I'm running on 3GB of free space out of 120GB and I keep getting notifications that my storage is low. How much free space do I need on my Mac to stop receiving these notifications? I'm running on Mojave 10.14.6....
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.14
3 Gb is way below the minimum for a reliable running Mac. It is advised to keep 15%-20% free space. For you that would be about 20 GB, and 25-30 GB would be much better. When the MacOS notifies you that storage is getting low it is far below those guidelines.
One problem is that disk space is needed for virtual memory and paging to disk and when this cannot be done, the Mac can slow done dramatically, or worst case, freeze into an unbootable state. This is usually disastrous when it happens.
I would make a good backup (Time Machine) immediately.
You should obtain an external drive and move files such as Photo libraries and music files or other large folders and files (movies etc.) to the external drive.
120 GB is minimal amount and not suitable for much of anything besides simple web browsing or email.
3 Gb is way below the minimum for a reliable running Mac. It is advised to keep 15%-20% free space. For you that would be about 20 GB, and 25-30 GB would be much better. When the MacOS notifies you that storage is getting low it is far below those guidelines.
One problem is that disk space is needed for virtual memory and paging to disk and when this cannot be done, the Mac can slow done dramatically, or worst case, freeze into an unbootable state. This is usually disastrous when it happens.
I would make a good backup (Time Machine) immediately.
You should obtain an external drive and move files such as Photo libraries and music files or other large folders and files (movies etc.) to the external drive.
120 GB is minimal amount and not suitable for much of anything besides simple web browsing or email.
It is suggested to keep at least 15% to 20% of the Drive Total Capacity as Empty Space for good operations of the computer.
In this specific case that would be between 18 GB to 24 GB of empty space
Running the computer with only 3 GB of empty Space will tax the performance as it attempts to find empty space to save changes to the computer.
That will degrade performance greatly.
Further, if left unattended to, the computer may eventually cease to Boot Up at all
Manage Storage
Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac
Or Force a Reindex via Terminal Command “ sudo tmutil -E / “ without Quotation Marks
What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how can I clean it out?
Free up storage space on your Mac
How to delete Time Machine snapshots on your Mac
See used and available storage space on your Mac
Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
Notation - If the user is using a cloning software like Carbon Copy Cloner - suggest tweaking the Safety Net Feature in this software. It may be making additional Snap Shots that are not being Cloned to the Eternal Drive. If this should be the case, these Snap Shot could be using additional space on the drive
The final word from Apple on Managing the " Other/ System Data “ Category
Other / System Data: Contains files that don’t fall into the categories listed here. This category primarily includes files and data used by the system, such as log files, caches, VM files, and other runtime system resources. Also included are temporary files, fonts, app support files, and plug-ins. You can't manage the contents of this category. The contents are managed by macOS, and the category varies in size depending on the current state of your Mac.
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Stop Storage Notifications
