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Sierra gave 30 GB of extra space! Why
- Thread starter TheSteves
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Could have purged log files, caches, more optimized system resources, etc. The installer was over a GB smaller then it was for El Capitan.
Same here. 20GB extra and I almost sh$#! my pants when I saw it. So far I don't really see anything different or any files missing.
By default it moves least used desktop and documents folder contents to iCloud without asking you, hence additional local space.
Article shows user response to this feature: https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/22/macos-sierra-storage-optimization-poll/
Article shows user response to this feature: https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/22/macos-sierra-storage-optimization-poll/
It did not do this by default on my system. I think you are confusing which feature that article is talking about.
A.
That's good. I haven't upgraded yet. I usually wait for the .1 release just to make sure the kinks are worked out before I upgrade. I'm also a Dropbox user and don't use the documents folder so I'd most likely disable this feature if it was turned on by default.
Perhaps Apple is using some algorithm to determine the need for auto deleting files from the local storage. Seems they could have been a bit more communicative about this feature.
Deactivated this and it didn't change something. Still 20GB extra. And that's only activated once you actually are running out of space.
Exactly.
I too am happy, but also worried how 10.12 does it.
macOS Sierra does more than simply move "purged storage" to iCloud etc.
• Does it remove caches?
• Does it remove IMAP-mail downloads?
• Does it remove 32 bit binaries?
• Does it remove duplicate data?
• Does it use other filesystem blocks?
• ... other ideas?
Well I'm not missing any documents at least that I can remember. Also I can't find anything different on the iCloud, being that extra files or so.
But isn't that when you actually select it? I didn't run anything special. And the optimize storage was disabled.
I think you misunderstood me.
I too see a *HUGE* (almost 40 GB..!!) free space increase on my MacBook Air (my work laptop) and cannot understand how macOS Sierra does it.
I don't use iCloud Drive nor iCloud Photos on this Mac.
I just gave a few options that, maybe, macOS Sierra uses to create the extra free storage space.
Ahhhhhh ok I see I see. Well I've been searching online and I can't even find the effective space occupied by Yosemite, El Capitan and Sierra. It would be cool to compare them all.
I got 86GB of extra space without turning on the upload to iCloud feature. I'm very impressed! But also wondering what the hell that 86GB was and whether I'm ever going to need it. I usually clean my system by removing cache files and unneeded stuff, so I didn't expect there to be this much stuff to clean.
This is talking about IF you turn on iCloud Drive for your Desktop and Documents, it automatically optimizes space. But if you don't turn on the iCloud Drive Desktop & Documents feature then it doesn't do that. You'll also get a little cloud overlay icon next to the documents that are in iCloud but not on your Mac. And if you then turn off "Optimize" your computer will download the files from iCloud restoring the local copy.
I am going to echo other responses here, that it's likely that Sierra is more aggressive about getting rid of junk such as log files. I've seen so many Macs get filled up with log files, temp files, and caches that get into multiple gigabytes.
Sierra uses 8.1 GB on a clean install, El Capitan used 9.6 GB. I don't have exact numbers, but ever since Leopard most releases have been getting smaller with the exception of Mavericks.
