Question or issue on macOS:

Go to Startup Disk and select your Mac’s hard drive, which is usually called ‘Macintosh HD.’. Click Restart and wait for your Mac to reboot. It should boot up normally, breaking you out of the macOS update loop. Now you can follow these tips to free up enough space for the macOS update. Single-user mode. Turn on your Mac, then immediately press and hold Command-R to start up from macOS Recovery. Select Disk Utility from the Utilities window, then click Continue. From the Disk Utility sidebar, select the volume that you're using, then choose File Mount from the menu bar.

I’m using the Mac OS to install the XCode10.1.

I have 18.43GB free disk space in the mac,

but when I click the install button on the Xcode from the app store,

it’s always show the “Not enough storage disk space, you can’t install the product” alert message.

How to fix the problem in the MacOS Mojave(10.14.1)?

Thank you very much.

How to solve this problem?

Solution no. 1:

What you can also do is manually download Xcode and install it.
(Without using the app store update)
Therefor do the following steps:

  1. go to https://developer.apple.com/download/more/
  2. search for Xcode (or latest version e.g Xcode 10.2) and manually download and install it.

See also this post here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8622103?answerId=250008933022#250008933022

Solution no. 2:

Check the “purgeable” space of your APFS disk with Disk Utilities..
It seems Finder count this space in free space, but not App Store..

But you can trick macOS to clean up APFS by creating a huge garbage file, then deleting it.

Free disk space windows xp

To create the file I used the command:

letting dd run for about 30 seconds, then killing it with ctrl+c, and deleting the file:

Then App Store happily installed update..

Solution no. 3:

  1. Open finder: in menu above go to -> Go to folder:

    ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/

  2. Delete old simulator files on:

    ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/iOS DeviceSupport/

  3. Delete all files derived data on:

    ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData

An easy way to accomplish these is by using DevCleaner for Xcode: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/devcleaner/id1388020431?mt=12

Solution no. 4:

I had 52 GB available (39 GB purgeable), but the stupid Mac App Store in macOS 10.14.4 still said it had not enough free space to complete my purchase of Xcode 10.2, even after a restart. Solution:

  • Quit the Mac App Store.
  • Delete directory ~/Library/Caches/storedownloadd
  • Relaunch Mac App Store.

Word Error Not Enough Memory

My Xcode “purchase” then worked on the first try.

For the curious: At the time I deleted that directory, it did not contain any app downloads. It only contained a tiny (85 KB) SQLite database (.db, -shm and -wal files), which in turn contained four SQLite tables, three of which had zero rows and one of which had only one row and one column containing the schema version number! So this is apparently some weird bug in Mac App Store.

Solution no. 5:

Trying to update to xcode 11.3.1 today, was in the problem like this. However, I can confirm that the download starts right after free space reaches 24GB as per some of the comments above.

I did the following:
– remove ~/Library/Caches/storedownloadd
– remove ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/iOS DeviceSupport/
– remove some files inside ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData
– remove other unused files

Solution no. 6:

the problem with time machine!
please remove old snapshoots

etc

Solution no. 7:

Space

I had the same problem (also a 120gb ssd), but 18gb is still not enough to install Xcode.

See this post:
https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/30235

Solution no. 8:

The same here for Xcode 11.2.
It is mandatory to have at least 28GB free.

removing different directories such us, caches, .eclipse, .julia directories to free up.

UPDATE: 24GB with lastest version: 11.2.1

Solution no. 9:

There Is Not Enough Disk Space Error

  1. Quit App Store
  2. Delete both storedownloadd and storeassetd from ~/Library/Caches/
  3. Relaunch App Store
  4. Try again

The above steps resolved the issue for me.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)

macOS Mojave
Version 10.14.6 (18G87)

Solution no. 10:

this command works perfectly, it removed AFPS snapshots

Got the reference from this forum

Hope this helps!

