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How can i free up space on my startup disk to install OS X Mavericks?

How can i free up space on my start up disk to install the OS X Mavericks software?

MacBook Air (11-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Jan 14, 2014 1:22 PM

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4 replies

Jan 14, 2014 1:35 PM in response to christinefromabuja

You should never, EVER let a conputer hard drive get completely full, EVER!

With Macs and OS X, you shouldn't let the hard drive get below 15 GBs or less of free data space.

If it does, it's time for some hard drive housecleaning.


Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.


Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?

If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.

If you store images in other locations other than iPhoto, then you will have to weed through these to determine what to archive and what to delete.

If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!

Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.

Look through your other Mailboxes and other Mail categories to see If there is other mail you can archive and/or delete.

Other things you can do to gain space.

Once you have around 15 GBs regained, do a search, download and install OmniDisk Sweeper.

This app will help you locate files that you can move/archive and/or delete from your system.

STAY AWAY FROM DELETING ANY FILES FROM OS X SYSTEM FOLDER!

Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.

Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.

Look in your Applications folder, if you have applications you haven't used in a long time, if the app doesn't have a dedicated uninstaller, then you can simply drag it into the OS X Trash icon. IF the application has an uninstaller app, then use it to completely delete the app from your Mac.

Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.

When you install and launch it, let it do its initial automatic tests, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run the maintenance tabs that let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.

Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.

move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.

If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.

Good Luck!

🙂

Jan 14, 2014 2:08 PM in response to christinefromabuja

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article.

Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:


iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash

Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space. Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature.


According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.

If you're using Time Machine to back up a portable Mac, some of the free space will be used to make local snapshots, which are backup copies of files you've recently deleted. The space occupied by local snapshots is reported as available by the Finder, and should be considered as such. In the Storage display of System Information, local snapshots are shown as Backups. The snapshots are automatically deleted when they expire or when free space falls below a certain level. You ordinarily don't need to, and should not, delete local snapshots yourself.

See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.


You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.

Deleting files inside an iPhoto or Aperture library will corrupt the library. Any changes to a photo library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.


Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.


ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.


Back up all data now.


If you have more than one user account, make sure you're logged in as an administrator. The administrator account is the one that was created automatically when you first set up the computer.

Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.


Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:


☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)


☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.


☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.


Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.


The application window will open, eventually showing all files in all folders, sorted by size with the largest at the top. It may take a few minutes for ODS to finish scanning your files.


I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.


When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Jan 14, 2014 2:10 PM in response to christinefromabuja

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive


1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.

2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.

3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.

4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.

5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.

6. See The Storage Display.


You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.


You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.


Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

How can i free up space on my startup disk to install OS X Mavericks?

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