How to Clear System Data on macOS

Step by step

1. 1 min

   Check storage consumption

   Click the Apple menu and select System Settings. Navigate to General > Storage to view the breakdown of your drive usage, specifically the size of System Data.

   Note: If System Data exceeds 50GB, manual cleanup is recommended.
2. 2 min

   Delete local Time Machine snapshots

   Open Terminal from the Utilities folder. Enter 'tmutil listlocalsnapshots /' to identify stored snapshots, then run 'sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots [date]' replacing the bracketed text with the specific snapshot identifier.

   Note: You will need to provide your administrator password to execute these commands.
3. 2 min

   Clear temporary cache files

   Open Finder, select Go in the menu bar, then choose Go to Folder. Enter '~/Library/Caches/' and move unnecessary contents to the Trash to clear application-specific cached data.

   Note: Only delete files within folders of applications you no longer use or that appear bloated.
4. 1 min

   Remove system log files

   Navigate to the folder path '/Library/Logs/' and '/var/log/' using the Go to Folder tool. Delete the contents of these folders, excluding the subfolders themselves, to purge accumulated system logs.

   Note: These logs are regenerated by the system as needed.
5. 2 min

   Restart the Mac to finalize changes

   After clearing caches and logs, select Restart from the Apple menu. A reboot forces the macOS to refresh its file indexing and clear temporary pointers that hold space in the System Data category.

   Note: Check Storage settings again after the restart to verify the space recovered.