Insufficient Disk Space while having over 100GB

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Level 1

10 points

Insufficient Disk Space while having over 100GB

I'm trying to import some pictures (about 15 GB) to photos but while doing so it keeps saying there's insufficient disk space on my Mac.

I have iCloud Photo Library turned on and theres 1.36 TB space available so that shouldn't be the problem. My own harddisk has 108.4 GB available so I don't understand why it would say there's not enough space to import 15 GB of pictures. Lately I've been importing pictures in batches (I've saved the whole structure of a SD card from my camera on an external HD, which currently has 19.33 GB available) of 15 GB. Every now and then it would say there's insufficient disk space and all I had to do was restarting my MBP and I could continue.

Optimize Mac Storage is turned on so if there's indeed not enough space, shouldn't it automatically empty some space?

Why do I keep getting this message and how can I bypass it so I can keep importing my pictures?

Addition info:

All the pictures has been uploaded to iCloud Photo Library. Does that mean it's safe to remove the folder "Photos" to clear up the space? How does it work anyway when OS X notices I'm low on space?

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Sep 26, 2017 5:45 PM

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Answer 1

LarryHN

Level 10

106,142 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:09 PM in response to Eendj3

All the pictures has been uploaded to iCloud Photo Library. Does that mean it's safe to remove the folder "Photos" to clear up the space? How does it work anyway when OS X notices I'm low on space?All the pictures has been uploaded to iCloud Photo Library. Does that mean it's safe to remove the folder "Photos" to clear up the space? How does it work anyway when OS X notices I'm low on space?

This is not clear

If the photos have been imported into Photos into a manager library then the source photos outside of Photos can be deleted -- you can not delete anything in Photos because ICPL is a syncing service and all changes (additions, deletions or edits) made on any device are made on all devices

If you still have an iPhoto library that was migrated to Photos and you have not used iPhoto for three months or more then archive it and delete it - it will not save a ton of space but where ever it says is a help

what is the exact error message (a screen shot would be help - take it by pressing command-shift-4 and dragging the selection tool to choose what to save then click on the camera icon in the tool bar to upload it)

LN

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Answer 2

Eendj3 Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:19 PM in response to LarryHN

I noticed the photo library of Photos is about 114.74 GB in size. As far as I know, all the pictures in this library are uploaded to iCloud Photo Library and the option Optimize Mac storage is turned on so I wondered why OS X hasn't freed up this space if it's "low" on space.

Unfortunately I've deleted some backup's so I can't get that message back again (not sure when it pops up again). I can show you a screenshot of the "available space" though. Also I tried to copy the images (15 GB) from my external HD to the local HD and to my surprise it also said there's not enough space even though it clearly says I still have 108.26 GB available.

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Answer 3

Eendj3 Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 27, 2017 5:19 PM in response to LarryHN

Just now I got the message again and this time I made a screenshot:

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