I have a MacBook Pro running on Mojave 10.14.6 but I can't update it because the Macintosh HD is taking up so much disk space. I've taken everything I can off my computer and it still hasn't helped. So two part question:
Thanks in advance!
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.14
Macintosh HD is the default name for your internal hard drive.
On the hard drive will be the macOS Mojave system and all your personal info
such as documents, photos, movies, apps etc etc.
You can get an overview of this if you click on the top left of the screen
and selecting About This Mac and click on Storage
See the screenshot below, my disk has been renamed SSD APFS.
If you could do the same and post back a screenshot as above would be helpful.
Quite often the information in Storage is wrong and can sometimes be corrected by rebuilding
the Spotlight index.
How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac – Apple Support
Open System Preferences> Spotlight> Privacy
Move the Macintosh HD (or the name you gave your disk) in to the Privacy panel.
Quit System Preferences.
Open System Preferences> Spotlight> Privacy highlight Macintosh HD and press the minus button.
The mac will start rebuilding the Spotlight index.
Check by clicking on Spotlight in the menubar and enter a word, if it is indexing you should see a progress bar.
You can also use the Terminal app in your Applications> Utilities folder to force Spotlight to reindex.
Open Terminal.
Enter this command,
sudo mdutil -E <drag the icon of the drive you want to reindex here>
(make sure there is a space after the E.)
enter your Password.
(what you type will not be repeated on screen)
press Return
Terminal will confirm if indexing is enabled on the Volume/ drive and after a few seconds
Spotlight should begin reindexing.
To confirm click on the Spotlight icon in the menubar, type in a word, if there is a progress bar, Spotlight is indexing.
If re-indexing has not solved your problem then run this app, https://www.omnigroup.com/more
this will give an accurate account of the storage used. When the app has created its overview you can look at
the Users folder in the output and see what each user has stored, you can then delete files from there.
Do not delete any files or folders in any System or Library folders or any files you do not understand.
If you can get back with the results then we can see if we can move forward.
What mac, model and year do you have and which OS would you like to upgrade to?
Macintosh HD is the default name for your internal hard drive.
On the hard drive will be the macOS Mojave system and all your personal info
such as documents, photos, movies, apps etc etc.
You can get an overview of this if you click on the top left of the screen
and selecting About This Mac and click on Storage
See the screenshot below, my disk has been renamed SSD APFS.
If you could do the same and post back a screenshot as above would be helpful.
Quite often the information in Storage is wrong and can sometimes be corrected by rebuilding
the Spotlight index.
How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac – Apple Support
Open System Preferences> Spotlight> Privacy
Move the Macintosh HD (or the name you gave your disk) in to the Privacy panel.
Quit System Preferences.
Open System Preferences> Spotlight> Privacy highlight Macintosh HD and press the minus button.
The mac will start rebuilding the Spotlight index.
Check by clicking on Spotlight in the menubar and enter a word, if it is indexing you should see a progress bar.
You can also use the Terminal app in your Applications> Utilities folder to force Spotlight to reindex.
Open Terminal.
Enter this command,
sudo mdutil -E <drag the icon of the drive you want to reindex here>
(make sure there is a space after the E.)
enter your Password.
(what you type will not be repeated on screen)
press Return
Terminal will confirm if indexing is enabled on the Volume/ drive and after a few seconds
Spotlight should begin reindexing.
To confirm click on the Spotlight icon in the menubar, type in a word, if there is a progress bar, Spotlight is indexing.
If re-indexing has not solved your problem then run this app, https://www.omnigroup.com/more
this will give an accurate account of the storage used. When the app has created its overview you can look at
the Users folder in the output and see what each user has stored, you can then delete files from there.
Do not delete any files or folders in any System or Library folders or any files you do not understand.
If you can get back with the results then we can see if we can move forward.
What mac, model and year do you have and which OS would you like to upgrade to?
From the last screenshot you posted you have only 3.78GBs of free space on your mac.
Your mac is running critically low on free space and may be in danger of locking
up and becoming unusable.
It is generally accepted that you keep no less than 20GBs of free space on the mac so it can do
its housekeeping and remain functional.
You said earlier you have taken off everything you can on your mac, is this true it does not look like it.
If you have copied files over to an external hard drive you then need to delete the original files from your mac.
Movies, images and music often take up the most room so start there.
You obviously haven't deleted anything from your mac as it is only reporting 3.78GBs of free space.
Your mac has a very small HD, therefore it would be prudent of you to store files you do not need
on a day to day basis on an external drive.
Thank you for the response. Here are the screenshots, I'm currently working on the steps you provided.
I have a 13' Macbook Pro running Mojave 10.14.6
I'd like to update to the latest software and just generally have storage space.
I've literally gone through and deleted everything I am able to. It says that the system is taking up that much space. I just spent quite a while going deeper and deleting more and it hasn't helped much.
Update: I followed the reindexing steps and it worked but the only change was the red "Macintosh HD" bar indicated in the second picture is now orange.
I truly have transferred everything I am able to. Also, the point of having a computer is so I can at least store work files on it and I'm not able to do that with the space being taken up by the HD.
Macintosh HD taking up too much disk space
