My Mac Says I Don T Have Enough Disk Space

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  1. My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space On This Drive
  2. My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space Error
  3. My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space Final Cut Pro
  4. My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space

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My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space On This Drive

Choose the Startup Disk option in the warning window. Apr 10, 2018 If boot camp says not enough space on startup disk, you can try to use the last win 10 version. For this method to work out, first you have to download the Windows 10 April 2018 Edition to your MacOS, and then install it. Next check the Windows requirements to know whether your Mac shall be able to handle this new edition of Windows or not. Based on the description, kindly try to reduce the space being used on the server by taking several steps. Kindly look for messages having large attachments. Change your View - Reading Pane setting to Hidden. Then Right click on the column names and choose to display Size. Note: Scroll down to More storage settings, and then click View storage usage on other drives to see additional storage disks if you have any. The saving process needs some free disk space to do its job correctly. We do have code that checks the disk space remaining during recording, and tries to stop before you get into a situation where the save would not succeed. This code has been improved in Camtasia 9.0.

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OS X :: Time Machine Eating Disk Space / Eat GB's Of Hard Disk Space While Preparing Backup

Dec 11, 2009

whenever I run Time Machine on my PowerBook G4 (1.5 Ghz / 1Gb RAM / OSX 10.5.8) it will eat up GB's of hard disk space while 'preparing the backup'. After that it finishes the backup, but I don't get the space back. I'm talking about the internal HD, not the external target disk of course. Does Time Machine use the space to generate some temporary files? Any ideas how I can get my disk space back

Intel Mac :: HD Space Disappearing And Missing 100 GB Of Hard Disk Space?

Mar 21, 2012

Can anyone explain to me why, on my iMac's 500GB hard drive, the displayed size of the only 4 items on it is 207GB, that the info box on the HD itself says 393GB used? Unless I failed grade 1 math, 500GB - 207GB = 293GB, right? So where's the missing ~100GB? That's a lot of space I know I haven't filled up.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 24' 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

MacBook Pro :: Missing Hard Disk Space?

Jun 7, 2012

I'm running out of hard disk space on my MacBook pro running OS X Lion. I have a 500 GB hard drive and at the moment the finder says I only have 16 GB available. Checking the total of all my files with the finder as well as Apps such as WhatSize and Disk Inventory X only adds up to aproximately 420 GB of files. Therefore I should have about 80 GB free so I am missing 64 GB of hard disk space.
The problem is not the local backup storage as I have had this problem before and have turned off local backups. I have also run disk utility and shut down and re-started. The available disk space is not decreasing with time either like other people have experienced, its fixed at the current availabilty of 16 GB free, and adjust normally as I add and remove files. So there really is a hidden file or something that is using around 64 GB of space.
I noted that a previous post with a similar problem said that DiskTools pro had fixed the problem. However as this application is reltively expensive and there is no explanation of how it soved the problem I don't want to pay for it without some guarantee of results.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

MacBook :: Using RAM And Hard Disk Space On Aluminium 13'?

Oct 28, 2009

OK these are fairly basic questions i think. Firstly I was considering upgrading the 2GB RAM to 4GB on my macbook, but firstly wanted someone to explain what activity monitor is telling me about my memory. There is Free, wired, active, inactive and used. I can work out what free and used mean lol, but what do the other 3 mean. Right now it says I have 9.8MB free lol, so im guessing i am in desperate need of an upgrade, or is that normal?
Secondly if i am going to upgrade, can someone give me some advice on which are the best brands to get for RAM? is it simple enough to install yourself or should i take it to a apple store?
OK last think was about my hard disk space. If I put my macbook to sleep witout shutting down i notice my hard disk space decreases (though it appears to recover it when i do restart it). I havent shut it down since sunday, and its gone down about 4GB!? is that normal?

MacBook Pro :: How To Make Hard Disk Space Free Up

May 19, 2012

My Harddisk space on Mac book pro has run out. When I checked the system info, I can see 80GB are 'other', for which I have no idea what they are. Can anyone tell me how to find them & delete to free up more space?

