A few days ago, I was pulling my hair out (whatever's left of it). My 250GB MacBook Pro had only 3GB free, and every time I tried to update Magic: The Gathering Arena or edit a video in iMovie, I’d get those dreaded “Your startup disk is almost full” warnings.

It made no sense — I wasn’t storing movies or giant files. I mainly use my Mac for web browsing, iMovie, Logic, and the occasional game. But the Storage bar in macOS showed something bizarre: System Data was eating 134GB. More than half my SSD was being swallowed by something invisible.

See, while I was on vacation in Canada and needed to edit files, I even went and spent $150 on an external SSD. But the truth is, I didn’t know back then what I know now — that this problem had been building silently for over a year.

I thought my Mac storage was full of work files. But really, it was full of invisible junk. By digging deeper, I freed 66GB in one night, no new hardware required. Here’s how it happened.

The Mystery of “System Data”

If you’ve ever looked in Apple Menu → About This Mac → Storage, you’ll see categories like Apps, Documents, Photos, Music… and then a huge gray block called System Data.

That’s Apple’s polite way of saying: “We don’t know how to explain this.”

System Data is a catch-all bucket for:

• App caches

• Temporary files

• Media analysis databases

• Local Time Machine snapshots

• Update leftovers

In my case, it was 134GB — way more than it should be.

Step 1: Investigating With Terminal

To solve this, I opened Terminal (Applications → Utilities → Terminal) and typed:

At this point, Terminal will ask you for your Mac password. Type it and press Return (you won’t see any characters appear, that’s normal).

Then you’ll see lines scrolling by as Terminal does its work. Once the lines stop appearing, Terminal has finished and you’ll see a summary list of folders and their sizes.

This shows the biggest folders on your Mac. Immediately, I saw:

Something was very wrong — /System should never be 198GB.

Step 2: Following the Trail

I drilled deeper with more commands — thanks to ChatGPT’s help — until I got here:

👉 If you want to replicate this process yourself, you can literally ask ChatGPT:

“Help me find what’s taking up space on my Mac using Terminal, step by step.”

It’ll walk you through the same detective trail I took.

Bingo.

This single folder — com.apple.mediaanalysisd — was eating 55GB. It’s a background process that scans your photos and videos to make them “searchable” in Spotlight and the Photos app. Think face recognition, object detection, Memories, etc.

It’s just a cache. No real photos or videos live there.

Step 3: Deleting the Hog

Here’s what I did:

1. Quit Photos, iMovie, and other media apps.

2. In Finder, press Cmd + Shift + G and go to:

3. Deleted the whole folder.

4. Emptied the Trash.

Instantly, my free space jumped from 3GB → 66GB.

Step 4: Other Common Hogs

While I was at it, I also found:

• WhatsApp Desktop cache — 7.9GB of random videos I never knew were being saved. I deleted the WhatsApp app + its Group Containers.

• iMovie render files — if you use iMovie directly on your Mac, old projects can quietly pile up. You can delete them from Preferences. (In my case, my iMovie library was tiny — because I usually edit on external hard drives instead of the Mac itself.)

• Logic loops — Logic’s Sound Library often installs multiple gigabytes of instruments you may never use. You can trim or relocate them to an external drive.

The Lesson: You Probably Don’t Need a New SSD

I had already bought an external SSD once, back in Canada, because I thought it was the only solution. But I didn’t know this then: most of my storage was being wasted by hidden caches.

By cleaning caches like mediaanalysisd, I reclaimed more than 60GB in minutes.

Now I’ve got breathing room again to edit videos and make music on my MacBook Pro (even though I usually use external hard drives for big projects). And I can even keep Magic: The Gathering Arena updated without stressing.

Quick Cleanup Checklist (Do This Monthly)

1. Check Storage → Apple Menu > About This Mac > Storage

2. Terminal Scan →

    

   sudo du -hxd1 / | sort -hr | head -n 20

3. Nuke MediaAnalysisd if it balloons again

    

   ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mediaanalysisd

4. Clear WhatsApp Desktop caches (or just use WhatsApp Web)

5. Delete iMovie render files if you’re using iMovie directly on your Mac

6. Trim Logic’s Sound Library if you don’t need every instrument pack

7. If you don’t know how to do any of the above, just ask ChatGPT step by step

Final Thoughts

Your Mac doesn’t need to feel claustrophobic. If your System Data is huge, don’t panic — it’s probably just caches.

For me, the difference was night and day. One evening I was stuck with 3GB and thinking about spending money I didn’t have. The next, I had 66GB free and could edit freely again.

Sometimes, the biggest upgrade isn’t new hardware — it’s simply knowing where to look.

🧿

Love,
Zephyr

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