System Information Is Showing 0kb Of Storage In Apps Mac

Click About This Mac. In the window that pops up, click on Storage to bring up the storage pane. Click the Manage button. From here, you should see a number of options that could help clear out the storage space on your Mac. To do so, open Finder, go to the View menu item in the menu bar, and select ‘Show toolbar.’ You’ll see a new bar at the bottom of the Finder window showing the number of items for the section you have selected on the left-hand pane and the total amount of storage your Mac has available. Check out how to use Time Machine.

Solid-state storage (SSD) is fantastically fast, but its high cost means that Macs with built-in SSD startup drives have a much lower capacity than their hard disk-based counterparts. This can be a problem if you have a large collection of photos or music files, or if you use your Mac to edit video. And so, if you have an SSD, you probably spend a lot of time checking the Storage tab in About this Mac. One thing you’ll have noticed is that colored bar labeled ‘System’. What is it and how do you clear it? Read on and find out.

What is System storage on Mac?

System storage, obviously, contains the macOS itself but what else is there? Part of this storage includes applications, drivers, volume data, and Library. While the nominal size of the macOS is around 12 GB (for macOS Big Sur), the Library is the real space-hogger. It contains piles of old cache files and supporting data.

Why does the system take so much space on Mac?

Your system is mainly stored in both the System and Library folders. If your system is taking up too much disk space on Mac, explore those two folders and see what's stored in them.

If you’re having a lot of your space allocated for “system,” you may have Time Machine snapshots stored on your Mac. Later in this article, we’re going to explain how to remove Time Machine backups.

How to reduce system storage on Mac

1. Check for unnecessary files in System storage

Much of the storage space used by the OS for system-related tasks is cleared when macOS deletes the files automatically, but sometimes that doesn’t happen, which is why the System category can grow very large. Apple doesn’t explain what comprises this category of storage, but it’s likely that the following are part of it:

  • Time Machine backups
  • Old iOS backups
  • File Vault files
  • App cache files
  • Unused disk images

Not knowing what files are included in System storage makes finding them tricky. However, it’s far from impossible. My favorite tool for clearing unnecessary system junk from my Mac is CleanMyMac X. It has lots of tools for clearing out junk files, but for our purposes, there’s one that really helps: System Junk. This handy utility scans your Mac and identifies things like temporary files, translation files in apps, broken preferences files, old updates, and system cache files that are no longer needed. You can then remove them with one click. Or you can choose which ones you want to get rid of and remove just those. If you want to give it a go, you can download a free version of CleanMyMac X here.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed it, do this:

  1. Launch CleanMyMac X.
  2. Choose System Junk in the sidebar.
  3. Press Scan.
  4. Once it’s finished, if you’re happy to remove the files CleanMyMac recommends, press Clean.
  5. If not, choose Review Details and go through the list of results.
  6. Uncheck the box next to any items you don’t want to delete.

That will help you to get rid of system storage on Mac.

As you can see from the screenshot, the app offers to remove my Unused Disk Images (the remains of DMG installers), broken downloads, old app updates. If you use Photoshop or other media editor you’ll see the option to delete Document Versions — intermediate edits of your files. In other words, you have many options for freeing up space at your disposal.

2. Manually remove Time Machine backups

Aside from using CleanMyMac X, one of the most straightforward ways to clear system storage on a Mac, is to get rid of Time Machine backups. Wait, what? You thought Time Machine backups were stored on an external or network drive? They are! But macOS also keeps a copy of your backup on your startup drive, in case the external drive isn’t available when you need to restore files. That way you can restore data on a MacBook even when you’re on the move.

macOS should delete Time Machine backups when your Mac runs low on storage, but it doesn’t always work out that way. And besides, you might not want to wait until your Mac is short of space before you delete them. So, here’s how to reduce system storage on a Mac by deleting Time Machine backups. Remember that will delete local copies of your backups, so if you think you might need them, don’t do it.

