Big Sur won't install on compatible MacBook Pro early 2015. After the download, when I press 'Continue' on the page that says... will be installed on the desk... when I select the actual image of the harddisk, and press continue, nothing happens. I've rebooted a dozen times. No errors, nothing, just cannot 'continue'....
About my Mac says available storage is 61.8GB. Big Sur install software says I only have 19.08GB.
Thanks for the help!
First you need to select the "Macintosh HD" volume and not the "Macintosh HD - Data" since the latter only contains your user account folders while the former contains the macOS system files.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650
It is a shame that Apple doesn't mention this in any official Apple documentation for upgrading to a newer version of macOS that I can find after a quick search, but I finally found a reference to which volume you need to select when re-installing macOS over top of itself which also applies to upgrading to a newer version of macOS as well.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904
The installer seems to think you only have 19GB of free storage space which is probably more accurate than anything you find within other areas of macOS since the macOS Storage Management details are known to be incorrect. Make sure the Trash has been emptied and all of your backups have completed fully transferring to the external media as the APFS system/backup snapshots can retain large amounts of deleted data until those snapshots are deleted (usually after all the backups have completed, although other snapshots may be retained for a week or so).
Make sure to have a good backup before attempting to upgrade macOS. You should always have frequent & regular backups.
First you need to select the "Macintosh HD" volume and not the "Macintosh HD - Data" since the latter only contains your user account folders while the former contains the macOS system files.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650
It is a shame that Apple doesn't mention this in any official Apple documentation for upgrading to a newer version of macOS that I can find after a quick search, but I finally found a reference to which volume you need to select when re-installing macOS over top of itself which also applies to upgrading to a newer version of macOS as well.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904
The installer seems to think you only have 19GB of free storage space which is probably more accurate than anything you find within other areas of macOS since the macOS Storage Management details are known to be incorrect. Make sure the Trash has been emptied and all of your backups have completed fully transferring to the external media as the APFS system/backup snapshots can retain large amounts of deleted data until those snapshots are deleted (usually after all the backups have completed, although other snapshots may be retained for a week or so).
Make sure to have a good backup before attempting to upgrade macOS. You should always have frequent & regular backups.
Thanks for assisting. It’s still stuck after double checking tour suggestions. The storage space now says 37.02GB in the Install MacOS Big Sur. I’ve downloaded Big Sur twice now and no luck progressing beyond agreeing to the software license agreement. I’m still stuck on the install page - it simply won’t allow me to continue no latter how many times I try.
I would suspect that you continue to not have enough storage space to install and use Big Sur. Attached is an article from MacWorld in the UK regarding space needed and while I see you have a 256 GIG SSD. I would guess you will need 75 to 100 GIG Free to get a 'Clean' install.
https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/dont-update-big-sur-128gb-mac-3798034/
You are going to continue to come up to problems when the SSD is packed as full as you have it, not just for Big Sur install.
You can check to see if there are any APFS snapshots using the information in this article:
Apple's official specifications call for at least 35.5GB of free storage space, but I would make sure to have more than that just to be safe. 37GB is just barely meeting the minimum requirements to install Big Sur. Personally I would free up more space since you don't want the installer to start and get stuck part way causing more problems.
Are you still getting the same error or a different error?
Also note: if you are trying to do this coming from an older OS, you will need up to 45 GB of empty space.
And, once you've got that ironed out, remember that you need to have an absolute minimum of 15 GB of empty space at all times; your disk contains more than just "storage"; it is also the place where your OS and system files reside and they need space to function properly. If you fill up your disk completely, your computer will stop functioning - period.
Big Sur won't install on compatible MacBook Pro
