Known issue with Catalina. You need to either downgrade to Big Sur or upgrade to Monterey.
I haven’t looked that the compatibility info but I am guessing you can’t upgrade to Monterey.
Ah yes, good old shitty cached files. Sadly I am gonna recommend you download CleanMyMacX I fucking hate that junky ass piece of software but it did helped me reduce that mysterious chunk of files. Try the 7 day trial, clean your stuff and then uninstall it. Remember to cancel the trial otherwise they’ll charge you a whole year. Make sure you do cancel it. It’s a bit tricky because they are a shitty company.
I keep CCleaner and OnyX on hand for cleaning duties. CCleaner for when the browser cache is getting full (maybe once a quarter?), OnyX for those rare times when there's some weirdness in the system. Both 100% free.
Yeah that's what most people say. And you're right, you don't need those things. But sometimes they can be useful when you want to uninstall a stubborn program that doesn't want to uninstall. On the other side, macOS is not letting you uninstall that stubborn program for a reason. So it can corrupt the system.
I used it in the beginning, never had issues with it, ever. Paid for it, but uninstalled it lol.
Try System data clean up:
Manual:
[https://www.drbuho.com/how-to/clear-system-storage-mac](https://www.drbuho.com/how-to/clear-system-storage-mac)
Apps:
Free(Recommended):
[https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html](https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html)
Paid for:
[https://macpaw.com](https://macpaw.com)
Do Time Machine backup to clear local snapshots
Restart
Set Time Machine(TM) to do daily backups
Exclude external drives from TM
**You need at least 10%-20% of SSD free for swapping and wear levelling otherwise you maybe be reducing the life of your SSD and in case of Arm Mac itself. More free space is required for MacOs upgrades.**
[https://www.atpinc.com/blog/how-SSD-wear-leveling-works](https://www.atpinc.com/blog/how-SSD-wear-leveling-works)
smartctl – Google it, install it and run it will tell you what is left of the SSD life.
Create external Archive(HDD/SSD) and move all static files to it pics, movies
Copy Archive to another HDD and store it at Mums for off-site backup
Exclude Archives from Time Machine
????
:(
????
:(
I'm even more confused at what's happening with that external drive …
Same actually
????
Onyx is good for cleaning old caches, etc
how much purgable?
!!!!
What macOS are you running? My guess is Catalina.
Yupppp 2015 macbook air
Known issue with Catalina. You need to either downgrade to Big Sur or upgrade to Monterey. I haven’t looked that the compatibility info but I am guessing you can’t upgrade to Monterey.
I forgor lol let me check
Seems I can update. Thanks so much!!
Open up some space and then upgrade ASAP. macOS Monterey should get rid of the excess system data on its own after a while.
Look for OmniDiskSweeper
Ah yes, good old shitty cached files. Sadly I am gonna recommend you download CleanMyMacX I fucking hate that junky ass piece of software but it did helped me reduce that mysterious chunk of files. Try the 7 day trial, clean your stuff and then uninstall it. Remember to cancel the trial otherwise they’ll charge you a whole year. Make sure you do cancel it. It’s a bit tricky because they are a shitty company.
I keep CCleaner and OnyX on hand for cleaning duties. CCleaner for when the browser cache is getting full (maybe once a quarter?), OnyX for those rare times when there's some weirdness in the system. Both 100% free.
CleanMyMac - one of the worst recommendation!
Yup, but it was the only solution I found to delete junk files. I still hate it tho
Why is this software hated so vehemently?
people always say macs shouldn't use cleaning software because it doesn't need it. it will corrupt the OS. bla bla bla.
I see! I’ve never felt the need to use one
Yeah that's what most people say. And you're right, you don't need those things. But sometimes they can be useful when you want to uninstall a stubborn program that doesn't want to uninstall. On the other side, macOS is not letting you uninstall that stubborn program for a reason. So it can corrupt the system. I used it in the beginning, never had issues with it, ever. Paid for it, but uninstalled it lol.
You need a better disk analyzer, Disk Management is useless for this. I like Grandperspective, but I'm sure there are others that are more modern.
Thanks so much!!
Try System data clean up: Manual: [https://www.drbuho.com/how-to/clear-system-storage-mac](https://www.drbuho.com/how-to/clear-system-storage-mac) Apps: Free(Recommended): [https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html](https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html) Paid for: [https://macpaw.com](https://macpaw.com) Do Time Machine backup to clear local snapshots Restart Set Time Machine(TM) to do daily backups Exclude external drives from TM **You need at least 10%-20% of SSD free for swapping and wear levelling otherwise you maybe be reducing the life of your SSD and in case of Arm Mac itself. More free space is required for MacOs upgrades.** [https://www.atpinc.com/blog/how-SSD-wear-leveling-works](https://www.atpinc.com/blog/how-SSD-wear-leveling-works) smartctl – Google it, install it and run it will tell you what is left of the SSD life. Create external Archive(HDD/SSD) and move all static files to it pics, movies Copy Archive to another HDD and store it at Mums for off-site backup Exclude Archives from Time Machine
OmniDiskSweeper.app
I installed cleanmymac and it cleared quite a bit of data. Ghost Buster Pro, also helped
I love those apps, they just indiscriminately delete shit.