I have an orphaned asset folder taking up 9.13GB located at:
/System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_iOSSimulatorRuntime/c0d3fd05106683ba0b3680d4d1afec65f098d700.asset
It contains SimulatorRuntimeAsset version 18.5 (Build 22F77).
Active Version: My current Xcode setup is using version 26.2 (Build 23C54).
I checked the plist files in the directory and found what seems to be the cause of the issue:
The "Never Collected" Flag: The Info.plist inside the orphaned asset folder explicitly sets the garbage collection behavior to "NeverCollected":
<key>__AssetDefaultGarbageCollectionBehavior</key>
<string>NeverCollected</string>
The Catalog Mismatch: The master catalog file (com_apple_MobileAsset_iOSSimulatorRuntime.xml) in the parent directory only lists the new version (26.2). Because the old version (18.5) is missing from this XML, Xcode and mobileassetd seem to have lost track of it entirely.
What I Have Tried (All Failed)
Xcode Components: The version 18.5 does not appear in Settings -> Components, so I cannot delete it via the GUI.
Simctl: xcrun simctl list runtimes does not list this version. Running xcrun simctl runtime delete 22F77 fails with: "No runtime disk images or bundles found matching '22F77'."
Manual Deletion: sudo rm -rf [path] fails with "Operation not permitted", presumably because /System/Library/AssetsV2 is SIP-protected.
Third-party Tools: Apps like DevCleaner do not detect this runtime (likely because they only scan ~/Library or /Library, not /System/Library).
Has anyone found a way to force the system (perhaps via mobileassetd or a specific xcrun flag) to re-evaluate this folder and respect a deletion request?
I am trying to avoid booting into Recovery Mode just to delete a cache file.
Any insights on how AssetsV2 handles these "orphaned" files would be appreciated.