  1. Go to Applications > Utilities and launch Terminal.
  2. When a Terminal window opens, type: tmutil listlocalsnapshotdates
  3. Press Return.

You will now see a list of stored Time Machine backups, listed by date.

  1. Type: tmutil deletelocalsnapshots xxxxxxx where ‘xxxxxxx’ is the name of one of the backups listed . This will take the form of a date followed by a text string.
  2. Press Return.
  3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for as many backups as you want to remove, checking the Storage tab in About this Mac each time to see how much space you’ve cleared.

3. Optimize your storage

If you’ve faced a cluttered storage situation, there’s another way to fix it. Apple has anticipated such an issue and equipped the macOS with some features to optimize your space.

Go to the Apple menu and select About This Mac. Select the Storage tab and press Manage. In the window that appears, you can see some of the useful suggestions. 'Store in iCloud' lets you transfer all your data to cloud storage and reclaim some GBs on your Mac. The second option allows you to delete the heaviest files, like movies and programs.

Turning on 'Empty Bin Automatically' can be a useful option if you forget to do it regularly.

By pressing Review Files, you will jump into the Documents section. Review the files that are stored on your Mac and pay attention to the Unsupported Apps category. It can contain some programs that can no longer run on your macOS version.

Bonus tip: remove duplicate files

Aside from the bizarre system files, another thing that nibbles on your storage is duplicates. Remember that track you’ve accidentally added twice? Or a mail attachment you’ve opened several times? All these files just sit on your Mac and take up precious space.

Here’s how you can quickly delete them in a few clicks.

  1. Download and open Gemini 2
  2. Choose a folder and click Scan for Duplicates
  3. Wait for the scan to finish

Now you can Click Smart Cleanup to get rid of detected duplicates and delete system storage on Mac. Or click Review Results if you want to double-check what’s being deleted.

What else can you do to reduce System storage on Mac?

Believe it or not, one thing you can do is wait. When you first choose the Storage tab in About this Mac, macOS seems to allocate quite a lot to System that it then reallocates elsewhere. For example, some users have reported that after waiting for a few minutes, much of the storage that was labeled System, is moved to the iCloud label. So if you wait, you might find that the System isn’t taking up disk space in the huge quantities that it seemed to be at first.

The other thing you can do is investigate what files are designated as ‘System’. We’ve already talked about Time Machine backups, but everything stored in your Mac’s System or Library folders comes under the ‘System’ heading in About this Mac. That is:

/Library

/System

~/Library

~/System

Click on the Go menu in Finder and select Go to Folder, then paste in each of the paths above in turn.

Go through the subfolders in each and press Cmd-I to Get Info and check how much data is in each. You’ll quickly discover where your precious storage has gone.

It’s likely that much of it is accounted for by cache files for apps like Photos and Safari. MacOS caches as much data as it can to avoid having to re-download it, which boosts performance. And it’s smart enough to know that it must delete cache files when you run low on storage.

If you decide that you don’t want to leave it up to the operating system to free up storage, don’t just start trashing cache files or folders randomly, you might delete something you shouldn’t. So be careful

System Information Is Showing 0kb Of Storage In Apps Mac

Another way to go about it, is to use a storage analyzer. There are nice apps that search for hidden space on Mac and reveal your largest folders. You can use a free version of CleanMyMac X and inside it, it has a feature called 'Space Lens.'

Those bubbles show your largest folders and you can zoom in and out and delete junk files right from there.

A fun and visual way to delete system storage on Mac.

System storage can occupy tens of gigabytes of space on your Mac for Time Machine backups and cache files. It should be managed by macOS so you’re never short of space. But if you want to do a system storage cleanup, or just free up more space on your Mac, give CleanMyMac X a go. You might be surprised by how much space you get back.

Is your Seagate external hard drive not working? This page covers complete solutions to fix Seagate and other brands of external hard drive not working, not detected, or not showing up error, making your hard drives work again without losing any data.

