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So, I found a number of threads related to System files on Macs taking up to much space, and it seems for most people they are related to Time Machine snap shots. However, when I run sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots / it returns nothing.

Here's what it show in the Storage tab of About my Mac:

enter image description here

The gray bar is labelled "System" and it's taking up nearly 200 Gb of space.

I downloaded OmniDiskSweeper to get an idea of what's going on, and this is where it gets weirder.

enter image description here

In the drive list, it says 223 Gb are being used, but after sizing everything it says only 95 Gb are being used, and System files are just under 7 Gb.

What gives? Is there another place Time Machine snapshots could be hiding. Is there something else that would be taking up space, but is being missed by OmniDiskSweeper somehow?

Mac details:

enter image description here

UPDATE: Daisy Disk has revealed a file /private/var/log/puppetlabs/puppet/puppet.log that is 121.6 Gb (!!?)

Is this safe to delete? I assume so, given that it's a log.

UPDATE 2: Also, how can I even delete this if it's okay to do so? I can't even get into the directory (sudo does nothing, and sudo chown doesn't allow me to cd into either...)

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  • Thank you for mentioning DaisyDisk! Even just using the trial helped me find I had ~80GB of caches.
    – juil
    Commented Apr 5, 2020 at 23:36

1 Answer 1

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I don't think TimeMachine backups are stored elsewhere but on my machine, the Library folder takes up 100 GB! It may be included in the system size but OmniDiskSweeper separates it out. I've asked about the library folder being so large but didn't get an adequate response. I don't know how to safely reduce the size of that folder.

You should check the results of OmniDiskSweeper to see if your Library folder is taking up a lot of space. You have 2 library folders. Check the one in the Users/yourname directory.

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  • OmniDiskSweeper says my ~/Library directory is taking up only 10.9 Gb (Finder Info say 11.09)
    – user1751333
    Commented Oct 9, 2019 at 18:16
  • ok, sorry. I was basing my answer on my experience.
    – Natsfan
    Commented Oct 9, 2019 at 18:19
  • you might check the other Library folder just for completeness...
    – Natsfan
    Commented Oct 9, 2019 at 18:21
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    Yeah, no worries, it was a good suggestion, just unfortunately doesn't seem to be it. /Library is showing between 8-9 Gb. :/
    – user1751333
    Commented Oct 9, 2019 at 18:22
  • thanks. i'll keep shuffling thru my memory. if I think of something I'll leave a comment.
    – Natsfan
    Commented Oct 9, 2019 at 18:24

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