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%Start Minimum Free Drive Space You Need on Your Mac GA S REGULAR Menu Lifewire Tech for Humans Newsletter! Search Close GO Computers, Laptops & Tablets &gt; Apple 78 78 people found this article helpful <h1> How Much Free Drive Space Do You Need on Your Mac?</h1> By Tom Nelson Tom Nelson Writer Tom Nelson is an engineer, programmer, network manager, and computer network and systems designer who has written for Other World Computing,and others.
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%Start Minimum Free Drive Space You Need on Your Mac GA S REGULAR Menu Lifewire Tech for Humans Newsletter! Search Close GO Computers, Laptops & Tablets > Apple 78 78 people found this article helpful

How Much Free Drive Space Do You Need on Your Mac?

By Tom Nelson Tom Nelson Writer Tom Nelson is an engineer, programmer, network manager, and computer network and systems designer who has written for Other World Computing,and others.
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Isabella Johnson 3 minutes ago
Tom is also president of Coyote Moon, Inc., a Macintosh and Windows consulting firm. lifewire's edit...
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Tom is also president of Coyote Moon, Inc., a Macintosh and Windows consulting firm. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on February 16, 2021 Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Apple Macs iPad If you find that your computer is starting to operate slowly, is taking a long time to start up, giving you the rainbow cursor for very long periods, or taking a long time to launch an application, you may need to free up some space. There are many different types of problems that can manifest the symptoms described above.
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Tom is also president of Coyote Moon, Inc., a Macintosh and Windows consulting firm. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on February 16, 2021 Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Apple Macs iPad If you find that your computer is starting to operate slowly, is taking a long time to start up, giving you the rainbow cursor for very long periods, or taking a long time to launch an application, you may need to free up some space. There are many different types of problems that can manifest the symptoms described above.
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Madison Singh 1 minutes ago
Insufficient RAM or even hardware failure could be the culprit. But, when a computer is slow, one of...
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Insufficient RAM or even hardware failure could be the culprit. But, when a computer is slow, one of the most common causes is not having enough free space on a hard drive.
Ethan Thomas Member
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Insufficient RAM or even hardware failure could be the culprit. But, when a computer is slow, one of the most common causes is not having enough free space on a hard drive.
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Dylan Patel 5 minutes ago

Problems With a Crowded Hard Drive

Filling your hard drive until it's almost full can pre...
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Isaac Schmidt 6 minutes ago
In addition, individual applications usually use some disk space for temporary storage. Many pieces ...
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<h2> Problems With a Crowded Hard Drive </h2> Filling your hard drive until it's almost full can present many issues. First, your Mac needs some free space to use for creating swap space to manage memory use. Even when you have adequate RAM, OS X&nbsp;will reserve some space at startup for memory swap space.
Ella Rodriguez Member
access_time 4 minutes ago

Problems With a Crowded Hard Drive

Filling your hard drive until it's almost full can present many issues. First, your Mac needs some free space to use for creating swap space to manage memory use. Even when you have adequate RAM, OS X will reserve some space at startup for memory swap space.
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In addition, individual applications usually use some disk space for temporary storage. Many pieces of the operating system and many applications use drive space, usually without your being aware of it. When it gets your attention, it's usually because of erratic system performance.
Noah Davis Member
access_time 25 minutes ago
In addition, individual applications usually use some disk space for temporary storage. Many pieces of the operating system and many applications use drive space, usually without your being aware of it. When it gets your attention, it's usually because of erratic system performance.
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Luna Park 18 minutes ago

How Much Free Space Do You Need

In general, you should keep as much space on your drive ...
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Henry Schmidt 13 minutes ago
The 15 percent value is best so that some basic OS X or macOS maintenance scripts will have sufficie...
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<h2> How Much Free Space Do You Need </h2> In general, you should keep as much space on your drive as free as possible. A good guide for the minimum on the amount would be to keep at least 15 percent of your startup drive free at all times, although more is better. If you're getting to the point where you worry about your drive's free space, it's probably time to either buy a larger drive or archive some of the data and get it off the drive through an external hard drive or on the cloud.
Luna Park Member
access_time 12 minutes ago

How Much Free Space Do You Need

In general, you should keep as much space on your drive as free as possible. A good guide for the minimum on the amount would be to keep at least 15 percent of your startup drive free at all times, although more is better. If you're getting to the point where you worry about your drive's free space, it's probably time to either buy a larger drive or archive some of the data and get it off the drive through an external hard drive or on the cloud.
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Audrey Mueller 6 minutes ago
The 15 percent value is best so that some basic OS X or macOS maintenance scripts will have sufficie...
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The 15 percent value is best so that some basic OS X or macOS maintenance scripts will have sufficient free drive space to run, and it's also important to remember that the exact GBs of storage might be different than the advertised amount. This includes the operating systems built-in disk defragmentation system, memory swap space, and enough space to create cache and temp files when your Mac starts up.
Dylan Patel Member
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The 15 percent value is best so that some basic OS X or macOS maintenance scripts will have sufficient free drive space to run, and it's also important to remember that the exact GBs of storage might be different than the advertised amount. This includes the operating systems built-in disk defragmentation system, memory swap space, and enough space to create cache and temp files when your Mac starts up.
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Dylan Patel 14 minutes ago

