Reducing excessive system data on Mac mini M1 with 256 GB SSD

One thing to note, while it is called "System Data", it can actually contain data that does not fit neatly into any of the other categories.

I notice that you said you have Photoshop Elements. Quite often Adobe apps will store large amounts of data in the hidden user library folder under Application Support. There are also other apps that will do the same or simply store data in their on folder in the hidden user library folder.

There are two free apps that can help track down where large amounts of data are located. One is Omni DiskSweeper. It will scan a selected disc and list in a hierarchy largest data sizes to smallest. The second is a graphical app called Grand Perspective. It gives a visual representation of data on the disk.

In either case, you should only focus on anything in your User folder and no where else. You may be surprised that the ~/Library (user library) can be quite large.

This is an often asked question which does not have a " One Size Fits All " solution

The link below, is page 1 of 3 pages with the same or similar question

Search - Apple Community

A " Quick Fix " is provided below

The more  popular and effective ways to address this issue is to Start Over from Scratch 

For Apple Silicon computer >> Use Disk Utility to erase a Mac with Apple silicon.

For Apple Intel computers >>   Use Disk Utility to erase an Intel-based Mac followed by How to reinstall macOS

Always make a Time Machine Backup  before  proceeding 

It is also suggested to  Only Migrating the User Account and nothing more.

Emphasis on User Account Only

Reinstall the Needed and not the Wanted applications from the Apple Apps Store or Directly from the Developers 

+1. I had to erase the drive and reinstall all for the system data to lower significantly.

tbirdvet wrote:

+1. I had to erase the drive and reinstall all for the system data to lower significantly.

Yup 👍

The real issue, as I see it

The 256 GB Drive Capacity in 2025 is akin to the 128 GB Capacity Drive back in the day when they were sold this way

I just do not get it at all - full stop

Are you using Time Machine with your Mini? If you are you may have a lot of local snapshots that you can remover and free up some space. Launch Disk Utility and select your boot drive. (Be sure to first go to the View menu and select the Show All Volumes option:

Then select your boot disks volume and see if there are any local snapshots on it. If there are you can delete all except the last one:

The system data is explained in this user tip: System Data Called Other Category if Previous Sustems. There's nothing much you can do except what woodmeister50 and rkaufmann87 have suggested. You should try to keep a minimum of 80-100 GB of space free on your boot drive to facilitate optimal system and application performance. You definitely should get an external SSD to keep your larger files/projects on, i.e. Photos, Music and Movie libraries.

If budget is a concern try this setup which I use (4 of them):

[Edited by Moderator]

This is exactly why you should not buy the based model, insufficient storage.You need to use an External Hard Disk or external SSD to store your data files on.