I have 33.77GB of space on my Mac laptop but when I try to load Big Sur (which says it needs 12GB of space), I get an error message that there isn't enough disk space to install. What gives?
MacBook Air
Thank you Lanny for clarifying that it needs more room during the install. My problem is that the room needed is over 25% of my drive space. I have had serious issues with Mac Mail crashing and Apple recommended that I upgrade the OS and even after cleaning up my disk and storing much of my work on an external drive, I am about a couple of gigs short to install the new OS. I hope to buy a new laptop in the next year and will keep my fingers crossed that my mail doesn't crash altogether.
Thanks again! Happy holidays!
Thanks. Now explain to me why I need to remove 20GB of files only to download 35+GB of programming, most of which I will never use, i.e. Home, Notes, News, Safari etc. I only have 121GB on my computer.
It's the amount of free space for the installer to uncompress and install the upgrade. It is not the amount of space that the upgrade will need. In most cases, after the upgrade is completed very little, if any, additional storage space will be used.
You need almost 35 GB's of free space to install it.
My Mail app crashes about 3-4 times a day. I was told to upgrade to Big Sur to resolve the mail issue but that’s literally 25% f my total disk space. Sheesh! Thanks for your help though!
It’s the amount of space needed to accomplish the install, not the amount of space taken by the upgrade after it is completed.
Upgrading to Big Sur
