No TimeMachine. How to wipe and reinstall?
My Macbook Pro M1 chip does not have enough storage to update the OS or operate apps. I do not have TimeMachine. How do I wipe the machine and reinstall?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 26.5
Obtain an external drive, preferably 2x or more the size of what needs to be saved, and turn on Time Machine.
Everything needed to run Your Mac efficiently was included in the box, except ONE: a drive on which to store a second copy of your files in case the first copy is damaged or deleted by accident. The default backup software, Time Machine, is already present -- integrated deeply into MacOS. It does not need to be added, just enabled.
You can obtain a touch more drive space by deleting most items in your Downloads folder. They came from the internet, and if needed again can be re-downloaded.
Also, if you have a MacOS installer taking up space on your drive (historically in the /Applications folder) it can be deleted and re-downloaded later.
if you have Xcode installed, it can be re-installed later.