Quick Tips to Fix Problematic Seagate External Disk:

  • 1. Try a different USB port on the computer.
  • 2. Switch a new cable if the current one is damaged.
  • 3. Try connecting the drive to a different computer.
  • 4. Verify if the drive's light is on. (Light off indicates the power adapter is not connected to power.)
  • 5. Try a different power outlet. (Desktop Drives)

After following these tips, if your Seagate external hard drive is still not detected, move on and try the other solutions offered here.

Applies to: Fix Seagate external hard drive not showing up, not detected, external hard drive light blinking but not work, not recognized in Windows 10, USB not showing up, etc.

8 Ways to Fix Seagate External Hard Drive Not Working in Windows & Mac

Follow to pick the right method and follow to make your Seagate external hard drive work again.

#1. Uninstall/Re-install Seagate Drive Driver...Full steps

#2. Format RAW Seagate Hard Drive...Full steps

#3. Create New Partition on Unallocated Seagate...Full steps

#4. Change Seagate Drive Letter...Full steps

#5. Turn on USB Root Hub...Full steps

#1. Repair Seagate External Drive in First Aid...Full steps

#2. Format Seagate to macOS Supported Format...Full steps

#3. Remount/Reformat Seagate External...Full steps

As some of these solutions may cause file loss issues, in this case, we'd like to recommend you restore data from the not working Seagate external hard drive first.

Before You Start: Recover Data after Not Working Seagate External Drive First

Here reliable hard drive data recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard with its reliable features can bring all your lost files back immediately.

For a Mac user, download the Mac version to restore lost files.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

  • Recover lost or deleted files, documents, photos, audio, music, emails effectively.
  • Recover files from formatted hard drive, emptied recycle bin, memory card, flash drive, digital camera, etc.
  • Support data recovery for sudden deletion, formatting, drive corruption, virus attack, system crash, etc.

Step 1. Locate Seagate drive to scan

  • Use the correct USB cable to connect the Seagate external hard drive to your Windows PC.
  • Run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, it will load the external drive and display it under the Devices section.
  • All you need to do here is to select the Seagate external hard drive and then click the Scan button.

Step 2. Check for the scan results

As soon as the scan process starts, the software will find more and more lost data on the selected drive and display the data in the scan results. You can find the desired files by following its original path from the leftside tree-view pane, or filter a specific file type like Pictures, Word/Excel/PDF documents, videos, etc.

Step 3. Preview and recover

A double-click on a file lets you preview its content. If the preview is with no problem, just select the target files and click Recover. To avoid data overwriting, we suggest you save the recovered data to the other drive instead of the original Seagate drive.

To recover Seagate external hard drive data on Mac, follow this link External Hard Drive Data Recovery on Mac for help.

How to Fix Seagate External Hard Drive Not Working in Windows

Now please first open disk management to check the state of your external hard drive and refer to the right solutions as presented below for help:

Fix 1. Uninstall and Re-install Seagate Hard Drive Driver

Risky Level: LowDifficulty Level: Easy

If your hard drive is not detected on either the device manager or the disk management, you just need to uninstall and update the Seagate drive driver and try again. Here are the detailed steps.

Step 1. Connect the not working Seagate external hard disk to PC.

Step 2. Type device manager in the search box and click 'Device Manager' on the menu.

Step 3. Expand disk drivers and right-click on your external hard drive, select 'Update Driver'.

Step 4. Select 'Search automatically for updated driver software' and restart the PC when the process completes.

Fix 2. Format RAW Seagate External Hard Drive to NTFS

Risky Level: High. Data may get lost after formatting.Difficulty Level: Easy
Warning
Note that formatting will cause DATA LOSS on your hard drive, if you need the data, then data recovery is necessary.

On the device manager or the disk management on your computer, if your external hard drive shows as RAW or Unallocated, it means you need to format your hard drive.

Step 1. Connect the Seagate external hard drive to your PC and open Disk Management.

Step 2. Right-click on the not working RAW drive and select 'Format'.

Step 3. Set volume label, set NTFS as the file system, and tick 'Quick Format'. Click 'OK' to start the formatting.

