Freeing up space

Is my Mac ready for the next macOS update?

MoreRoom’s home screen tells you whether there’s room for a major macOS update and how much headroom macOS has, and frees exactly what’s missing.

By the MoreRoom team, Yando Pte. Ltd.This page as Markdown

In short

  • The home screen (and Storage Weather) shows Ready for the next macOS update, or how much space is missing. A major update needs about 30 GB free.
  • If space is missing, Free Up (Pro) scans your Mac if needed and opens goal mode with exactly what’s missing, plus a 2 GB margin.
  • A second line shows how much headroom macOS has: below 10% free, it has less room for memory swap, updates and the working files of apps like Photos and Xcode.

Read the card

The card appears on the home screen and in Storage Weather. It reads your startup disk’s available space — the same figure as Finder, purgeable space included — and shows two lines:

  1. Ready for the next macOS update (green), or “size short for the next macOS update”. A major macOS update needs about 30 GB free to download and install.
  2. How comfortable macOS is:
    • Plenty of room to stay fast — 15% or more of the disk is free;
    • Getting tight — between 10% and 15%;
    • Too little free space for macOS to stay fast — under 10%.

The card is calm on purpose: there are no alarms and no “health score”, just the numbers and what they mean.

Free exactly what’s missing (Pro)

When space is missing, the card shows Free Up and the missing size. Click it:

  • if your Mac has already been scanned, MoreRoom opens Free Up Space and runs goal mode;
  • otherwise it scans your Mac first, then does the same.

Goal mode puts the safest selection that frees the missing space plus 2 GB into the Collector and opens the review sheet. Nothing moves until you click Free Up. Then empty the Trash: until you do, the space isn’t really free. See Free Up Space and goal mode.

On the free plan, the button opens the Pro sheet. You can still remove items one at a time from Free Up Space.

Before you update macOS

  • Empty the Trash after freeing space.
  • Check ghost space: an open app may still hold deleted files.
  • Then open System Settings › General › Software Update.

Our free macOS update space checker and the guide How much space a macOS update needs go into more detail.