macOS Big Sur Not Enough Free Space

If you confirmed that the macOS Big Sur patch is requiring more space than what it needs to be installed in your equipment (or conversely, there is plenty of space on your HD but the software upgrade is insisting you're out of, or need more, space), the issue stems from a defect in the patch, and not from your equipment. Apple Support had me create a New User profile on my machine to sign in with and then attempt the install, which worked for me (and hopefully resolves the same issue for others as well):

1 Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Users & Groups.
2 Click the lock , then enter an administrator name and password.
3 Click the add button (+) below the list of users.
4 Complete the fields shown for a Standard or Administrator account, then click Create Account (or OK).

...It is offensive to all technical disciplines (SDLC, QA and release management) for an enterprise like Apple to disburse a software upgrade--and one that is constructively mandatory, no less--on its customers that was clearly not ready for production. Guessing no one there ever heard of a Sev1 defect? This defect not only prevents the user from simply completely the install, which the user never asked for to begin with, but suggests the user's equipment is out of space (when it isn't), prevents unrelated files from being saved, and even solicits iCloud plan upgrades for otherwise unnecessary storage at a financial cost to the user! Anyone in Apple leadership who allowed such a deployment should be ashamed and take accountability (and take this feedback constructively: it is free, and you need to accept it, else it's time to move on to other career opportunities, since software development and leadership aren't your wheelhouse).

The tmutil deletelocalsnapshots / dosen't work someone pls help me the big sur is sooooooooo fustrating and teddy's one doens't work either.


SOMEONE HELP ME!!!!!

I had this same issue. I called Apple customer service. They had me close out of the settings app and the Big Sur update app. And, then instead go to the App Store. Select the "get" button in the App Store for update from there. Worked like a charm!

Hi,

Just tried to instal Big Sur on my Macbook Air 2015. I created + 20 gb of free space.
I now have the macOS Big Sur installation file (12.2 gb) on my disk and (after deleting more files), 16,13 gb free disk space.
I can't do the installation, as the system requires another 19 gb extra free disk space, which I can never find.

I tried DeanGolbury's suggestion (installing with new user profile), but that didn't work.
Can I just delete the 12.2 gb macOS Big Sur installation file to get the disk space back (and continue working with Catalina, or will my mac stop working if I delete that file ?

Here are some pointers that helped me free up space:

1. If you have TimeMachine enabled. Then delete snapshots

2. If you actively use Docker, then highly recommended to delete older snapshots using docker system prune -a

3. If you use Xcode then look for different versions that might be taking up space

HI, I'm having the same problem can anyone help? I've already deleted so many things. It didn't help at all.

I have a 128 Gig Mac Mini. I was ready to give up on Big Sur after seeing how much free space I needed to free up. Here's how I made the space available.

1. Copy the Big Sur installer to a removable drive and remove it from your startup drive.

2. Run the installer to see how much more space you need.

3. Follow Apple instructions to offload Music and Photos libraries to a removable drive.

4. If you are a developer, you probably have a huge Developer folder in your user library. Copy it to a removable drive and remove it temporarily.

These steps worked for me and I was able to upgrade to Big Sur. The installer seemed to do a very good job of cleaning up OS X folders because I had 50 GB available after the install. Plenty of space to copy the Developer folder back to the startup drive.

Apple, Since when is it ok to take up 200gb to do incremental backups locally because you can't reach a remote disk...and then, as you approach only 20gb free, start trashing data? After trying to use time machine, we are going to other backup solutions, because this is the last time I want to lose data in my music setting and now have to figure out how to recover my massive iPhoto library, because you think there's no space left, after 2 backups couldn't reach a remove volume and backed up to the same disk time machine snapshots.

You really need to get it together, and test your software as USERS experience it, not as your autobot testing does. Data loss is the result of low space conditions CAUSE by your clunky, slow and unreliable Time Machine software.

Listen, don't remove, stop, and be aware that you are doing the worst thing a computer can do: KILL CUSTOMERS DATA because of bad software you sell people on using. There is no reason why, the backup should take priority over customers active production data!

Instead, why don't you tell the customer when you are below 100gb that local snapshots can't be taken to preserve the machine's integrity?

So many of Apple's OS problems could be fixed through common sense design. This is very important for apple's future in computing!

Check if you have backup of mobile phone setting and apps of iOS, it could free up as much as 20GB space.
Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, click Storage and then Manage.

Apple screwed up big time on this. But here's the solution I found:

1. Copy the MacOS Big Sur installer onto a remote drive.

2. Copy the Photo Library onto a remote drive.

3. Delete both of the above files off the internal memory of your Mac.

These two steps freed up over 30 GB of space on my machine.

3. Run the MacOS Big Sur Installer software from the remote drive.

The install was fast and went smoothly.

Thanks for this, this solved my problem!

Absolutely none of these solutions worked for me, none of them even displayed anything you guys are talking about in the slightest.

Go to file>find>photos. Delete as many unnecessary photos. Empty trash. Move the rest of the photos to iCloud Drive. Update to macOS Big Spur. Worked for me with to much disk space.

Disabling Time Machine worked like a charm for me!

I came into the problem as well. The Big Sur system has a secret data storage in data disk. You can not delete files from the system, until you restore them from recovery mode. I restore and reinstall the system, it behave as well. So this is a damn system. My disk is 1Tb, it can eat up to about 400GB. Damn it.