How to clear system data on Mac

If you’re struggling with not enough storage space and trying to get more space on your Mac, Apple helpfully outlines ways to save space and shows some mysteriously named items that take up storage space. In macOS Ventura and later, if you click the Apple logo > About this Mac > More info > General > Storage settings (or in macOS Monterey and earlier: Apple logo > About this Mac > Storage), you’ll see lots of information about what’s taking up space on your Mac, as well as tips to help you manage it.

Among some mysteriously named items taking up storage space, you might see system, system data, macOS, and other and wonder if you can delete them. We cover how to delete Other on a Mac in a separate article. Here we will process system and system data.

Note: Apple has made various changes to the way it displays this information, most recently calling it System Date in macOS Ventura and later. As a result, you’ll see examples that don’t pertain to your Mac. To find out more, read How Apple has revamped system settings in macOS Ventura.

What is system data on Mac?

First, we’ll address what contained system data and whether you should delete it from your Mac. System data is a catchall title for various items scattered across your Mac’s drives. Basically, these are all the same thing: files that don’t fall into the other categories, usually data and files used by macOS, caches, temporary files, downloads, backups, plug-ins, and so on.

It’s also the operating system files that you obviously can’t delete. But there are aspects you can delete, including old Time Machine snapshots, iOS backups, cache files, any downloaded disk images for upgrading apps or macOS, and, if you’ve enabled the FileVault encryption feature, files associated with the. We also have an article that explains how to clear cache on a Mac.

If your Mac is low on storage space, it can cause problems. You can e.g. see a message that your startup disk is almost full, and if you ignore it, you might find that you can’t even start your Mac. Low storage space can also slow down your Mac and cause other issues that prevent it from running at its best. You may also find that you can’t install an update for macOS if you don’t have enough free storage space. If you’re not sure how to see how much disk space your Mac has read: How to check how much disk space you have.

The question of whether you can reclaim some of the space given to this storage class is somewhat complicated by the fact that Apple seems to give it a new name with each version of macOS, as you can see in the images below:

macOS Ventura and later: System data (and macOS)

macOS Monterey: macOS

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macOS Big Sur and earlier: System (and other)

No matter what version of macOS you’re running, these graphs show how much of your storage space is attributed to certain types of files on your Mac. As you can see from the image above, System used up to 19.63GB on our Mac in Big Sur, but the number is a bit more worrying in Ventura at nearly 47GB. For each user, the system size is different, so it is possible that it could be even larger.

Whether it is referred to as System, System Storage, macOS or something else, you can reduce the amount of space taken up by this part of the storage space, but you will need to identify what is attributed as Storage (or what Apple has called it in your version of macOS).

Follow the steps below to find out what’s in system or system data so you can free up some space on your Mac.

How to wipe system data on a Mac

Apple offers various ways to delete data from your Mac. How you access them depends on the version of macOS you’re using.

macOS Ventura and later

In macOS Ventura or later, you no longer see these recommendations in an easy-to-navigate list (it seems that some people may still see these if they haven’t already implemented them). If instead you go to the Apple logo > About this Mac > More info > General > Storage, click (i) next to the different storage categories. Then you can, for example, do things like empty the recycle bin, delete documents and delete attachments.

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What Apple doesn’t give you access to, however, is exactly what we’re interested in here: System data and macOS. Click System Data in Ventura and you see nothing. Similarly, System and macOS are both grayed out in older versions of macOS.

There is a good reason for this, of course if you delete things from System, System Data and macOS you are much more likely to damage your Mac. Therefore, Apple does not make it easy to delete anything from System, System Data or macOS. But you can. There is no Clean System or Delete System button available in macOS, so you have to manage the storage yourself. In the sections below, we will explain how to delete each type of system file.

Although it is possible to manually delete the various files included in the System category, we recommend that you only do so if you are sure that you know what you are doing. It’s easy to accidentally delete an important file, only to find it causes problems later. If disaster strikes, try some of the tips on how to recover deleted files on Mac.

Another option is to use Terminal, but this is one for more advanced users. We explain the process here: How to delete files and folders using Terminal.

Before you even remove anything, we’d suggest running a full backup of your Mac’s storage, just so you can revert it to its previous state if problems arise. Read how to back up a Mac and the best Mac backup software for more details.