MacBook Air :: How To Free Up Hard Disk Space Efficiently

Jun 4, 2012

I have been using my MBA for over 6 months period and my disk space is getting smaller and looking for some solution to free up some space. Been looking through forum to find out how to permanently delete the trash but is not facilitating much. Also read through forum that back up file and log file also can take up lots of space. I has set up an external hard disk for back up but after 3 months I am not able to back up as my external hard disk also running out of space. As of last error back up I been getting error that I need to back up 80+GB file which my external hard disk does not have efficient space.
Info:
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

MacBook :: Disk Space Gone - Hard Drive Quickly Filling Up

Feb 9, 2012

My macbook is quickly filling up, and I cannot locate where all my gb's have gone. When I add up documents, pictures, music and movies, it all adds to 65 gb, while my hard-disk drive is 120 gb - and it only had 250 mbs free space. What can I do?
Info:
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

MacBook Pro :: Can't Upgrade Software Because Of Lack Of Hard Disk Space

Apr 21, 2012

I am trying to upgrade my software and its says I don't have enough hard disk space. Im sure I have not used 350 gig worth of memory.When I see what is using my memory I hardly have any space use by music, pics, videos, but then it says 'other' and it show my entire drive is being used. I assume I have recopied somthing or backed something up several times. Any suggestions how to get rid of large files!
Info:
MacBookPro, iOS 5.1

MacBook Pro :: Other Category Has Taken Up 498gb Of Hard Disk Space Lion OS

Jun 13, 2012

i bought a macbook pro running lion OS.I suddenly discovered that the Other category has eaten up 498gb of my hard disk space.i have very few documents on the machine.
Info:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)

MacBook Air :: Startup Disk And Hard Drive Are Full - How To Clear Space

Aug 26, 2014

How do I clear space on my startup disk and hard drive?
Info:
MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)

OS X :: Hard Disk Space Mysteriously Used Up

Nov 21, 2009

Shortly after getting my mac notebook I allowed an offspring to use it, it 'died' and I had to re-install the OS from disk. After this, I have hardly any of my 80GB left (about 2MB currently!). I have nothing else on (I have not put anything on other than the odd photo). Have I doubled up the OS? If so how do I remove the first one! Also (you'd think I would learn) lent it to off spring to watch DVD whilst in France on holiday - battery now does not charge whatsosever! Has the voltage difference when using mains cable abroad just fried the battery?

Software :: Where Hard Disk Space Gone

Jul 22, 2009

Long standing error with my MacBook Pro? My Mac (MBP 2GHz Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 100GB HD (partition 60GB OSX 30GB Windows)) has been cleaned up a few times and I no longer store music, photo, video or docs (some) on my startup disk. I can probably understand about 15GB being taken up but I cannot work out where the other 30GB+ have gone (works out as 11gb apps, 3gb doc folder and desktop). I am using Disk Inventory X but it is very muddled and all over the place not giving me a clear indication.
I have worked out that Application Support is taking up 5.5GB and Printers is taking up 3.5GB. I have deleted Garageband and all loops but still loads taken up. Want to install CS4 without deleting CS3 so can make sure it works before I delete? So my questions are.......
What methods are out there for me to troubleshoot where the space is being taken up?
On a standard machine how much space should system/library files take up?
What is safe to delete and won't leave my mac useless?

OS X :: Hard Disk Space Information Under HD Icon?

Feb 28, 2008

One quirk about the Finder is driving me bananas. I just recently bought a new Penryn Macbook Pro and its the first time I've had a triple digit hard drive (200 Gb). In the Finder view options in Leopard, I enabled the 'Show item info' and the icon of the hard drive in the desktop displays the size of the hard drive and how much is free. Right now it says '185.99 GB, ...,27 GB free'. (see jpeg)
The '...' is driving me up a wall. I can't stand that it won't display '127' and instead puts '...,' in there. Is there any way to get the Finder to quit doing that?
I tried searching but I can't find anything here or elsewhere. Hoping you seasoned Mac users may know of something I can do about this.

