macOS 15.1 using excessive and usual amounts of disk space, brings system to its knees, and have to reboot

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macOS 15.1 using excessive and usual amounts of disk space, brings system to its knees, and have to reboot

Hi there,

I have this same issue on my Macbook Air M1 and Mac Mini M1.

After some time (some hours, perhaps a day) all available disk space gets used up by something. I eventually get warnings that the drive is nearly full, and various applications etc. stop working or shut down due to too little disk space.

If I reboot the computers, the space is available again.

On my MBA, which is where I first noticed this, there will be around 40 GB free space on start-up, and then after some time it will reduce to a couple of GB and the system starts alerting me there's not enough space. I restart and the free space is recovered. At first I though perhaps an app, such as the browser (Chrome) had a bug and was storing a lot of data on the drive. I was jumping to loose conclusions because Chrome is the app that uses the most memory (as I am often working with a lot of windows and tabs), and generally is responsible for my computer coming to a halt due to lack of memory).

Today I discovered the Mac Mini has the same issue. I have around 38GB of space on start-up. After leaving the computer running (without me doing anything on it, it's just on in the background as I mostly use my MBA), it will eventually grind to a halt with only a couple of GB of free space remaining.

This is when I realised it must be an OS issue.

Searching online, I found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/1dj9agb/macos_15_system_data_taking_up_too_much_storage/

It seems to me other people are experiencing the same thing. Some have said it's due to macOS scanning the system for AI purposes.

If that is the case, how do I disable this feature? I have no need for AI features in macOS.

Or is it something else in 15.1 that does this?

Thanks.

Jonathan

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.1

Posted on Nov 22, 2024 10:40 AM

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Answer 1

etresoft

Level 9

51,144 points

Nov 22, 2024 11:00 AM in response to InspiredLife

InspiredLife wrote:

On my MBA, which is where I first noticed this, there will be around 40 GB free space on start-up

...

the Mac Mini has the same issue. I have around 38GB of space on start-up.

Those hard drives are full. You seem to have discovered the bare minimum amount of free space required just to boot the operating system. It's probably correlated to the amount of physical RAM installed.

But regardless, the hard drives are full. You'll need to delete files on both systems. An absolute, bare minimum for normal operation is 100 GB of free space. Note that I said "free" space. There are very few places where the operating system will tell you that. In most cases, it tells you "available" space, which is just a fantasy.

Speaking of which, if you didn't already know that, then perhaps you don't even have 38-40 GB of free space. Maybe you 0-2 GB of free space. 😄

If you Disk Utility, it will tell you the actual level of free space on the hard drive. Any other display that the operating system tells you is a lie.

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