Older versions of macOS labelled certain types of storage as System or Other.

The question of whether you can reclaim any of the space given over to this class of storage is complicated somewhat by fact that Apple seems to give it a new name with every version of macOS, as you can see from the images below: We’ll assume that you’ve already been confronted by System or System Data taking up an astonishing amount of storage on your Mac and are thinking that you’d quite like that 50GB or so back. If you aren’t sure how to see how much disk space your Mac has read: How to check how much disk space you have. You may also find that you can’t install an update to macOS if you don’t have enough free storage.

If your Mac is low on storage it can cause problems – you might see a message that your start-up disk is almost full, for example, and if you ignore that you might find you can’t even start up your Mac! Low storage can also slow your Mac right down and cause other issues stopping it from running at its best. Download Free Edition 2023 Can you delete System on the Mac?įirst we’ll address why you might want to delete System or System Data on your Mac – and whether you should.

How to clean macbook space