Software :: How Can I Free Some Space On My Hard Disk

Dec 30, 2009

I'm using Gmail. The corresponding mailbox on my HD (user-library-mail) is twice the size of my usage on the Gmail server (9.6 Gb vs 4.8 Gb).
How can I free some space on my hard disk?

OS X V10.7 Lion :: Which One Is The *real* Hard Disk Space

Apr 28, 2012

New computer as graduation present from parents, I'm so excited yayayay, blah blah blah. 17-inch MacBook Pro, newest version, running 10.7.3. It's so shiny and everything. Etc Was checking on hard disk space to make sure I wasn't going crazy copying over all my music and etc. But the number given by a simple ⌘I on the HD was... suspiciously low.
I know ~/Music, ~/Pictures and ~/Desktop add up to about 120 GB alone, and it seemed implausible that /Applications, /Library and everything else would be so small in comparison. System Profiler confirmed this, suggesting total hard disk space used was closer to 200 GB: But this breakdown really doesn't help me much—file type is a lot less informative than where those files actually are. And I also found myself seriously doubting that there was nothing on my computer that wasn't audio, movies, photos, apps or backups.

[code]...
And got a third answer. One that seems to be the most accurate of the three, but I have to admit I'm easily swayed by computer things in monotype with lots of /s and ~s flying around So what is actually going on here and why doesn't my computer seem to know how much hard disk space it actually has free—if such a concept even exists anymore in the brave new lionworld?
Info:
MacBook
Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

OS X Mavericks :: Hard Disk Space Is Inaccurate

Jun 5, 2014

I have an external hard disk. Trying to copy a large file to the disk, the system retuned a message telling that I was missing space. To me, that was impossible.
The hard disk folders added to 371GB of data but the info displayed that I was using 445GB. I emptied the trash, but that didn't do any difference. After trying to understand, I was left with the idea that there may be invisible files using that space.
With the Onyx utility, I discovered that the «.Trashes» folder was hidding ±75GB of data. At first I didn't see it, because the «.Trashes» folder gave me only a write permission (???). Changing this permission, I then discovered that it was holding the missing 75GB. Because I now have the read permission, I can see the content ... but can I deleted them ? Can I delete hidden files in the «.Trashes» folder ?
How can I clean/empty this «.Trashes» file ?
Info:
iMac Intel - 3,06 GHZ - 21' - 12.0 Go

Applications :: No Disk Space After Failed Disk Utility Erase Free Space?

Dec 15, 2010

I'm having a pretty serious problem. I attempted to erase the free space on my HD, as I do from time to time, except this time it appeared to hang/freeze at the end, when it gets to the part where it creates a temporary file. I waited for several minutes and it didn't move. I tried clicking the skip button, but that did nothing either, so I force quit Disk Utility.
The problem is, it left the disk at 'Zero KB' of free space, effectively making my computer inoperable. I was in the process of studying for a huge exam tomorrow, and am currently flipping out.
If it matters, I'm on a Macbook Pro 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo, running 10.4.
I really don't want to have to reinstall the OS and import the old files, but my real fear is that I will have to do a fresh install of the OS.

Software :: No Disk Space After Failed Disk Utility Erase Free Space

Dec 15, 2010

I'm having a pretty serious problem. I attempted to erase the free space on my HD, as I do from time to time, except this time it appeared to hang/freeze at the end, when it gets to the part where it creates a temporary file. I waited for several minutes and it didn't move. I tried clicking the skip button, but that did nothing either, so I force quit Disk Utility.
The problem is, it left the disk at 'Zero KB' of free space, effectively making my computer inoperable. I was in the process of studying for a huge exam tomorrow, and am currently flipping out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If it matters, I'm on a Macbook Pro 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo, running 10.4.
I really don't want to have to reinstall the OS and import the old files, but my real fear is that I will have to do a fresh install of the OS.

