HT201191: Install memory in an iMac
Learn about Install memory in an iMac
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Helpful answers
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Apr 11, 2013 7:50 AM in response to JenCCianby laundry bleach,You have a full hard drive not a lack of RAM. There are a number of ways you can address this.
First, have you tried emptying your Trash? Lots of people put files they no longer need in the Trash but never empty it, and this is a step that is needed to reclaim the disk space.
If that is insufficient, you may want to consider moving some files to an external hard drive, or burning them to CDs or DVDs if they are not immediately needed but you need to have them available for archival purposes.
The most likely candidates for this are videos, photographs and audio files. Very likely your iTunes music library is just too big, for instance. Follow the instructions in this Apple article for moving your iTunes media folder to another hard drive. Once you have tested that the new iTunes media folder works, you can move the old one to the Trash and empty the trash, thus freeing up the space on your hard drive.
There is a similar process to do the same with your iPhoto library.
Hope this helps you.
Best of luck.
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Apr 11, 2013 8:59 AM in response to JenCCianby MichelPM,You confused RAM ( Random Access Memory) with hard drive storage space.
You'll need to free up lots of hard drive space.
At a minimum, at least, 15 to 20 GBs of space.
Perhaps even more.
Hard drive full or near full:
Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?
If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.
If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!
Other things you can do to gain space.
Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive older emails you want to save.
Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.
Again, archive or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.
Uninstall apps that you no longer use. If the app has a dedicated uninstaller, use it to completely uninstall the app. If the app has no uninstaller, then just drag it to the OS X Trash icon and empty the Trash.
Also, if you save old downloaded .dmg application installer files, you can either archive and delete these or just delete the ones you think you'll never install, again.
Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.
When you install and launch it, let it do its thing initially, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run all of the processes in the tabs. Let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.
Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.
If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be thinned out, moved, also, to the external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.
You may have to purchase an external hard drive to move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.
Good Luck!