Storage Issues while upgrading to macOS Big Sur: How to clean 'Other' storage in Catalina or macOS Monterey

Introduction:

Come September each year, Mac users around the world look forward to upgrading to the next upgrade to macOS. macOS Big Sur & macOS Monterey are major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s operating system for Macintosh computers. The successor to macOS Catalina, it was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 22, 2020, and was released to the public on November 12, 2020.

macOS Big Sur comes with a host of a new features that elevates the most advanced desktop operating system in the world to a new level of power and beauty. It offers to experience Mac to the fullest with a refined new design. Be it Safari update or discovering new features for Maps and Messages along with the transparency around your privacy, it is hard to ignore.

Also Read: COVID19 Special Tips & Tricks: 10 things to consider while buying a new laptop

Mac users have flocked to install this new upgrade (~12.23 GB) in size, only to realize that with great features comes the storage hungry requirement to install the same. If you are using MacBook air 2017 with 128 GB storage, you are fatally going to fall short of space to install it i.e. it requires close to 36 GB free space. For the 128 GB storage MacBook, this is a huge requirement to pass. This article is aimed to free-up space in your MacBook Air with 128 GB so that you can install the new upgrade at ease.

 

Tips to free space in MacBook for Big Sur installation: 

There are many articles to help you with the same online but most of them fail to offer a solution to free up “Other Storage”. We will try to address it.

STEP 1: For starters, please go through some of the preliminary steps mentioned at Apple Support Website: Click here

STEP 2: Download Avira Optimizer from the AppStore or directly from its website. The installation is fairly simple and so is the running of this application. This tool typically cleans your system in seconds to get rid of junk files and improve the performance of your Mac

     STEP 3: Emptying “Others Storage” from MacBook: This is the major process to clean & retrieve free space in your MacBook. We called Apple Help Desk and the steps mentioned here are as per them (SOP): 

i)            Install OmniDiskSweeper – This is an Apple-approved 3^rd party tool that shows you the files on your drive, largest to smallest, and lets you quickly Trash or open them

ii)          Provide this tool full access to read & write your HDD/ Storage drives. You can provide the same by going to Settings -> Security & Privacy->Full Disk Access

 

iii)         Click the Lock Icon to unlock and checkmark OmniDiskSweeper.app. Don’t forget to click the Lock Icon again to save the setting

           iv)         Run OmniDiskSweeper tool from Finder

v)          Select Macintosh HD (will be highlighted in blue) and Click Sweep “Macintosh HD” Drive

 

vi)         It will then start sizing the Harddisk (HDD) i.e. will flag which folder or files are occupying maximum size. Note – for 128 GB Harddisk, sizing process may take up to 10 min

vii)        You can go ahead and remove the Applications(Apps) simply by clicking and moving it to trash if you no longer need it.

viii)       We noticed, in our case about 65 GB was occupied by Apple Mail ( as we had configured a couple of email service providers like Gmail, Hotmail, etc.)

ix)         To delete the apple mail contents – just click on Users-> Your folder->Library->Mail-> Delete Content of Mail (For us now it is just 1.2 GB; it was earlier 65 GB)

 

x)          Close the OmniDiskSweeper and empty your Trash folder

xi)         Reboot your MacBook & Run Avira Optimizer again to remove any junk file

 

You will notice, that if you go to Systems->About Mac->Storage-> You have a huge free space available now

Hope you liked our solution and feel free to share your concerns with us if any. Stay tuned to ReviewsToday for more exciting tips and tricks.