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I need to update my laptop to Big Sur and it keeps saying I have too much on my laptop. The biggest thing I have are my photos. If my photos are loaded in iCloud can I delete them off my laptop? I can't find what is taking up all my space. I've gone through and deleted so many things and still can't update for lack of space. Help?
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15
iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See: Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support
Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.
For Big Sur, see the following from How to upgrade to macOS Big Sur - Apple Support
If upgrading from macOS Sierra or later, macOS Big Sur requires 35.5GB of available storage to upgrade. If upgrading from an earlier release, macOS Big Sur requires up to 44.5GB of available storage.
And the following may help: How to free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support
iCloud Photos is a syncing service. Any photo you delete from a device where iCloud Photos is turned on will also be deleted from iCloud and from any other device connected to iCloud Photos. You can potentially reduce the storage space required on a device by turning on Optimize Storage. See: Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support
Apple does not currently offer cloud-only storage for photos. If that is what you want or need, you may want to explore 3rd party options such as Google Photos or Dropbox.
For Big Sur, see the following from How to upgrade to macOS Big Sur - Apple Support
If upgrading from macOS Sierra or later, macOS Big Sur requires 35.5GB of available storage to upgrade. If upgrading from an earlier release, macOS Big Sur requires up to 44.5GB of available storage.
And the following may help: How to free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support
Well I went in and deleted everything that could possibly be deleted. The thing is I don't have that much on here. This wasn't my main computer for many many years. It's just since my divorce that this is my only computer.
After I deleted EVERYTHING that wasn't tacked down it says I have 36.14 GB available and I need another 155MB extra for this update. Help? What could I be missing? (I did load all my photos on a Photo Stick but I've been too chicken to delete them off my computer.) But it says my photos are only taking up 3.16 GB.
You will need to erase/delete more things. You have to remember that your hard drive is more than just storage - it is also the place where the OS and system files are and they need empty space to function properly. So, you may only need a few more MB for your install, but you also need a minimum of another 10 - 15 GB of empty space at all times.
So, you need to weed out your videos, movies and other files. If you have a smallish internal drive, you should get a good quality external drive to store your stuff on. A "photo stick" is low quality and not reliable - it may fail at any time. So, get a decent external drive and move all of your photos and other files to it. Than you can delete them off your internal drive. And don't forget to empty the trash.
Can I access the info in iCloud storage and delete part of it? Also once my photos are in iCloud can they be deleted off of my phone?
