.

 

[ferrarr]

If you want to update your iPhone without removing anything, just connect it to your PC (macOS or winOS) with the USB cable. Then you can update/upgrade using Finder or iTunes and it doesn't need any space on the iPhone.

 

[Mark F]

My iPhone recently had an error message that the latest IOS update could not be installed because of insufficient space. As I store very little on the phone I investigated and found that almost the entire storage has been allocated to "System Data". I have no idea what this is but decided to look at my Mac's internal 1 TB drive to see what it showed and to my surprise found about 111 gigs of System Data. I've just spent about a half hour reading some of the earlier posts here but really do not understand what this is or where it is. One post referred to deleting a folder in the User/Shared area but I do not have that folder and anyway the entire User/Shared area size is measured in MB and not gigs. (BTW, the external drives used for Time Machine are turned on.)

The spreadsheets and Word documents on my drive are no where near 111 gigs. I doubt if they would be 1 gig. I do have a few thousand photos but I can easily identify those in their folders. I'm wondering what kind of data would take up 111 gigs? From the research I've done for my iPhone problem there does not seem to be a way to get rid of its System Data which is problematic since I cannot update IOS. But I'm hoping there is a better answer for my Mac.

Thanks.

Thank you MacInWin. I had not thought of that as I had read that the current OS are "self cleaning" and external software is no longer needed.

 

[Mark F]

If you want to update your iPhone without removing anything, just connect it to your PC (macOS or winOS) with the USB cable. Then you can update/upgrade using Finder or iTunes and it doesn't need any space on the iPhone.

Great! Thanks very much. More than 90% of my iPhone's storage is for System Data.

 

[MacInWin]

Thank you MacInWin. I had not thought of that as I had read that the current OS are "self cleaning" and external software is no longer needed.

Don't know where you read that, but it's a bit of yes-and-no. There are maintenance routines that will run if you leave the machine on overnight, and there are routines that do some clearing out for you if you boot from cold (power off) every once in a while. But OnyX triggers all of those cleaning routines on your command, if you just accept the defaults as it suggests.

 

[ferrarr]

Great! Thanks very much. More than 90% of my iPhone's storage is for System Data.

What I do in that situation is;

Backup/sync iPhone to iCloud and PC.
Do the upgrade/update.
If the discrepancy is still there, then I would erase the iPhone.
And finally, restore from backup.

That should put everything back to where it should be.

 

[Mark F]

Don't know where you read that, but it's a bit of yes-and-no. There are maintenance routines that will run if you leave the machine on overnight, and there are routines that do some clearing out for you if you boot from cold (power off) every once in a while. But OnyX triggers all of those cleaning routines on your command, if you just accept the defaults as it sugges

Great! Thanks very much. More than 90% of my iPhone's storage is for System Data.

 

[Mark F]

Great! Thanks very much. More than 90% of my iPhone's storage is for System Data.

The update to my iPhone using Finder worked perfectly Ferrar, thanks.

 

[Mark F]

Don't know where you read that, but it's a bit of yes-and-no. There are maintenance routines that will run if you leave the machine on overnight, and there are routines that do some clearing out for you if you boot from cold (power off) every once in a while. But OnyX triggers all of those cleaning routines on your command, if you just accept the defaults as it suggests.

Hi MacInWin, just an update.

I downloaded OnyX for Monterey and while the System Data only decreased by about 18 gigs (from 111 to 93), the available space increased from about 75 gigs to a little more that 312 gigs! WOW! I'm wondering where that additional available space came from.

Thanks very much for the suggestion.

A few minutes later. I figured it out, most came from OnyX emptying my Trash.