Why won’t Systems Settings calculate Systems Data?

WilliamL wrote:

Yes, I know that “Systems Data” is just a “catch-all” for everything else. And yeah, I had the same idea that this “issue” is related to Spotlight.

Information missing from original post.

That triggered a memory that soon after discovering the reduction in size of the Systems Data category I ran Onyx; I think under Maintenance I said to rebuild the Spotlight Index. I don’t know if that “caused” my issue. So is there another way to rebuild the Spotlight Index?

There are several ways. I don’t know what Onyx did to the index, so the normal GUI method may not work.

It seems to be hit or miss, and that may be because of some problem with a third-party importer or corruption in the index itself.

In Terminal, there are two ways to restart the index.

1) sudo mdutil -E /
2) sudo mdutil -X /

As far as I can tell, the first does the same as GUI method, but people have reported it works when the GUI method doesn’t.

2) deletes the entire index folder.

The man page states the second may not restart indexing based on the current state, so these additional steps will kickstart it. You can copy/paste the whole line into Terminal window and hit return. Sudo will ask for your password, but when you enter it, you won’t see anything on screen.

sudo mdutil -X /; mdutil -i on /; mdutil -E /

In the Spotlight category in Systems Setting, I have all “subcategories” all turned off. I might turn one or two later on just to see what happens. 

Those should only apply to the things a direct spotlight search returns, not the indexing.

WilliamL wrote:

You are right. When I first tried it in my Standard Account my admin password kept being rejected. So I then tried it in the Admin Account. I initially tried to do the combined delete/restart command listed above but that kept being rejected. I then tried just the delete command. But that was rejected. Something about trying it again "in root." Pass. But the restart command seemed to work.

What delete & restart command? I see nothing like that listed in this thread. The only "deletion" discussion I see was to remove a volume from the Spotlight Indexing block list.

Using "sudo" gives you "root" access, there is no reason to ever to enable the root user account. Never. Besides "root" on macOS no longer has master access to the OS due to all the privacy & security changes to macOS.

Switched back to my Standard Account. opened System Settings again. "No Joy." So I tried the restart command. Got a message saying I was not on the "sudo" list. So I went in search of how to get on the "sudo" list. Found the command "sudo username." Did that and then was able to restart the list. Opened System Settings again. And "No Joy."

People should not try add any user to the "sudo" list without a thorough understanding of the process and the risks. It is not simple to get it correct. I have researched it enough to understand the hidden risks and I know that I cannot do it correctly except for the most simple cases. Besides once you allow a Standard User extra privileges with "sudo", then that user is no longer a Standard User and may be get more admin/root access than intended.

I give up. Apple has beaten me. Thanks everyone for all the help and suggestions.

I wouldn't worry about the information in Storage Management since it can be incorrect and even misleading.

The only storage values that are important are the Free storage space value only shown in Disk Utility or the System Profiler. Ignore the "Available" storage value since it is very misleading and is not synonymous with Free.

If you are trying to transfer to another Mac, then the "Used" storage value becomes important since some configurations may have the "Used" storage space value larger than the physical storage due to how the APFS file system works.

If you are concerned about the amount of System Data being too large, then you there isn't much you can do about it. Many times the hidden APFS backup snapshots will be the reason as they can contain large amounts of data that has already been moved to external media or even deleted. Usually it takes about 24-48 hours before the Free storage space will reflect the deleted/moved data.

system data is so large that no more stor… - Apple Community

Many times people who are running out of Free storage space, it is because they don't have enough physical storage. Besides purchasing a computer with larger internal SSD, moving the large amounts of data to external media is the next best option.

All of those categories are generated by Spotlight. If Spotlight cannot figure out what something is, it becomes "System Data." Some of it is actually related to the "System," but primarily it is something that Spotlight can't put into one of the other categories. That may because it isn't, or because Spotlight doesn't know.

You could try reindexing Spotlight to see if that will allow it to complete.

I and others have reported that the system data info. keeps spinning. I finally just went into recovery, erased and reinstalled and the issue was fixed. This can fix several issues although more work than most want to do.

WilliamL wrote:

I tried to use these commands but ran into a strange problem. When Terminal asked for my password it kept saying incorrect/wrong. This was in my standard account. So I switched to my admin account and tried. But had another problem. After the word Password: there was small key icon. And It would not accept my user password. And this is after I had just logged in.

What do you mean it wouldn't accept your password? Was there an error message? It won't show anything when you type. Just type and hit return.

WilliamL wrote:

After the word Password: there was small key icon. And It would not accept my user password. And this is after I had just logged in.

Nothing will appear on the screen as you type the password. Press the "Return" key to submit the password. You must be using an admin user account.

WilliamL wrote:

Why Omni Disk Sweeper doesn't agree I have no idea.

With all the new privacy & security features built into macOS, there are places that cannot be accessed even by an admin. I recall that OmniDiskSweeper even mentions this.