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artmark

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 11, 2023
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I have roughly 22GB storage space left (of 250GB) on my Mac mini (Mojave 10.14.6)
I was thinking to drop my Desktop folder into an external hard drive and delete the one on my Mini and just run all my operations from the ex-drive. This would free up close to 150GB. I would then need a 2nd external drive for backups (which I have)
Not sure if there would be any unforeseen problems doing this so I am posting here first before doing anything. Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome

Amazed at how stingy apple are generally with storage on their Macs when you consider that you can store 2TB on a mini SD card, apple should be able to do much better.
 
You can but the desktop would be a risky choice.

Basically if you remap the desktop to an external drive via symbolic link the drive needs to be present at all cost or you can get some system instability.

In the past I've done this with iTunes. If the drive is unmounted just close iTunes, remount and try again, everything works fine.

With the desktop if the drive is ever not present, or becomes disconnected you might have to hard reboot the machine.

maybe downloads or documents.
 
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Less than 10% free space, eh?
That should ring alarm bells. If you're not yet experiencing problems or slowdowns, you're lucky.

My recommendations would be:

If you haven't already, make at least one complete backup. Then unplug the backup disk and put it in a safe place, maybe even in a different location to be safe.

Then, as a first step to relieving the pressure on your internal drive, there will most likely exist files and folders that you can delete immediately. I can recommend DaisyDisk, to easily and quickly find what is taking up space. It's inexpensive, very easy to use, and even has a fully functional demo I believe. You most likely will be surpriced how much redundant stuff you can get rid of right away.

Then - you can relax and make plans for how you want to manage your drives and data. I have a 256GB internal drive myself, and with offloading stuff to 2 x 2TB externals, I'm able to keep more than half of it free space. I copy large folders to external, delete the originals, and make symbolic links that I put place of the originals. (You can install the almost free Symbolic Linker on App Store, to get a "create symlink" option in Finder's contextual menu). But I make shure macOS/Finder folders like User, Documents, Library, Desktop etc are not touched, to not make problems.

Good luck.

(Btw, "run mini from external drive" would mean to boot from it, to most people. That's not what we're talking about here.)
 
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WHICH Mini do you have?
What year made?

If it's a 2018, it has a fairly fast SSD in it, and running from an external drive will be slower.

You do want an external drive -- but move unneeded or seldom-accessed "stuff" to it.
Leave the OS, apps, and keep your [stripped-down] accounts ON the internal SSD.
 
An extreme (but data cleansing thorough option) would be to export all (of your user folder) to an external drive, wipe and fresh install the OS to the internal drive. That should free up almost ALL of your space on the internal. Then, import only stuff you absolutely want on that internal considering size (check size on external) and then import suitable stuff. This is a much more onerous, one-time project to re"start from scratch" but it will blow out everything and then you can carefully consider exactly what you want to reinstall vs. stuff perhaps no longer important to you.

Start by reinstalling applications you use and then see how much space all important applications installed eat up. Don't install applications you no longer use. This alone can make a good-sized difference on the drive. Over time, a lot of "one off" applications can control a chunk of space with little chance of ever getting used again.

Non-application priority might be some stuff that likes to "live" on the internal like music (rips) and photos library... though if either or both of those eat up most of the space, they don't absolutely have to be on the internal.
  • Movies folder could definitely live on the external going forward. If this is currently sizable- as is common- shifting it to external alone may free up a great deal of space.
  • Empty Downloads.
  • Documents folder could live on external.
  • Clear Desktop.
  • Public could be empty unless you need something permanently shared with anyone else on your network.
This would be equivalent of "clean install" and would also get rid of accumulated clutter in many hidden places. While that clutter probably doesn't eat up a lot of space, it can take up some.

As you re-install, keep track of how much space is used. When you get to about 125GB, I'd shift most of my thinking to storing everything else on the external (basically keeping about 50% free). As you move forward, macOS and/or software upgrades will eventually turn 50% into 60% and so on but if you target about 50% now, you'll probably be good for remaining life of that Mac.

If Desktop really is controlling 150GB, the easy option is to move everything on Desktop to an external and then don't reload the Desktop: keep it clean. No consequence to storing stuff currently accumulated on Desktop on external.

Again, the "clean install" option is not as easy as looking through everything and deleting or moving files to the external. This is equivalent to "starting over" like it's a new Mac. But this will really cut the accumulated files and when you consider what must go back on it again, your scrutiny should lead to a much less loaded internal drive.

One more thing: several places make a same-size (as Mini) docks with built in storage. You might want to get one of those and a good amount of storage as a permanently-connected drive...

MiniHub.jpg

Unlike the typical portable enclosure, there should be little to disconnect that drive and that thing can easily come forward to your next Mac Mini (or Studio) purchase too.

Lastly: if not already, get Time Machine going and back up both the new internal and that external drive, ideally to 2+ drives with at least 1 of those stored offsite. Rotate the on-site and off-site drives regularly so that you have a pretty recent backup of all of your files at the offsite location. I use a bank safe deposit box for the offsite storage and swap mine monthly. Worst case scenario is I lose the last 29 days of new data.
 
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Thanks killawat, Fishrrman and Ben J for your replies. HobeSoundDarryl I have just seen your reply and will look into it...
its just as well I did ask here first.
Ben, I downloaded Daisydisk. It is great for pinpointing where all the storage is being used up, thanks.
I am not very well organised generally and my Mac is no exception and has not escaped this flaw either... I am thinking that I could alternatively transfer and delete (as described above) large folders WITHIN the Desktop folder (see screenshot) the 3 main culprits are 'Desktop files' 'Music' and 'Pictures' transfer and delete those 3 and then create new alias links for them in the grey column on the left side of the finder window. Is that a possibility? And if things run horribly slowly (as Fishrrman said they might) I guess I could just drag them back again to their original spots on the internal disk and go back to the drawing board

Untitled 24.jpg
 
You can drag up to ALL of what you have on your current Desktop to the external and alias any of it and put the alias in the left sidebar or on the now cleared desktop.

If you want quick & easy, create a folder on external called "OldDesktop" (or whatever you want to call it), drag it all there and then alias the "OldDesktop" folder. Put alias to OldDesktop on new blank desktop and/or in the left sidebar. That would make it all 2 clicks away instead of a single click.

If the external is fast, you probably won't notice any difference in access speed (other than 2 clicks vs. 1). If external is SSD, it should be fast. If not, fairly good sized SSDs are cheap. I just saw 2TB m.2 sticks on Amazon this morning for well below $100. Fast enclosures are under $40.
 
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also its important to know what Mac you have. Is it a 2018 with Thunderbolt 3? A newer one with thunderbolt 4?

You will want to use the fastest external that you have access to for the smoothest experience.
 
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Yes its a 2018 mini. not sure about which Thunderbolt
HobeSoundDarryl, yes, things do need to be kept baby simple for me.
 
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