Most of us are keen to update to a new version of macOS as soon as it is available. macOS Big Sur has been out since November 12, still, many users couldn't update their Macs straight away. It’s very frustrating if you see a message telling you that you don’t have enough space to install the new macOS. Don’t worry, though. There are lots of things you can do to fix it. We’ll show you what they are in this article.

How much space do you need for Big Sur?

While the installer for Big Sur takes up less than 16GB of space, you should make sure that you have at least 20GB of free space on your startup disk before you try to download and install it. The more free space, the better. Your Mac uses disk space to store temporary files and provide storage for active apps and tasks (which is what RAM does), so you should never be running with almost no disk space left.

CleanMyMac X makes it very easy to free up disk space on your Mac by identifying junk files and allowing you to get rid of them with a click. It can also detect large and old files and show you the files taking up most space and uninstall applications.

How to free up space for macOS Big Sur?

Complete the following steps to ensure your Mac is ready to update to Big Sur.

1. Backup your Mac

Back up all files and data that are stored on your Mac. Preferably twice to different locations. While upgrading to Big Sur is safe, you never know when something might go wrong. If you use Time Machine or another backup tool, run a manual backup just before you upgrade. And, if you can, clone your startup disk to an external drive, too.

2. Free up disk space using CleanMyMac X

How To Free Disk Space On Mac

If you don’t already have CleanMyMac X installed, download it for free here. This tool will help you clear some space and delete large and old files quickly.

  1. Launch CleanMyMac X.
  2. Choose System Junk in the sidebar and press Scan.
  3. When it’s finished, press Clean to free up space, or Review Details to find out more.

3. Get rid of large and old files

Media files usually gobble up a large amount of disk space. And the worst thing is they are scattered around Mac’s folders, making it difficult to find and remove them. CleanMyMac X proves to be useful here:

  • Choose Large & Old files in CleanMyMac X’s sidebar.
  • Press Scan.
  • When it’s finished, use the middle column to filter files by type.
  • Check files that you want to delete.
  • Press Remove.

4. Use Apple’s built-in storage management tool

Apple has provided a method for you to manage storage by showing you what is taking up disk space and making recommendations for deleting. It’s not as quick and easy as CleanMyMac X, but it can help you save disk space. Here’s how to use it.

  1. Click on the Apple menu and choose About this Mac.
  2. Select Storage and press Manage.
  3. In the Recommendations section, review each section in turn.
  4. Now go through each of the sections in the sidebar.
  5. Delete files or take further action, depending on what you choose.

5. Delete local Time Machine snapshots

There is one other thing you can try if you keep getting a message telling you that you do not have enough space to install Big Sur. You should only try it if you are sure there is enough space on your startup disk and that the message is wrong. And it will only work if you use Time Machine to back up your Mac.

Time Machine stores local snapshots on your Mac. Your Mac is supposed to count the space used by snapshots as free space, which is why it looks like you have enough space for the installation.

However, it seems that the installer may not realize the space is free. The solution is to delete the snapshots. This won’t remove backups on your backup disk, just snapshots on your Mac.


Open Time Machine from System Preferences. Uncheck Back Up Automatically and wait some time till Time Machine deletes snapshots. Then you can turn Time Machine back on.

Free Disk Space Downloads

If you’re familiar with Terminal, you can try deleting local snapshots manually.

  1. Go to Applications > Utilities and launch Terminal.
  2. Type: tmutil listlocalsnapshots /
  3. You will see a list of snapshots that look like this: com.apple.TimeMachine.2020-10–09-002010.local
  4. To delete a snapshot, type: sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots
  5. Then type the date part of the snapshot name. For example: sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2020-10–09-002010
  6. Type Return and repeat for each snapshot you want to delete.

Disk Does Not Have Enough Free Space Mac

Hopefully, this helped you free up some space and update your Mac to the latest OS. If you're just preparing your Mac for the upgrade, don't forget to back up your data before you start clearing space. So you won't be afraid of losing anything important.