Where did About This Mac → Storage go?

Apple moved it. From Ventura onward there is no Storage tab in About This Mac. The same breakdown now lives in System Settings → General → Storage. About This Mac still exists; it just no longer shows the bar.

What is System Data on Mac?

System Data is a catch-all, not a folder you can drag to the Trash. It includes app caches, local Time Machine snapshots, old iPhone and iPad backups, logs, and other files macOS does not file under Apps or Documents. You shrink it by removing those pieces — you cannot delete System Data as one item.

Why didn't my free space go up after I deleted files?

macOS often keeps a local Time Machine snapshot of what you just deleted, so the bytes stay on disk until the snapshot is thinned. Files in the Trash also still count until you empty it. Restart, empty the Trash, then reopen Storage and give it a minute to recalculate.

Is Mac storage the same as iCloud storage?

No. The bar in System Settings → General → Storage is the disk inside the Mac. iCloud is a separate 5 GB (or paid) quota for Photos, backups, and Drive. Cleaning one does not clean the other.

How to Check Mac Storage (and What System Data Actually Is)

Q: How do I check storage on a Mac?

On macOS Ventura and later, open Apple menu → System Settings → General → Storage. Wait for the colored bar to finish calculating, then click the info button next to a category to see what is inside. On Monterey and earlier, use Apple menu → About This Mac → Storage → Manage.

By Hieu DinhPublished April 7, 2025Updated September 13, 2026

How to Check Storage on Mac

Apple menu → System Settings → General → Storage. That is how to check storage on Mac in 2026. Wait for the colored bar to finish calculating. Click the info button next to a category to see what is actually inside it.

That is the whole check. Everything below is how to read the result, especially the gray System Data bar that makes people think the operating system ate 200 GB.

This page is the disk inside the Mac. If the warning you are seeing is "iCloud Storage Full," that is a different quota.

The Exact Clicks (Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia, Tahoe)

Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner.
Choose System Settings.
In the sidebar, click General.
Click Storage.
Wait. The first open is slow because macOS is classifying files, not because the window is broken.
Click the (i) button next to a category to drill in.

There is no Storage tab in About This Mac anymore. That path died with Monterey. About This Mac still opens; it just does not show the bar.

Monterey and earlier

Apple menu → About This Mac.
Click the Storage tab.
Click Manage… for the per-category list and recommendations.

From Terminal

Total, used, and free on the startup disk:

df -h /

Largest items in your home folder:

du -sh ~/* 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -20

df is the number Disk Utility trusts. The Storage bar in System Settings can lag behind by minutes after a big delete.

What the Colored Bars Mean

Category	What is in it	What usually bloats it
Applications	Installed apps	Adobe, Final Cut, games, leftover `.app` files
Documents	Files in your home folder that do not fit elsewhere	Downloads, DMGs, exports, unzipped archives
Photos	The Photos app library	Originals, 4K clips, duplicates
iCloud Drive	Files synced with iCloud Drive	Desktop & Documents turned on
System Data	Caches, snapshots, device backups, logs	Local Time Machine snapshots, old iPhone backups
macOS	The operating system	Leave it. You cannot shrink this in any useful way.
Other Users	Other accounts on this Mac	Someone else's Photos library

Keep 10–15% of the disk free. Below that, macOS has nowhere to put virtual memory and temp files, and the machine feels slow even if the CPU is fine.

Apps and Documents are the easy wins. The gray bar is where the confusing gigabytes hide.

What System Data Actually Is

System Data is not a folder. There is no "Clean Up System Data" button. macOS uses that label for everything it cannot file under Apps, Photos, or Documents.

Typical contents:

Local Time Machine snapshots — copies of your disk stored on the disk itself, even when the backup drive is unplugged. These routinely run tens or hundreds of gigabytes.
iPhone and iPad backups — Finder backups of old devices. One backup can be 4–8 GB. Three forgotten phones add up.
App caches — ~/Library/Caches. Browsers and creative apps rebuild these. Safe to empty the contents of a bloated cache folder, not the folder itself.
Logs and support files — usually small unless one app has been crashing for months.

On a 256 GB MacBook, a 100 GB System Data bar is a crisis. On a 2 TB Studio it can be normal snapshot overhead. Measure before you delete.

Shrink System Data without guessing

Time Machine snapshots. In Terminal:

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

Thin them (this asks Time Machine to free about 10 GB of local snapshots):

sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 10000000000 4

Or plug in the backup drive and let a normal backup finish. macOS often drops stale local snapshots on its own after that.

iOS backups. Finder → your iPhone in the sidebar → Manage Backups → delete the ones you do not need. iCloud backups of the phone do not live here; those count against iCloud storage, not this bar.

Caches. Finder → Go → Go to Folder → ~/Library/Caches. Sort by size. Delete the contents of the obvious offenders (Chrome, Adobe, Slack). Quit the app first.

Do not delete anything you do not recognize under /System or /Library. That is not System Data you can safely touch.

After You Have Checked: Free Space Without Deleting Keepers

The Storage screen also lists recommendations. Use the ones that match how you work; skip the rest.

Empty Trash automatically — files in Trash still occupy the disk. This one is safe.
Reduce Clutter — large files and old downloads. Review before deleting. A 4 GB .dmg in Downloads is almost always trash; a 4 GB project folder is not.
Store in iCloud / Optimize Storage — moves local files to iCloud and leaves stubs. Fine for movies you already watched. Dangerous if your iCloud quota is already full. Stubs are not a backup.

For files you still need — exports, camera video, PDFs, photo libraries — compress them instead of offloading them. That is the gap Apple's recommendations skip. A 4K clip that is 400 MB in camera is often 30–50 MB after a sensible re-encode, and it stays on the Mac. Reducing file size on Mac covers the file-by-file version; image size on Mac covers photos.

Finder search is useful once you know the bar is Documents or Downloads: press Command-F in a new Finder window, change Kind to File Size, and show files larger than 1 GB. Old screen recordings and installers show up first.

A longer cleanup checklist lives in how to free up space on Mac. This page stops at: check, read the bar, shrink System Data, compress what you keep.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I check storage on a Mac?

System Settings → General → Storage on Ventura and later. About This Mac → Storage → Manage on Monterey and earlier. Wait for the bar to calculate, then open a category with the info button.

Why is System Data so large?

Local Time Machine snapshots and old device backups are the usual answer. Caches are next. The operating system itself sits in the macOS bar, not System Data.

Is it safe to delete System Data?

You cannot delete the category. You can delete snapshots, old iPhone backups, cache contents, and leftover installers. Leave unknown files in system Library folders alone.

Why is free space unchanged after I deleted 10 GB?

Local snapshots and a full Trash. Empty the Trash, restart, reopen Storage. df -h / in Terminal updates faster than the Settings bar.

How often should I check Mac storage?

Monthly for a 512 GB machine used for documents. Weekly if you edit video or fill the disk past 85%. The check takes two minutes; the "startup disk almost full" dialog takes an afternoon.

Do not wait for the warning. Check storage, read System Data, then shrink the files you actually want to keep. Download Compresto to compress video, images, and PDFs on the Mac without sending them through a browser.