Fix 3. Restore Partition or Create a New Partition on Unallocated Seagate External Disk

Risky Level: Medium, data may get overwritten by creating a new partition.Difficulty Level: Easy

When your external hard drive shows as unallocated in Disk Management, you have two options: 1. To restore the partition; 2. To create a new partition.

#1. Restore Lost Partition and Data from Seagate Unallocated Space

Your first choice is to directly apply the partition recovery software for help. It will scan and recover all lost partition and data from the unallocated space.

Step 1: Run EaseUS Partition Recovery on your PC.

Select the disk or device where you lost partition(s), click 'Scan' to continue.

Step 2: Wait for the scanning process to complete.

Let the program scan the selected disk and find the lost partition(s).

Step 3: Preview and restore the lost partition(s).

Double-click on the partition which is marked as 'Lost' with 'Good' recoverability.

Preview the content of the lost partition. Click 'OK' and click 'Proceed' to start restoring the lost partition.

Step 4: Click 'Recover Now' to finish the partition recovery process.

Note: If the program warns you that there is a conflict, back up the listed partition with essential data to an external hard drive first. Then execute the final operation to restore your lost partition.

#2. Create a New Partition on Unallocated Seagate External Disk

Note: This method could also lead to data loss, remember to recover data first if you want to apply.

Here is how to use Disk Management to create a new partition with the following steps:

Step 1. Connect the unallocated Seagate external hard drive to PC and open Windows Disk Management.

Step 2. Right-click on the unallocated partition and choose 'New Simple Volume...'.

Step 3. Set partition size, drive letter, and file system such as NTFS, etc., click 'OK' to confirm.

Step 4. Click 'Finish' to complete the process.

Fix 4. Change Seagate Drive Letter

Risky Level: LowDifficulty Level: Easy

If your external hard drive shares the same drive letter as your disk partition, Windows won't show the drive letter of your external device. It will show as New Volume in Disk Management without a drive letter.

And this is why your external hard drive not detected. To fix this issue, you'll need to add a new drive letter to your Seagate disk. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Connect Seagate external to computer and open Disk Management.

Step 2. Right-click the partition of not working Seagate disk and choose 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...'.

Step 3. Set a new drive letter to the Seagate disk and click 'OK' to confirm.

Fix 5. Turn on USB Root Hub

Sometimes, USB external hard drive devices may stop functioning correctly with multiple devices connected to the same USB hub, going into selective suspension.

You can enable the USB root hub, letting the controllers recover the USB port from its unresponsive condition so to make your device work normally again:

Step 1. Connect not working Seagate external hard disk to PC.

Step 2. Open Device Manager and expand 'Universal Serial Bus controllers'.

Step 3. Right-click USB Root Hub > Click 'Properties' > 'Power Management'.

Step 4. Uncheck 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' and restart the PC.

You May Also Interest In:

If you are having a similar issue on your hard drive, you may directly try the fixes below.

Are your hard drives, be it new or old, internal or external, not showing up in File Explorer or Disk Management? Follow to learn how to make your hard drive showing up again in Windows 10/8/7 without losing data.

How to Repair Seagate External Hard Drive Not Working/Detected in Mac [3 Methods]

Follow to repair the Seagate hard drives to work normally again on Mac:

System Information Is Showing 0kb Of Storage In Apps Macbook Pro

Before you go further, try the quick fixes first:

  • Seagate drive is not showing on desktop: check Disk Utility: open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
  • Seagate disk is not detected in Disk Utility: see the System Information/System Profiler section.
  • On macOS 10.13 or higher, click 'View' in the upper left and select 'Show All Devices'.

If all the attempts failed to display your Seagate external hard drive on Mac, try the below 3 methods.

Fix 1. Repair Not Working Seagate External Hard Drive in First Aid

Risky Level: LowDifficulty Level: Easy

If the Seagate drive is unmountable or the Mount icon is greyed out, it will prevent your Mac from recognizing or detecting the drive correctly. You can repair the problematic drive in the built-in First Aid utility.

