Spotlight bug reportedly responsible for macOS Sequoia SSD woes

While macOS Sequoia comes with some much-needed quality-of-life upgrades, it is not without faults, at least for the developer beta. Multiple users have ended up with a myriad of SSD-related problems such as constant read/write activity, a ballooning 'System Data' folder and rapid SSD wear.

A Reddit user has zeroed in on the problem, which seems to be caused by Spotlight, the system-wide search function for macOS. They had a whopping 26 Terabits of data written on their hard drive, resulting in a 130 GB Spotlight folder. A few users on X also reported uncannily high disk usage on their MacBooks.

Exactly what causes the issue remains unknown. If you have been affected, disable Spotlight and delete the Spotlight folder from /System and CoreSpotlight from /Library. A new macOS Sequoia update is expected to arrive soon, and that should ideally fix the problem.

Meanwhile, if you absolutely have to try out Sequoia and can't wait for the final release, you're better off waiting for the public beta as it is likely to be less buggier than a developer beta. Besides, the much-talked-about Apple Intelligence features aren't scheduled to arrive until much later in the year.