I cannot completely empty my Cache. Even when inputting my Admin info, which is requested, these are the folders that are parked. Note the – sign next to 3 of the 4 of them. That’s a red minus sign at the lower right corner of the blue folder icon itself.
I cannot open or delete these:
com.apple.amsengagementd.classicdatavault
com.apple.aned-
com.apple.aneuserd-
com.apple.iconservices.store-
How can I not be able to delete these?? A check of them does not reveal a folder size, so no way to know if they are the culprit.
That is strange. Off the top of my head I’d have said it sounds like you’ve got something causing logs to be written at an out of control pace. OSX is a version of ‘nix and I’ve seen Linux systems act similarly when they get cranky.
Unfortunately I’m not familiar enough with OSX to know where those logs would be stored.
You might have old APFS snapshots hanging around. Having snapshots means that deleting files will cause you to use slightly more space, instead of freeing the space used by the file. Here is a short article from Apple on using Disk Utility to see if there are any snapshots, and delete them.
I generally don’t think these kinds of tools are super useful for the average user in an everyday situation, but have you considered running a utility like CleanMyMac? It will purge all manner of stuff (including things like runaway logs) but will also help identify where, specifically, your disk space is being consumed.
Your system data file size for your Mac Mini is enormous! It should only be about 20 GB at the most. What in the world is in there?! Perhaps your machine is saving copies of the old Mac OS when it updates to a newer version.
One thing that Grand Perspective made me aware of was that Malware Bytes was methodically filling up my hard drive with tiny little files. I deleted them, gained about 325 GB, only to find that 9 months later Malware Bytes had done it again. This time I deleted Malware Bytes itself as well as its tiny little files.
Those might not show anything, and if they don’t, then you probably don’t have stale snapshots taking up all of the space. If they give errors, then run mount to see where things are mounted, and what filesystems they use. If necessary run tmutil using your actual mount points.
It may not be a snapshot issue, but this is pretty easy to check, and if it is a snapshot problem, then nothing else you do will help. Older versions of MacOS used to have a big problem with failed Timemachinie backups causing snapshots to be left behind.
A tool that graphically shows how much space each directory uses is invaluable in finding where your space has gone, if it is just due to regular files. Sorry I can’t recommend one, but the suggestions earlier in this thread might be a good starts.
I recently dealt with a Windows computer that was inexplicably out of space, and it turned out to be Adobe Acrobat updates. Acrobat would download a 1GB update, fail to install it, then download it again a few days later, fail to install, and repeat until the disk was full from 150 different Acrobat updates. A graphical directory size utility made finding the problem easy.
Hmmmm. This is embarrassing. I did as you suggested: Activity Monitor. Disk tab.
No columns appear, nor does the activity window change. When I click on Disk, the only column that appears is on the far left and is entitled " Process Name ".