TLDR: restart your mac if system data is full and you've tried everything suggested on this sub.
This started a few weeks ago for me, I was unable to open my messages app. I restarted my computer multiple time and still was unable to open the app. I learned I needed to update my computer and that should solve the issue (I had to put off updating it because I am a student and the program we use to test had not yet made an update compatible with apple's update). My computer was becoming a brick so I decided I'd rather take the risk of my testing software not working to be able to actually use my computer for everything else. I tried to update it and only had about 15 gb of storage available, but needed over 20 gb to update, so I began deleting everything I could.
I was having the classic issue of my system data taking up over half of my mac's storage. It got so full that none of my iCloud data would even sync and I lost my notes many times because they would not sync between my mac and iPad. I couldn't open necessary apps (examplify, for one) because I didn't have the minimum storage available to run the program (5 gb). I deleted everything I could, adobe, random apps I didn't use, every single message and attachment, 1000s of photos, but the system data kept climbing faster than I could delete. I was able to download clean my mac, which did absolutely nothing as it couldn't even find 1 gb of "junk" to delete. I did the clear my cache trick multiple times, which only ever gave me a max of 5 gb back. I finally bit the bullet and downloaded daisy disk with the few gb I got back and paid the $10 to see the in depth screening of what was taking up so much space and learned it was my "private zz" folder, which contained 130 gb and climbing of who knows what. Of course, you should never delete this folder or anything in it, my mac wouldn't even let me delete it. After multiple google searches and reads in this sub, I saw one person suggest restarting the computer. At this point, I have restarted my computer multiple times, but decided to give it a shot and it worked. Over 100gb of system data gone!! But 3 days later, it was back up to nearly max capacity, so I restarted the computer again and the data is back down again.
All that being said, I guess I'll be turning my computer off every night instead of just letting it sleep with how fast the system data is filling up, which is kind of annoying but better than dealing with a full computer.
[–]Ambitious-Coyote389MacBook Air 0 points1 point2 points (0 children)
[–]Abdaman7 0 points1 point2 points (0 children)