Google Chrome taking up all availalbe storage space on Mackbook Air 2017 OSX Catalina 10.15.7

We have a 2017 Macbook Air 13 in with OSx Catalina 10.15.7 that is having crazy storage consumption, free up a Gig and have it consumed again in a few hours.


I finally was able to identify that the Google Chrome application was taking up 16 GB of space!

I deleted it and was going to re-download again from google's own website.


Any idea what could cause this? Too many tabs? It seems crazy if its not constrained in this way.

Could there be some virus or worm or something? I tried Malwarebyptes and it didn't find anying before this was deleted.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Sep 9, 2023 07:39 PM

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Posted on Sep 10, 2023 01:22 PM

why delete it and then re-install it it it was the problem at the 16gb. chrome is a big browser. depending on how you use it and re install or install it. Google chrome can be managed in away that it doesn't impede levels of data storage . first download the google chrome from the website, go to the systems on the make or ios system settings see where google is installed you have to turn off some of google chromes usage settings on the chrome itself or on the back end of the system settings on the mac. mac or any of apple systems should be able to hold chrome anyhow. to say that its a malware or virus on the chrome no chrome has areas in its settings to handle if there was a malware or virus attack so don't think its a problem.

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Sep 10, 2023 01:22 PM in response to rustyspark

why delete it and then re-install it it it was the problem at the 16gb. chrome is a big browser. depending on how you use it and re install or install it. Google chrome can be managed in away that it doesn't impede levels of data storage . first download the google chrome from the website, go to the systems on the make or ios system settings see where google is installed you have to turn off some of google chromes usage settings on the chrome itself or on the back end of the system settings on the mac. mac or any of apple systems should be able to hold chrome anyhow. to say that its a malware or virus on the chrome no chrome has areas in its settings to handle if there was a malware or virus attack so don't think its a problem.

Sep 10, 2023 07:59 PM in response to WheelieNick

Thank you! This is what I was thinking. I did delete and re-install on a new download. Its under 1 gb now.

I also moved other things to a remote drive, signed out of iMessage and deleted that. I also booted to the maintenance mode and used terminal to delete old installation files taking up over 5 gb of disk space. This got past SIP. These should have been cleaned up automatically after install, but were not from prior Mac OS updates.


I was able to update to Monterey. But I had to move the download to an external drive so there was enough space to install. Now i am at about 35-40 Gb free. We'll see how it goes from here.

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Google Chrome taking up all availalbe storage space on Mackbook Air 2017 OSX Catalina 10.15.7

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