Fix It Space! Mac OS

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.

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Fix It Space! Mac OS

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? To make sure you do, open up the Apple menu and click on 'About This Mac.' Select 'Storage' and then check to make sure you have enough space on your hard drive. You need at least 12.5GB free. OS X Yosemite (and Mavericks), by default in a clean install, provide for each monitor, in a multiple monitor system, to have its own display Spaces. The immediate symptom is a rather confusing. Question: Q: Must reinstall OS X: not enough space but can't access hard drive My MacBook keeps giving me a blank gray screen after log in. I have repaired permissions and verified HD. Backups can consume excessive space. You could locate and eliminate them by: Opening the Finder window. Hitting 'Go' in the menu pane. Choosing 'Go to Folder'. And heading to the Backup folder. Clean up all the outdated, old backups. Clean up cache files on your Mac. Caches are non-permanent files that help increase the speed of specific tasks.

How much space do you need for Big Sur?

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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.

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  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:

  • 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.

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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.

With time, your Mac may get inundated up with multiple files: video, audio, pictures, documents, etc., thereby gradually eating up disk space. If necessary action isn't taken to clean up the clutter, it may ultimately lead to a warning message: Your startup disk is almost full. Don't worry, this is normal and can be rectified.

Finding Out Why Your Startup Disk is Full on Mac OS X

To determine the reasons why your startup disk is full, follow these steps:
  • Hit the Apple icon at your screen's top-left corner.
  • Select 'About This Mac'.
  • Hit Storage.
This should give you a visual representation of what's taking your hard disk space and what's available for use.

Top 10 Ways to Clean Startup Disk on Mac OS X (El Capitan)

Let's cruise through the top 10 methods to clean your startup disk. Having gone through the steps, you may learn more about your Mac and also discover a few new ways to fix the issue.

1. Empty out the Trash

In Mac OS X, almost every deleted file or document heads to the Trash Bin. Bypassing Trash is often not possible when deleting files permanently. Trash Bin files could either be individually deleted or emptied at once by right-clicking the Trash icon. However, some of the erased files may still leave their footprints. Follow these steps to delete the files completely:

  • As aforementioned, right-click the icon.
  • Now hit the button 'Command' on your keyboard.
  • The icon's Empty Trash will now get converted to Secure Empty Trash. Clicking this option will permanently delete the entire Trash Bin.

2. Clean up your Downloads, Movies and Music folders

It's important to frequently check and clean up your download, movie and music folders. Most download files aren't needed or used after some time. You can move the downloaded files to an external hard drive or the Documents folder. Before cleaning up the contents, organize the space by Date Last Opened or Date Modified. This will help you locate files that haven't been used much since their download.

The Movies folder is where you probably have a few hundred gigabytes of digital content. Click the Movies folder and press Command-I. Look at the pop-up that shows up at your window's top right to find out the folder's space consumption. Clean up the space or move the files to an external hard disk. The same process applies to cleaning the Music folder too.

3. Clean your Desktop

Having the desktop cluttered with multiple apps and files will slow down your Mac. The reason being every icon consumes some RAM.

However, the solution is pretty straightforward. Clean up the desktop and don't store files there. If you need to store temporary files, create a dedicated folder.

4. Remove unnecessary applications

Safely and permanently remove or uninstall apps and their preferences, components, log files, etc. Sending them to the Trash Bin isn't mission completed. To uninstall, choose an application.

This is a disk cleaning aspect with which CleanMyMac 3 will come quite handy. To get the job done, launch the application, hit Uninstaller, choose the application to be removed and click Uninstall.

5. Delete old iTunes Library backups

Recent iTunes versions generate existing iTunes Library file's backup each time the iTunes app is updated. Once you're happy with the performance of a current iTunes update, delete the old files by heading to the previous iTunes folder.

6. Clean up your iPhoto library

The iPhoto app has its dedicated recycle bin. To get started, choose files you'd like to get rid of. These may include bad or inadvertently clicked photos. Service copies also must be booted out. These are copies of original images that were altered. The original image is copied and stashed away safely. Needless to say, these copies eat up considerable disk space.

The folders Master, Original, Modified and Preview must be checked to determine if there're copies. To access the folders, open the Finder window and head to the Pictures folder. Press Ctrl and click the iPhoto library and choose Show Package Contents. You must now manually go through the folders and find out copies with altered original copies.

This could be cumbersome if you've got a huge photo repository. With CleanMyMac 3, the cleaning will be safer and faster. The cleaning app scans the library and only gets rid of the duplicates. CleanMyMac3 is highly recommended during such scenarios since critical or wrong files once cleaned up cannot be recovered.

7. Get rid of localization files

If you chose the option Easy Install during Mac OS X installation, several localization files for different languages get installed. The files allow the OS X interface to show up in multiple languages. To delete them:

  • Open Finder.
  • Head to Applications.
  • Press Ctrl and left-click an application simultaneously.
  • Choose 'Show Package Contents'.
Space

Now, head to Resources under Contents and locate files ending with .lproj. There's a specific language prefix before the file name. For instance, German language files will show up as de.lproj. Delete the unwanted language files.

You could easily get rid of these files using a third-party alternative like CleanMyMac 3. You'll only require a click and no surfing through multiple folders to get the job done.

8. Remove old iOS backups

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Backups can consume excessive space. You could locate and eliminate them by:

  • Opening the Finder window.
  • Hitting 'Go' in the menu pane.
  • Choosing 'Go to Folder'.
  • And heading to the Backup folder.

Clean up all the outdated, old backups.

9. Clean up cache files on your Mac

Caches are non-permanent files that help increase the speed of specific tasks. However, with time, the files could get bloated.

To get cleaning, click the Finder application. Then, long press the Option key and hit the menu bar's Go option. This should expose the typically hidden Library folder. You would find your caches folder in the Library folder.

Also, there are several third-party applications, such as CleanMyMac 3, which help make the cleaning process much simpler and hassle-free.

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10. Remove old iOS device backups

iOS-based devices automatically backup certain settings and files to a Mac every time they're hooked to a computer. The backups are saved in the Backup folder: Home/ Library/ Application Support/ MobileSync/ Backup.

CleanMyMac 3 is a long-term, automatic cleaning solution that keeps the startup disk spotless. It can clear several gigabytes of space within a few minutes.

How to Prevent Startup Disk Full on Mac in the Future

The biggest disk space-hogging element on your Mac is always those huge multimedia files and documents. These could be cumbersome to clean if done manually. However, a software application like CleanMyMac 3 will carry out the task within minutes. Moreover, the software will also warn you whenever the disk space is nearing exhaustion, helping you stay on top of space utilization, always.

To make accessing and monitoring the software features easier, a fresh menu bar is available that keeps track of memory usage, free space, and existing trash size. Customer alert standards can be set in software preferences, which notifies you whenever disk space is extremely low or the bin size is too high. This is a helpful feature for people with limited disk space on their Macbooks.