I am trying to update a 10 GB app through the App Store. I have 50 GB of free space available on my 250 GB hard drive, but it says there is not enough free space to update.
Rebooting doesn't help. I saw an old post here saying I could delete the App Store cache to fix this issue, but the cache does not appear to be kept in the library folder it referred to. Any way to get around this? Thanks.
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)
First, the App Store will not allow an installation that would leave less than the minimum amount of available space on the startup volume that Apple considers necessary, which is about 8 GB. The app is downloaded as a compressed archive that will usually expand to about twice its size. Both the archive and the expanded files will be present at the same time, so the actual amount of space needed is about three times the size of the archive.
If you're trying to add a large amount of data all at once, and you get an alert of insufficient space, then from the menu bar, please select
▹ System Preferences... ▹ Time Machine
If there is a closed padlock icon in the lower left corner of the preference pane, click it to unlock the settings and authenticate. Turn Time Machine OFF, then back ON. Close the window.
Restart the computer. Test.
That did the trick. Thanks so much for your help.
I wouldn't say that it was "a large amount of data all at once," though -- turns out the update is a whopping 3.24 GB. My watch could have handled it. :)
So what's the deal with Time Machine? Was it the source of the problem?
App Updates ─ Free Space Bug