Intel Mac :: Gain Space On Macintosh Hard Disk?

May 12, 2012

How to recover space on the hard drive
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

OS X V10.7 Lion :: Deleting Files Does Not Free Up Space On Hard Disk

May 14, 2012

I am deleting large amounts of files / directories with 10s of GB of disk usage from my internal hard disk.Then I empty the trash.But I don't get more free space on my hard disk!�I am not using File Vault.(I also believe that my file system is not corrupt.)�This is quite annoying, since I am still unable to copy stuff on my internal hard disk, but given the amount of files I have just deleted, I should be able to do so.
PS:MacBook Pro, 10.7.3, very recent model, 500 GB internal hard disk.
Info:iPhone 4S, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Software :: Word Documents Not Open - Not Enough Memory Or Disk Space On Hard Drive

Feb 19, 2009

I have word documents whihc suddenly will not opn.. it says not enuf memroy or disk space and there is plenty of space on the hardrive!

Software :: Hard Drive Space - Putting Music On Portable External Disk?

My Mac Says I Don T Have Enough Disk Space
Apr 20, 2009

I have a 15' macbook pro 250 gb HD 2 gb mem. And in the activity monitor it is showing space utilized 228.53 gb and free space at 4.04 gb? And I have only had the laptop for less than 2 years now, Is this normal? Is there a way to erase items so I have alot more free space? I also have an portable external hard 320 gb I use to back up my hard drive. Will this save my music and important items so I can erase items (music, etc.) off of hard drive? then when i need those items just plug the portable hard drive in? I really need my music for I am a DJ.

IMac (Intel) :: Moving Files To External Drive Not Creating Hard Disk Space

Sep 2, 2014

My 500gb iMac (purchased April 2010) is about at capacity. 350gb of space is taken up by home movies (.mov) in iMovie. I bought an external hard drive and have moved about 200gb over to that drive.
After transfer, I deleted the original Events off iMovie and emptied the trash. I checked in both iMovie and in Finder and no longer see those files present on the Mac.
I thought this was going smooth and everything worked perfectly, but….when i went to check how much storage space i created on the Mac, the amount of available space barely budged (i moved 200gb of data to the new drive and i created about 30gb of space on the Mac).
Are these 'deleted' files hidden somewhere and I need to go delete from somewhere else? How do I make sure I get back the storage that i need?

OS X Mavericks :: Disk Utility Crashed Whilst Creating Partition And Now Missing Hard Drive Space

Jun 3, 2014

Disk Utility Crashed whilst creating a Partition, and I now have ~100GB missing, which was the amount I had allocated to the new partition.
The new partition didn't get created, and I now have 100GB missing from the Hard drive. I have a 1TB hard drive, and when I go to Disk Utility, it says: Capacity : 999.35 GB (999,345,127,424 Bytes)Available : 586.1 GB (586,103,844,864 Bytes)Used : 310.52 GB (310,524,317,696 Bytes)
Which adds up to about ~900GB.
I tried Repairing Disk in Disk Utility, booting into Recovery Mode and Repairing Disk there, but neither made a difference.
Info:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)

MacBook :: Free Up Space On Hard Drive / Program For Defragmenting Space?

Jan 19, 2009

I only have like 8 gb left on my macbook's hard drive. Are there any programs I can run that will defrag/free up space? How much does Apple Store typically charge to upgrade a hard drive? How easy is it to do myself?

OS X :: Memory Space Disappearing / Disk Space Reduces While Streaming Videos

Dec 2, 2009

I have been running out of hard drive space and have deleted a whole bunch of files... even deleted all the languages i didn't need from all my applications... about a week ago i freed up around 2GB.... but without saving and downloading anything my free space is now 70MB!! All I have been doing is watching streamed videos and I notice this reduces the drive space as I'm watching it!! Even opening firefox and some websites drops my memory by 0.1MB. I can't find anywhere where temporary files might be so i can delete them.
I never used to have this problem but I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I now use wireless internet through a phone provider and a USB modem rather than my previous WiFi via cable broadband.
Can anybody shed some light on what is stealing my memory when browsing?
Cheers

Mac Pro :: Space On Start Up Disk - Free Up Space By Transferring To One Of Back Up Drives?

