Downloaded macOS Big Sur but it's saying there isn't enough space on the disk to install it. How can I clear disk space? All my files are stored in icloud or one drive so I'm not sure what is taking up all the space.
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15
Thanks everyone, I had already followed all the steps to optimise disk space and had everything stored on iCloud so couldn’t work out why I was using so much disk space, then I found a rather large cache of images that were being saved on the disk by the messages app as well as in the iCloud Photo Library so once I deleted them out there was enough space available, just waiting for it to finish loading now.
Thanks everyone, I had already followed all the steps to optimise disk space and had everything stored on iCloud so couldn’t work out why I was using so much disk space, then I found a rather large cache of images that were being saved on the disk by the messages app as well as in the iCloud Photo Library so once I deleted them out there was enough space available, just waiting for it to finish loading now.
How much free space do you have in your drive?
The installer alone is over 12GB.
You are apparently upgrading directly over Catalina, I suppose.
Quite a bit more space is going to be needed to decompress the files, and temporarily files from Catalina will coexist with new ones. I'd guess at least some 30GB free will be necessary for the installer do its job.
Incidentally, this is a great opportunity to get rid of old cruft.
The best way is to have full backups of your drive, erase and install, then migrate the accounts from the backup (Time Machine or, preferably, a bootable clone). Having a bootable clone will also let you boot back into Catalina if the need arises.
When you search here for disk space you find more questions and suggestions about your issue.
Not enough disk space for macOS Big Sur
