I had to quit the OS X 10.13 High Sierra installer halfway through. Now the half installed folder is on my hard drive somewhere and it says I don't have enough space to install it again.
Where does the temporary download file go? It is not in Applications or Utilities as everyone suggests.
The only reason that there is only 12.74 GB left on the SSD is because the High Sierra install crashed in the middle of installation, so all of the temporary (but incomplete) files are there, which no longer allows enough room for the install. I use an external drive for just about everything else, and I backup/TM to another external drive. My solution is to boot the macbook in target mode from my other macbook, copy and delete the install files, reboot in recovery mode, and do a new installation. I'll let you know how it goes, but I still wonder what made the initial install crash in the first place (there was plenty of room at the time).
Deleting the files from the prior attempted install (using target disk mode) did the trick. I was then able to reboot in recovery mode and do a new install of High Sierra. All better now!
If you have filled you SSD to only 12.74 GB of free space, you are set up for disaster. macOS needs room in which to operate and as you see, it needs room just to be installed. You need to start eliminating stuff from the drive; apps that you don't ever use, music, videos, data files, etc. You perhaps need an external drive on which to transfer a lot of stuff. The SSD should perhaps have the operating system and the Apps folder, data and content should be saved to the extra drive.
How do I delete files from the hard drive if it won't boot up the system? It says not enough space to install High Sierra (12.74 GB free instead of 14.3GB needed) during recovery, but I can't seem to figure out how to make space available. 2009 MacBookPro with SSD.
The installer is an app in the Apps folder; Install macOS....
Late 2012 Mac mini, macOS 10.13; Watch S1, watchOS 4; iPad Air 2 & iPhone 6+, iOS 11.0.1; TV 4th Gen, tvOS 11; Airport Express
high sierra install location
