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ahostmadsen

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 28, 2009
1,114
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I updated from 11.3 to 11.4. After that I have 10Gb less space. I can understand the update uses space temporarily (like the downloaded update package is 6Gb), but when will the system release this temporary space, or how do I get rid of it?
 
It seems the system released the 10Gb again. I'm pretty much back with the same amount of HD space as before the update. It took a few hours.
 
The reason for my post was anxiety! I got a new computer that I restored from my old computer with time machine. My old computer had around 50Gb free, which was also the case on the new computer after time-machine restore. But then the free space started to decrease, reaching below 20Gb after updating to 11.4. Like a time-bomb: I was watching it ticking down to 'out of space.' I got really worried. But now it has reversed, free space is slowly increasing, now nearly 60Gb.

Lesson: after restoring to a new computer, the Mac is doing a lot of things in the background which uses space, that will eventually come back. Slightly scary.
 
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Well, space is down to 30Gb now. So, 50Gb->20Gb->60Gb->30Gb.

It is still doing iCloud photos synching (for about a week!), so that could in some way account for the varying amount of space.
 
It's up at 50Gb now, same as with the old computer I restored from. Hopefully that's the final result after restore. Amazing how the free space can vary from 10-50GB. 50Gb out of 512Gb is not much, but I'm waiting for the Apple Silicon version of the 16" MBP. Then I think I will also go for 1Tb.
 
Just to finish up. After doing the first TM backup, I ended up with 60Gb, more than on my old computer. So, 50Gb->20Gb->60Gb->30Gb->60Gb. I have to say, when it went below 20Gb and still ticking down I started to become nervous.
 
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