Large System Data File in MacBook Air M2.

TimebasedanalysisBob wrote:

I am relatively new to MacBook machines (MacBook Air M2, 8GB, 512GB) but don't like the fact that there appears to be no inbuilt disk cleaner ( I am not going to install a third party app) and I can't remove all those apps I don't need. Otherwise a great machine and the Apple silicone is much better than Intels i7, etc

On the subject of a growing in size System Data file, I found the following -

1.     In June 2023 the data file suddenly increased from 13GB to 19Gb. Screen shots was found to be the culprit with 6Gb data. 

The screen recorder copied three items, each of about 50MB when stored in the video folder. However these 3 files took up a whopping 6GB in the screen record folder in the Library. Why ?

When I deleted the 3 files from the Library, it freed up 6GB in the System Data file, now back at 12.7 GB.

Strange, but true.

Not sure why you would need a "inbuilt disk cleaner" (?)

What Apple used to label as "Other" they now label as "System Data"... this would be your user data.

You can see items File size— list the items in the home folder with the sizes, including invisible items,

from the Terminal.app copy & paste:

sudo du -h -d 1 ~/

First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac.  This documents describe what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community and Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support.  

There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs.  There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.   

Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear.  They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware.  Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.

There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is designed solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it.  The free version is more than adequate for most users.