How to add space from volumes to main disk in macOS Sonoma

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zahra2024 Author

Level 1

4 points

How to add space from volumes to main disk in macOS Sonoma

I asked my question here How to add space from volumes to main dis… - Apple Community

The question was:

Recently I got low space warning on my laptop. As you can see I have about 246GB free space on my other volume How can I add space from my other volume to my main disk, or even merge this two partition?

Now I apply some changes to my Other volume, I changed it size to 100GB, and I have 149 GB that I think it's not mounted. How can I add this space to my main disk? this is how my disk utility like:

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.0

Posted on Apr 27, 2024 11:06 AM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

148,829 points

Apr 27, 2024 12:37 PM in response to zahra2024

Ok, thanks for the images.

As you can see, your Mac's system drive is divided into three APFS containers: disk1, disk2, & disk7.

Container disk1 has a single APFS Volume, called "Other"
Container disk2 has multiple volumes. Most are part of macOS, except for the volume, named "Work".
Container disk7 currently does not have any volumes defined.

With APFS containers, you can add, erase, or delete them. They cannot be merged. However, it may still be possible to enlarge a container, but only from the container that comes after it.

What I suggest is that you delete disk7. Then enlarge disk2 into the now freed space.

Ref: Partition a physical disk in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Apr 27, 2024 11:28 AM in response to zahra2024

Here are several articles on freeing up space for you:

Free up Drive Space

It is highly recommended to NEVER use 3rd party utilities to clean your Mac or to use Antivirus software as they end up causing more problems than they are worth.

It is optimal to always keep at least 15% to 20% of the Total Drives’ Capacity to be kept as Empty Space, to allow the system to do its general housekeeping tasks. Allowing the computer to drop below these levels will eventually cause reduced or poor system performance.

The following links can assist in identifying what is taking up space on the Internal Drive and provide possible ways to remove data that is using excessive amounts of drive space.

➡️ Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

➡️ What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how can I clean it out?

➡️ Free up storage space on your Mac

➡️ How to delete Time Machine snapshots on your Mac

➡️ See used and available storage space on your Mac

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

148,829 points

Apr 27, 2024 12:12 PM in response to zahra2024

In that case you would still have two containers after merging two of the three that your Mac currently has.

Please post a screenshot of the Disk Utility showing what you currently have configured. Be sure to select "Show All Devices" for the View mode.

Ref: View all devices or only volumes in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

Also please provide a screenshot of the result of the following command in the Terminal app: diskutil list internal

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Answer 4

Tesserax

Level 10

148,829 points

Apr 27, 2024 11:45 AM in response to zahra2024

From the image you provided, your Mac currently appears to have three APFS partitions/containers. These are fixed in size. Within each, you can have one or more APFS volumes that can vary in size.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Do you actually need three separate containers or could this be better done by having a single container with multiple volumes?

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