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Disk Utility

Explainer: Storage settings

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It was notorious for its crashes and reporting discrepancies, but now it’s incorporated in System Settings it’s more reliable and helpful. But there’s still the problem of System Data.

December 20, 2025 Macs, Technology

What to do when APFS has problems

First Aid in Disk Utility, or running fsck_apfs in Terminal, return warnings or errors on one of your Mac’s volumes. Here’s what to do next.

October 7, 2025 Macs, Technology

Why did that macOS upgrade take so much space?

Why upgrading to Tahoe shouldn’t consume the last free space on your Mac’s SSD, and once it has settled should use little more than currently. How to clear out old snapshots and reduce System Data.

October 2, 2025 Macs, Technology

Beware the full startup disk

What do you do when you discover your Mac’s Data volume has run out of free space? A guide to working with snapshots, iCloud Drive, and other tricks to salvage your Mac. And how to prevent this from happening again.

July 24, 2025 Macs, Technology

When and how should you run First Aid in Disk Utility?

Should you run First Aid on your Data volume before updating macOS, or as routine housekeeping? And how should you run it?

June 17, 2025 Macs, Technology

macOS Tahoe brings a new disk image format

ASIF disk images are new in Tahoe, and promise to be space efficient, as they’re sparse files, and almost as fast as the disk they’re stored on. Ideal for VMs and general use.

June 12, 2025 Macs, Technology

Save space on the internal SSD by adding another volume

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If you’ve got large files like Virtual Machines or media libraries on the Data volume on your Mac’s internal SSD, use this method to keep the size of its snapshots smaller.

May 28, 2025 Macs, Technology

A brief history of disk images on the Mac

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From their use to replicate floppy disks in manufacture, to their key roles in macOS, for distribution of software, and on network servers to contain backups. Unglamorous but essential.

April 5, 2025 Macs, Technology

Last Week on My Mac: Giving a fsck

What disk checks are made in Safe mode? How are they different from those run during normal startup? If Disk Utility is to be our only APFS repair tool, shouldn’t have more and better features?

March 23, 2025 Macs, Technology

Friday Magic: How to make disk space unpurgeable

When it started up after its macOS update, available space on its internal SSD had shot from about 160 GB to nearly 400 GB. Where had all my files gone?

February 28, 2025 Macs, Technology

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