I'm wondering whether I can uninstall my High Sierra installation programme to free up enough space to install Monterey.
Previous answers on here seem to indicate I would need to keep the earlier installation package in order to install the later one (i.e. that I'd need that High Sierra package as well as the Monterey in order to install Monterey) but that doesn't make sense, so I'm wondering whether this was imprecise language.
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.14
Once your hard disk is over 85% full, it generally won't be able to install new software.
https://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
is a popular software to get a good overview of what's filling up space on your Mac. Keep in mind some things might be essential system files, which you wouldn't want to touch. iCloud backups and Time Machine backups that are interrupted leave behind large temp folders. IDVD has large cover art folders, which you can backup to external storage, and not have on your computer except when you need it, and put back in the correct folder at that time, and Garageband has large loops folder for use with composing music that does the same thing.
It is a good idea if you are going to keep a separate copy of such files, make a note of the full path it is found in, and create a folder named after the path without the forward / in the file name or periods.
Since your signature suggests you are running Mojave, be especially mindful that upgrading to Catalina and above, requires upgrading all apps to 64 bit release.
That's covered in more detail on my Catalina upgrade tip:
Catalina - an upgrade guide - Apple Community
If you mean the installer app, called "Install macOS High Sierra", yes, you can certainly trash it.
Which Apps in particular?
But to answer what you didn't ask, most Apps aren't big enough to help with OS installation problems, besides you need to have at least twice the amount of free space required to install to keep things smooth at a minimum.:)
A couple 3 or 4 DVD sized files will give up enough free space I think.
Yes - it is not enough space (just 5GB for the High Sierra installation package), although I'm running out of things to delete so thought I'd try it as part of ongoing attempts to free up space. I made a mistake when I moved from an macbook pro to and air and transferred over. Almost all the space was instantly used up...
See if you can find some big files to Trash & then Empty the Trash...
Thanks to Bob Harris file sizes, Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal:...
sudo du -hx | sort -h
sudo will prompt for admin password but not reflect what you type, so hit enter after carefully tying the PW. :)
old installation programmes