How to Free up Disk Space

To free up disk space, start by selecting a target location for...
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Brandon Kumar 11 minutes ago
After that, check the Documents folder for old and outdated files. Do you need to store your 8-year-...
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<h2> How to Free up Disk Space </h2> To free up disk space, start by selecting a target location for offloading data. You can copy files to another drive, burn them to CDs or DVDs, place them on a USB flash drive, store them in the cloud, or in some cases, simply delete the files. It's best to look to your Downloads folder first because it tends to collect a lot of files that are overlooked over time.
Kevin Wang Member
access_time 8 minutes ago

How to Free up Disk Space

To free up disk space, start by selecting a target location for offloading data. You can copy files to another drive, burn them to CDs or DVDs, place them on a USB flash drive, store them in the cloud, or in some cases, simply delete the files. It's best to look to your Downloads folder first because it tends to collect a lot of files that are overlooked over time.
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After that, check the Documents folder for old and outdated files. Do you need to store your 8-year-old tax files on your Mac? Probably not.
Andrew Wilson Member
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After that, check the Documents folder for old and outdated files. Do you need to store your 8-year-old tax files on your Mac? Probably not.
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Grace Liu 21 minutes ago
Next, look at your Pictures, Movies, and Music folders. Often times you'll find duplicates in those ...
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Harper Kim 14 minutes ago
If you're not above the minimum, then it's time to consider additional storage options, either a lar...
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Next, look at your Pictures, Movies, and Music folders. Often times you'll find duplicates in those folders. Once you have gone through the home folder and all of its sub-folders, check the available free space.
Daniel Kumar Member
access_time 30 minutes ago
Next, look at your Pictures, Movies, and Music folders. Often times you'll find duplicates in those folders. Once you have gone through the home folder and all of its sub-folders, check the available free space.
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James Smith 8 minutes ago
If you're not above the minimum, then it's time to consider additional storage options, either a lar...
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Kevin Wang 17 minutes ago
The minimum only ensures that your Mac will start up, operate, and be able to run a basic applicatio...
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If you're not above the minimum, then it's time to consider additional storage options, either a larger hard drive or an additional drive, probably an external drive for storing data files. If you add more storage, don&#39;t forget to factor in enough backup storage to cover your new capacity. <h2> Limitations of the 15% Guideline </h2> Having free hard drive space well above the 15 percent minimum is a good idea.
Sophie Martin Member
access_time 11 minutes ago
If you're not above the minimum, then it's time to consider additional storage options, either a larger hard drive or an additional drive, probably an external drive for storing data files. If you add more storage, don't forget to factor in enough backup storage to cover your new capacity.

Limitations of the 15% Guideline

Having free hard drive space well above the 15 percent minimum is a good idea.
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The minimum only ensures that your Mac will start up, operate, and be able to run a basic application or two. It doesn&#39;t guarantee your Mac or the applications will run well, or that your graphics, audio mixing, or video production applications will have enough scratch space to function, though.
Mason Rodriguez Member
access_time 24 minutes ago
The minimum only ensures that your Mac will start up, operate, and be able to run a basic application or two. It doesn't guarantee your Mac or the applications will run well, or that your graphics, audio mixing, or video production applications will have enough scratch space to function, though.
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David Cohen 11 minutes ago

What About Solid-State Drives SSDs

Generally speaking, SSDs need a large amount of fre...
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So having limited free space can impact the process and cause excessive write amplification (wear on...
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<h2> What About Solid-State Drives SSDs </h2> Generally speaking, SSDs need a large amount of free space to allow the SSD&#39;s controller to perform garbage collection, as well as the process of resetting blocks of data so they may be used again. The reset or garbage collection process requires entire blocks of data to be rewritten to unused blocks on the SSD.
Ryan Garcia Member
access_time 65 minutes ago

What About Solid-State Drives SSDs

Generally speaking, SSDs need a large amount of free space to allow the SSD's controller to perform garbage collection, as well as the process of resetting blocks of data so they may be used again. The reset or garbage collection process requires entire blocks of data to be rewritten to unused blocks on the SSD.
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So having limited free space can impact the process and cause excessive write amplification (wear on the NAND memory cells that can lead to early failure). The amount of free space needed is very dependent on how you use your SSD. It's recommended to save 15 percent for general use, which assumes that you're using TRIM or an equivalent system to assist in garbage collection.
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So having limited free space can impact the process and cause excessive write amplification (wear on the NAND memory cells that can lead to early failure). The amount of free space needed is very dependent on how you use your SSD. It's recommended to save 15 percent for general use, which assumes that you're using TRIM or an equivalent system to assist in garbage collection.
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How to Install a Second SSD The 7 Best Ways to Speed up Your Computer How to Fix Slow PC Startup How...
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