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I am at a loss of how to clear up system files manually on a 2017 MBP. Upon running du -h -d 1 I get;

enter image description here

Now the private folder is way too big and I am cautious to clear that out. I know I could clear the private/var files to an extent but want to try and avoid that. The user caches say they are only taking up 7.3GB, after running du -sh ~/Library/Caches.

Any guesses of where/what I can purge to get this system's storage down? Any help is greatly appreciated.

  • @Tetsujin Why not upvote a question - when it’s clear enough to be a possible dupe, it’s clearly one that needs solving and we have a good grasp of one way to solve it. I’d +1 every question I find a dupe TBH. Same comment for jmh - if a question is good enough to answer, it’s always +1 in my book – bmike Jun 04 '20 at 18:35
  • @bmike - I always upvote if I answer. tbh, it simply never occurred to me in this instance. Rectified. – Tetsujin Jun 04 '20 at 18:37
  • Welcome to how we do it Floyd - great question and you have some amazing people here helping already (not counting me - I’m a bit of a mixed bag these days) – bmike Jun 04 '20 at 18:39

2 Answers2

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You should use DaisyDisk or Disk Inventory X. These apps will make a color map of your disk showing what's taking up space. Daisy Disk is not free but has a free trial. Disk Inventory X is free. These will break down you system folder to show what is using disk space.

Natsfan
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You’ve made a very good first measurement. /private contains files that can get cleaned at restart, so I would track that with uptime or last reboot and then remeasure after you apply all software updates.

softwareupdate -ai --restart

Then you can go in to /private one level deeper and see if it’s in var or tap or another location. I agree with jmh to use professional tools if your scripting needs help to know what’s safe to delete and make your decision visually attractive - DaisyDisk and OmniDiskSweeper are two products I gladly pay for so I can use them to save me time.

bmike
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