My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space Error

Jun 14, 2012

I need to get more space on my start up disk. How do I free up space by transferring to one of my back up drives?
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Intel Mac :: Running Out Of Disk Space - How To Recover Space

Apr 26, 2012

Im getting an error message 'running out of disk space please delete files on startup' Im importing movie files to the imovie projects, but im getting this message come up. Ive deleted the trash, but is there anything else i can do to make some disk space and if so where do i do that ?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Mac Mini :: Startup Disk Almost Full - What To Spare Disk Space

My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space Final Cut Pro

Jun 7, 2012

I am getting this warning. Not sure what to do or how to do it. Couldn't find any information on freeing space without erasing important files.
Info:
Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Most of us are keen to update to a new version of macOS as soon as it is available. macOS Big Sur has been out since November 12, still, many users couldn't update their Macs straight away. It's very frustrating if you see a message telling you that you don't have enough space to install the new macOS. Don't worry, though. There are lots of things you can do to fix it. We'll show you what they are in this article.

How much space do you need for Big Sur?

While the installer for Big Sur takes up less than 16GB of space, you should make sure that you have at least 20GB of free space on your startup disk before you try to download and install it. The more free space, the better. Your Mac uses disk space to store temporary files and provide storage for active apps and tasks (which is what RAM does), so you should never be running with almost no disk space left.

CleanMyMac X makes it very easy to free up disk space on your Mac by identifying junk files and allowing you to get rid of them with a click. It can also detect large and old files and show you the files taking up most space and uninstall applications.

How to free up space for macOS Big Sur?

Complete the following steps to ensure your Mac is ready to update to Big Sur.

1. Backup your Mac

Back up all files and data that are stored on your Mac. Preferably twice to different locations. While upgrading to Big Sur is safe, you never know when something might go wrong. If you use Time Machine or another backup tool, run a manual backup just before you upgrade. And, if you can, clone your startup disk to an external drive, too.

2. Free up disk space using CleanMyMac X

If you don't already have CleanMyMac X installed, download it for free here. This tool will help you clear some space and delete large and old files quickly.

  1. Launch CleanMyMac X.
  2. Choose System Junk in the sidebar and press Scan.
  3. When it's finished, press Clean to free up space, or Review Details to find out more.

3. Get rid of large and old files

Media files usually gobble up a large amount of disk space. And the worst thing is they are scattered around Mac's folders, making it difficult to find and remove them. CleanMyMac X proves to be useful here:

My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space

  • Choose Large & Old files in CleanMyMac X's sidebar.
  • Press Scan.
  • When it's finished, use the middle column to filter files by type.
  • Check files that you want to delete.
  • Press Remove.

4. Use Apple's built-in storage management tool

Apple has provided a method for you to manage storage by showing you what is taking up disk space and making recommendations for deleting. It's not as quick and easy as CleanMyMac X, but it can help you save disk space. Here's how to use it.

  1. Click on the Apple menu and choose About this Mac.
  2. Select Storage and press Manage.
  3. In the Recommendations section, review each section in turn.
  4. Now go through each of the sections in the sidebar.
  5. Delete files or take further action, depending on what you choose.

5. Delete local Time Machine snapshots

There is one other thing you can try if you keep getting a message telling you that you do not have enough space to install Big Sur. You should only try it if you are sure there is enough space on your startup disk and that the message is wrong. And it will only work if you use Time Machine to back up your Mac.

Time Machine stores local snapshots on your Mac. Your Mac is supposed to count the space used by snapshots as free space, which is why it looks like you have enough space for the installation.

