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Not enough space on 256Gb Mac mini - Apple Intelligence using 10Gb?

hewhore

hewhore

macrumors member
Original poster
I want to upgrade to Tahoe, but macOS says I need at least 24.7Gb of space on Macintosh HD to install it. I have moved all files and folders possible to iCloud or to external drives, but there is still nowhere near enough free.
I know that it is possible to move the Home folder to an external SSD, but I don't have the time or the patience to do that right now.
Anyone know how to "delete" Apple Intelligence? I don't use it on this Mac and it is disabled in System Settings.


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hewhore said:
I want to upgrade to Tahoe, but macOS says I need at least 24.7Gb of space on Macintosh HD to install it. I have moved all files and folders possible to iCloud or to external drives, but there is still nowhere near enough free.
I know that it is possible to move the Home folder to an external SSD, but I don't have the time or the patience to do that right now.
Anyone know how to "delete" Apple Intelligence? I don't use it on this Mac and it is disabled in System Settings.


View attachment 2625039
Click to expand...
On my Sequoia system, Apple Intelligence cannot be enabled because Siri is set to another language (Japanese), compared with the system itself (English). Try setting Siri to any other language (British English, etc.). It may take a while for that 10GB to remove itself. I think that you should free up some more space on that 256GB disk, it seems it is too full for optimal performance, regardless of the system employed.
I would advise against installing Tahoe in any case. I just don't think it is polished enough yet.
 
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A lot of us use DaisyDisk to quickly get an overview of what's taking up space on our drives. It simply sorts all folders and files by size, and makes it easy. Apps often stores a lot of data in your library folder. You can often find stuff that is leftover and you can delete it. There's a fully functional demo that you can use.

If you find large folders that you can't delete because you know they're needed, you can move them to an external drive, create a symlink (alias) and replace the original with it.

You should also check if Timemachine has left a lot of snapshots and delete them to free up space. Use Disk Utilities for this:

View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on Mac, view a list of APFS snapshots, copy information about the snapshots, and delete them.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

MacOS often leaves a 'Install macOS …' full installer in the Apps folder. This can safely be deleted to save ~15GB. It can be downloaded later if you need it.

Keep in mind, with such a small boot disk, you should be very carefull not to fill it up too much. I'd say anything less than 20% (50GB) free space, and you'll be close to negatively affecting the general performance of the mac.
 
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Here's yet one more example of "buying too small" at the outset, and it underscores what I've been saying for some time now in this forum, that 256gb is "no longer enough" (as is only 16gb of RAM).

I've read reports that the latest OS upgrades may require 30gb (or more) of "free space" on an internal drive. Some have said it may require 50+gb.

Within the past year or so we have Apple Intelligence that now wants another 8-10gb of space.

Mix this in with users who overload their apps (forcing LARGE swap files, running continuously) and "fill up" their small drives without regard to how much free space remains, and it's easy to see how a Mac with a 256gb drive could soon become... "restrained".

OP:
I believe you can disable both AI and Siri by doing this:
- Control click on the System Settings icon in the dock -- a list should appear
- Choose Apple Intelligence and Siri
- Now, examine the popup for "Language".
- You want to set this to something OTHER THAN what you normally use. For example, I use US English, but I set the popup to "English (United Kingdom)".
- With this "conflict", now BOTH AI and Siri are disabled (System Settings will tell you so).

This ought to free up some space for the upgrade.
BE AWARE that even that may not be enough...
 
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SDAVE said:
If you have 8GB RAM you are going to suffer as RAM cache will continuously hit the SSD
I had a M1 Air with 256/8 config and continuously had issues with running out of space. I guess highly dependent on what you do often.
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I have the same MBA M1 256, 8GB is enough for me https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/memory-pressure-in-istats-merged.2455165/post-33860759
and I have Big Sur & Sequoia running on the internal drive
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...s-it-holding-up-for-you.2446947/post-34007942
 
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