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The System Data on my macOS computer shows 7.9TB used when it's not
Dropbox Plan
Business Standard
Device
MacBook Pro 14" Nov 2024
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Mac OS Tahoe 26.0.1
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
238.4.6075
Question or Issue
I bought this Macbook in August 2025. I spec'ed it with 8TB SSD because I travel a lot and often don't have reliable internet access.
System Storage looks like this:
Note two things: 1) Mac Documents are 3.33TB 2) System Data is 3.96TB
But now look at the screen print belowFinder shows
a) Dropbox Personal of 911GB, OtRExp Dropbox [company] of 1,590GB, and Movies 832 GB = total of approx 3.33TB which is exactly what's shown in System Storage/Mac Documents = 3.33TB.
Also note that System is a 23.78GB, a bit high, but nothing unusual.
So far so good.
b) But then, back to the first screen print above, on top of that, the System Storage/System Data figure is 3.96TB as shown above.
The result being that out of the 8TB my Mac has 7.81TB are used up.
There is, it seems, some double counting going on in the Mac OS. I've spent countless hours with Apple so-called "senior" advisors with no resolution at all except for to tell me "Reinstall Dropbox". Sure, I can do this, but a clean re-install means several days of syncing all my Dropbox (Personal and company) data back to my laptop.
More than happy to do this if someone here can tell me: yep, that's going solve your problem.
Very grateful to anyone who can shed led on how to solve this problem. At the moment, I feel like having wasted a huge amount of money on SSD of which 1/2 is "missing".
Cheers,
14 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
Hello Hannah,
a fair question, but it is this:
- I bought the Macbook new; I had, more or less 8TB free space (except for system files and some apps).
- I then synced my 2 Dropbox account files (Personal and company). By the time it was done, the problem, as described, presented itself.
Please feel free to ask any other questions if you think I missed something. Thank you!
Peter
- Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey peteraschindler60, thanks for reaching out to the Dropbox Community.
This does look strange indeed, and sorry if I missed something, but can I ask why you think that your Dropbox files are the culprit here?
Hello Vicker,
thanks for replying. I've checked that already but it doesn't look like it:
Here is further evidence that something odd is going on:
In System Storage it shows 7.81TB of 8TB meaning 190GB still free.
- In the Finder, I can take a large file (e.g., an FCP library) that is > the 190GB available and copy (duplicate) it: concrete example, I can duplicate a 450GB file which, technically, I shouldn't be able to do if only 190GB is available, right?
- However, when I connect my iPhone 16 Pro with 1TB of memory (of which around 420GB used) and want to back it up to my Macbook, it runs for a while and then says: sorry, out of storage!
It seems to me that the 1) Finder copy process uses one OS systems call to determine size of remaining storage; and the 2) iPhone back-up process uses another OS systems call. Or some such thing.
Furthermore, I have an older Macbook pro also running Tahoe with the same dropbox (Personal) and dropbox (business), but only 4TB of storage, and it all tallies up perfectly. What's more System Data shows the same size as that when I look at it in the finder.
So, what could be the problem?
Thank you, all!
Peter
- Vicker
Super User
Hi peteraschindler60 ,
I am a long-time heavy macOS Dropbox user as well and have never come across any double-count issue. Note that the "System Data" under macOS Storage is not directly equivalent to the "System" folder. I bet if you try to check the "Library" folder, you may be able to locate a large amount of usage somewhere.
For that, you may wanna find other tools out there in the market to help you, e.g. Daisy Disk, MacKeeper, CleanMyMac, etc... Some of these tools can even help to clean out some unusable system files like installer, caches, etc.
Cheers
Vicker