However, it seems that the installer may not realize the space is free. The solution is to delete the snapshots. This won't remove backups on your backup disk, just snapshots on your Mac.

My mac says i don
Apr 20, 2009

I have a 15' macbook pro 250 gb HD 2 gb mem. And in the activity monitor it is showing space utilized 228.53 gb and free space at 4.04 gb? And I have only had the laptop for less than 2 years now, Is this normal? Is there a way to erase items so I have alot more free space? I also have an portable external hard 320 gb I use to back up my hard drive. Will this save my music and important items so I can erase items (music, etc.) off of hard drive? then when i need those items just plug the portable hard drive in? I really need my music for I am a DJ.

IMac (Intel) :: Moving Files To External Drive Not Creating Hard Disk Space

Sep 2, 2014

My 500gb iMac (purchased April 2010) is about at capacity. 350gb of space is taken up by home movies (.mov) in iMovie. I bought an external hard drive and have moved about 200gb over to that drive.
After transfer, I deleted the original Events off iMovie and emptied the trash. I checked in both iMovie and in Finder and no longer see those files present on the Mac.
I thought this was going smooth and everything worked perfectly, but….when i went to check how much storage space i created on the Mac, the amount of available space barely budged (i moved 200gb of data to the new drive and i created about 30gb of space on the Mac).
Are these 'deleted' files hidden somewhere and I need to go delete from somewhere else? How do I make sure I get back the storage that i need?

OS X Mavericks :: Disk Utility Crashed Whilst Creating Partition And Now Missing Hard Drive Space

Jun 3, 2014

Disk Utility Crashed whilst creating a Partition, and I now have ~100GB missing, which was the amount I had allocated to the new partition.
The new partition didn't get created, and I now have 100GB missing from the Hard drive. I have a 1TB hard drive, and when I go to Disk Utility, it says: Capacity : 999.35 GB (999,345,127,424 Bytes)Available : 586.1 GB (586,103,844,864 Bytes)Used : 310.52 GB (310,524,317,696 Bytes)
Which adds up to about ~900GB.
I tried Repairing Disk in Disk Utility, booting into Recovery Mode and Repairing Disk there, but neither made a difference.
Info:
MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X Mavericks (10.9.3)

MacBook :: Free Up Space On Hard Drive / Program For Defragmenting Space?

Jan 19, 2009

I only have like 8 gb left on my macbook's hard drive. Are there any programs I can run that will defrag/free up space? How much does Apple Store typically charge to upgrade a hard drive? How easy is it to do myself?

OS X :: Memory Space Disappearing / Disk Space Reduces While Streaming Videos

Dec 2, 2009

I have been running out of hard drive space and have deleted a whole bunch of files... even deleted all the languages i didn't need from all my applications... about a week ago i freed up around 2GB.... but without saving and downloading anything my free space is now 70MB!! All I have been doing is watching streamed videos and I notice this reduces the drive space as I'm watching it!! Even opening firefox and some websites drops my memory by 0.1MB. I can't find anywhere where temporary files might be so i can delete them.
I never used to have this problem but I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that I now use wireless internet through a phone provider and a USB modem rather than my previous WiFi via cable broadband.
Can anybody shed some light on what is stealing my memory when browsing?
Cheers

Mac Pro :: Space On Start Up Disk - Free Up Space By Transferring To One Of Back Up Drives?

My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space Error

Jun 14, 2012

I need to get more space on my start up disk. How do I free up space by transferring to one of my back up drives?
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Intel Mac :: Running Out Of Disk Space - How To Recover Space

Apr 26, 2012

Im getting an error message 'running out of disk space please delete files on startup' Im importing movie files to the imovie projects, but im getting this message come up. Ive deleted the trash, but is there anything else i can do to make some disk space and if so where do i do that ?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Mac Mini :: Startup Disk Almost Full - What To Spare Disk Space

My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space Final Cut Pro

Jun 7, 2012

I am getting this warning. Not sure what to do or how to do it. Couldn't find any information on freeing space without erasing important files.
Info:
Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Most of us are keen to update to a new version of macOS as soon as it is available. macOS Big Sur has been out since November 12, still, many users couldn't update their Macs straight away. It's very frustrating if you see a message telling you that you don't have enough space to install the new macOS. Don't worry, though. There are lots of things you can do to fix it. We'll show you what they are in this article.