Alternatively, the safer option would be to use a system cleanup app like MacPaw’s CleanMyMac X, Software Ambience’s Daisy Disk, or Nektony’s MacCleaner Pro. You can find reviews of these tools, along with several more, in our roundup of the best Mac cleaning software and optimization tools. These apps can safely delete the files you don’t need, so you don’t have to worry about finding and identifying files that are safe to delete.

macOS Monterey and earlier

Before Apple launched Ventura, you could click the Apple logo > About This Mac > Storage > Manage and then work through Apple’s recommendations (which included things like Optimize Storage, Automatically Empty Trash, Reduce Clutter).

You can also browse the sidebar on the left and click on each category to open a new window with details of what you can delete.

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How to clear space in system data on a Mac

Follow these steps to delete the various items that make up System Storage or System Data.

Step 1: Remove Time Machine snapshots

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One of the main culprits for taking up space in System is the local snapshots that Time Machine creates every day. You might think that Time Machine backups are only stored on an external drive, but Apple also creates local snapshots on your startup drive. The company says that these snapshots will only be saved if there is plenty of free space, and old snapshots will be automatically deleted when new ones are created.

This is great if you accidentally save correct changes to a document or delete something you didn’t mean to, but it can take up space on your Mac that you might prefer to have access to.

Fortunately, there is an easy method to remove local snapshots from your storage. You can simply turn off the Time Machine feature itself, which will remove all the local snapshots stored on your Mac. There is also a slightly more complicated method using Terminal. We explain both in our step-by-step guide to removing these space-stealing artifacts, so read How to Delete Time Machine Backups on Mac to find the easy way to remove them.

Step 2: Remove old iOS backups

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Another system space hog is old backups of your iPhone or iPad. These can use up unnecessary space on your Mac, so it’s a good idea to clear them out once in a while. Depending on which version of macOS you’re using, you can see how you can quickly get rid of them.

If you have iPhone backups on your Mac (and you’re running macOS Catalina or later), you’ll find them in the Finder (older versions of macOS used iTunes).

1. Open Finder
2. Click on your iPhone in the menu on the left
3. Select Manage backups
4. Highlight the ones you no longer need
5. Click Delete backup then confirm your choice

If you don’t see your iPhone here, you probably don’t have any backups on your Mac, and you’d probably prefer to back up your iPhone via iCloud instead.

If you’re using macOS Mojave or earlier, use the now-defunct iTunes for this:

1. Open iTunes
2. Select iTunes (in the upper left corner) then Preferences
3. Select Units tab from the window that appears
4. Highlight the backups you no longer need
5. Click Delete backup

Step 3: Delete data from system folder

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It’s taken care of two of the biggest users of system storage on the Mac, what about everything else?

Anything else you might want to delete from the system is tucked away in the library folder(s). Apple likes to keep the Library folders hidden, presumably to prevent users from accidentally moving or deleting important files. But if you want to access that part of your storage, it’s possible via a menu option in the Finder.

What’s important is that you know what you’re doing and don’t just randomly delete things.

There are actually several ways to make the hidden library folder visible, read how to show hidden files on Mac for more details on finding hidden files.

Follow these steps to give yourself temporary access to the Library folder:

1. Open a new Finder window
2. Go to your home folder (press Command + Shift + H)
3. Right click and select Show display settings from the menu
4. Enable the option to Show library folder

Now you have access to the library folder and you can open the library folder and look for the files that you suspect are taking up space on your drive.

At this point, it’s really important to exercise caution and only delete things that you know are redundant. If you’re not sure you should delete something, don’t. Our advice is that if you don’t feel comfortable doing this yourself, use a specialist app to do it for you.

Best apps to delete system files

The best option, in our opinion, is really to use a dedicated optimization tool, so take a look at our guide to the best Mac cleaning software and optimization tools, as it provides the easiest method to keep your Mac in tip-top condition.

Our top Mac cleaning solutions include the following:

When we wanted to recover storage space when we tried to install macOS Big Sur, we relied on CleanMyMac X, which has a tool to clean System junk. CleanMyMac X costs $29.95/£29.95 right now if you buy the one Mac plan. There is also a free trial. Download from developer MacPaw here.

You can also reduce the amount of wasted storage space on your device by following the tips on how to free up space on Mac. For more advice, read our tips for cleaning up your Mac to make it run faster.