Step 1. Open Finder and click 'Applications'.

Step 2. Locate Disk Utility in 'Utilities' and double-click to open it.

Step 3. Select the unmountable Seagate external hard drive in the left sidebar and choose 'First Aid' at the top.

Step 4. Click 'Run' to repair this Seagate hard drive and click 'Done' to finish.

System Information Is Showing 0kb Of Storage In Apps Macbook

If Fix 1 fails to work, you may try to format the Seagate disk in Fix 2 or Fix 3.

Fix 2. Format Seagate Disk to macOS Supported File System

System Information Is Showing 0kb Of Storage In Apps Mac

Risky Level: High. data will get lost due to formatting.Difficulty Level: Easy
Warning
As formatting a disk on Mac will erase data, make sure you turn to reliable data recovery software like EaseUS data recovery software for Mac to restore all files before formatting disk.

If you use an NTFS Seagate external hard drive on a Mac computer, it won't work nor show up on Mac as Mac only supports APFS, FAT32, exFAT, etc., formats.

To fix the Seagate external hard drive not working error, you can format the drive to FAT32 or exFAT. Here is a step-by-step guide:

System Information Is Showing 0kb Of Storage In Apps Mac Os

Step 1. Connect the Seagate external hard drive to Mac.

Step 2. Go to the Apple menu, click 'Go' and select 'Applications'.

Step 3. Double-click to open Utilities, locate 'Disk Utility' and double-click to open it.

Step 4. Select the Seagate disk, click 'Erase'.

Step 5. On the Format pop-up window, set a new format like 'MS-DOS (FAT)' and click 'Erase'.

Once the formatting process completes, you can view and access the Seagate external disk on your Mac again.

Fix 3. Remount and Reformat Unmounted Seagate External Disk

If the file system on your Seagate hard disk is corrupted and it's not mounted corrected on Mac, it won't work nor be detected. In this case, remounting and reformatting the Seagate drive is the most instant way to revive it.

Follow the steps below carefully to learn how to make the Seagate external hard disk work again on Mac:

Step 1. Go to Applications > 'Utilities' > Double click and open 'Disk Utility'.

Step 2. Select the 'Untitled' Seagate drive, and click 'Mount'.

Once the mounting completes, you'll see the Seagate drive shows up on the left pane.

Step 3. Select your Seagate external hard drive on the sidebar, choose 'Erase'.

Step 4. Rename the drive, choose the format as MS-DOS (FAT). Then click 'Erase'.

After trying the above-presented methods, you should be able to use Seagate external hard drive on both Windows and Mac computers.

Why Is Seagate External Hard Drive Not Working/Detected

System Information Is Showing 0kb Of Storage In Apps Machine

Generally, 'Not Working' is a state that usually describes a malfunctioning hard disk or external hard drive. And Seagate external hard drive not working or not detected issue is top concerned among worldwide Seagate users.

So, what caused your Seagate external hard drive to stop working or malfunctioning? Both software and hardware issues may cause a hard drive not working as usual. Here is a list of commonly explored reasons related to this issue:

  • Incompatible file system
  • File system corruption, Invalid file system, RAW
  • The drive turns to unallocated
  • Disk drive letter conflict
  • Hard drive driver is corrupted or out of date
  • The hard drive has too many bad sectors
  • The hard drive is damaged, dead, not spinning up
System information is showing 0kb of storage in apps macbook pro

Fixing Not Working Seagate Drive Is Possible, It's Your Turn

On this page, we offered 8 respective solutions to repair the not working Seagate external hard drive on both Windows and Mac computers. If some fixes may cause file loss, you can retrieve all precious data with the EaseUS file recovery solution.

Also, we explained why is your Seagate external hard drive suddenly doesn't work or not detected by Windows or Mac computers. As your data matters, creating a regular backup of your external disk data is also useful. Fixing Seagate external hard drive not working error is possible, take steps to make your drive work now.