How much space do you need for Big Sur?

While the installer for Big Sur takes up less than 16GB of space, you should make sure that you have at least 20GB of free space on your startup disk before you try to download and install it. The more free space, the better. Your Mac uses disk space to store temporary files and provide storage for active apps and tasks (which is what RAM does), so you should never be running with almost no disk space left.

CleanMyMac X makes it very easy to free up disk space on your Mac by identifying junk files and allowing you to get rid of them with a click. It can also detect large and old files and show you the files taking up most space and uninstall applications.

How to free up space for macOS Big Sur?

Complete the following steps to ensure your Mac is ready to update to Big Sur.

1. Backup your Mac

Back up all files and data that are stored on your Mac. Preferably twice to different locations. While upgrading to Big Sur is safe, you never know when something might go wrong. If you use Time Machine or another backup tool, run a manual backup just before you upgrade. And, if you can, clone your startup disk to an external drive, too.

2. Free up disk space using CleanMyMac X

If you don't already have CleanMyMac X installed, download it for free here. This tool will help you clear some space and delete large and old files quickly.

  1. Launch CleanMyMac X.
  2. Choose System Junk in the sidebar and press Scan.
  3. When it's finished, press Clean to free up space, or Review Details to find out more.

3. Get rid of large and old files

Media files usually gobble up a large amount of disk space. And the worst thing is they are scattered around Mac's folders, making it difficult to find and remove them. CleanMyMac X proves to be useful here:

My Mac Says I Don't Have Enough Disk Space

  • Choose Large & Old files in CleanMyMac X's sidebar.
  • Press Scan.
  • When it's finished, use the middle column to filter files by type.
  • Check files that you want to delete.
  • Press Remove.

4. Use Apple's built-in storage management tool

Apple has provided a method for you to manage storage by showing you what is taking up disk space and making recommendations for deleting. It's not as quick and easy as CleanMyMac X, but it can help you save disk space. Here's how to use it.

  1. Click on the Apple menu and choose About this Mac.
  2. Select Storage and press Manage.
  3. In the Recommendations section, review each section in turn.
  4. Now go through each of the sections in the sidebar.
  5. Delete files or take further action, depending on what you choose.

5. Delete local Time Machine snapshots

There is one other thing you can try if you keep getting a message telling you that you do not have enough space to install Big Sur. You should only try it if you are sure there is enough space on your startup disk and that the message is wrong. And it will only work if you use Time Machine to back up your Mac.

Time Machine stores local snapshots on your Mac. Your Mac is supposed to count the space used by snapshots as free space, which is why it looks like you have enough space for the installation.

However, it seems that the installer may not realize the space is free. The solution is to delete the snapshots. This won't remove backups on your backup disk, just snapshots on your Mac.


Open Time Machine from System Preferences. Uncheck Back Up Automatically and wait some time till Time Machine deletes snapshots. Then you can turn Time Machine back on.

If you're familiar with Terminal, you can try deleting local snapshots manually.

  1. Go to Applications > Utilities and launch Terminal.
  2. Type: tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
  3. You will see a list of snapshots that look like this: com.apple.TimeMachine.2020-10–09-002010.local
  4. To delete a snapshot, type: sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots
  5. Then type the date part of the snapshot name. For example: sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2020-10–09-002010
  6. Type Return and repeat for each snapshot you want to delete.

Hopefully, this helped you free up some space and update your Mac to the latest OS. If you're just preparing your Mac for the upgrade, don't forget to back up your data before you start clearing space. So you won't be afraid of losing anything important.





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