6 Fixes for "Not Enough Space to Install macOS Tahoe" Error

As macOS 26 Tahoe is set to release, many macOS enthusiasts seek to update to the macOS beta to experience its new features. While you’re about to upgrade to macOS Tahoe, you keep receiving a message saying that your Mac doesn't have enough free disk space to finish the task.

This may happen even if you have enough available disk space on your device. In this guide, we’ll work together to explore the reasons behind the issue and resolve the “not enough disk space to install macOS Tahoe” error and push the update through.

How Much Space Is Needed to Install macOS Tahoe?

You need at least 60 GB of free disk space to install macOS Tahoe. According to the installation guide of GEEKrar, you need to have approximately 15-20 GB to complete installing the program. However, you require more space for temporary files, including the installer itself. That’s why you fail to install the macOS Tahoe even if there is around 20 GB of free space on your device.

Apart from that, Apple Support Community members also mentioned that system data and macOS itself sometimes may occupy more than 58.34GB of storage space. In terms of this, they recommend you ensure that there is at least 60GB of available storage space before upgrading to macOS 26. This will avoid installation failure due to insufficient space.

How to Fix "There Is Not Enough Space to Install macOS Tahoe" Error on Your Mac

In this part, we’ll demonstrate how to clear space for installing macOS Tahoe. You can either use the Mac cleaning tool BuhoCleaner or manually delete the files one by one.

1. Free Up Disk Space in One Click

To get more internal storage space on your Mac, you can give BuhoCleaner a try. This professional Mac cleaning tool helps you scan, check, and remove various unnecessary files on your Mac in one click, so that you don’t have to spend much time locating them in different folders.

When using BuhoCleaner to free up storage space for installing macOS Tahoe, you can delete the following types of files：

• System caches and logs that have accumulated over time
• Application caches and temporary files
• Browser caches and temporary files
• Duplicated or other junk files that you might have overlooked
• Large files, such as large downloads, media files, and others
• Applications and widgets that take up too much internal space, or you don’t need any more
• Residual files of uninstalled applications
• DMG files

Here is how to use BuhoCleaner to free up storage space on your Mac.

Step 1. Free download, install, and open BuhoCleaner on your computer.

Step 2. Choose the Flash Clean mode, click the files you want to remove. You can also sort by size.

Step 3. Tap on the Remove button to initiate the process.

If you don’t want to rely on a Mac cleaning tool to delete unwanted files or applications, you can also locate and remove them manually on your own. Nevertheless, as these files come from your operating system and applications folders, you may spend a large amount of time deleting them one by one. Read on for details.

2. Delete Unwanted Apps

It’s time to check the rarely-used applications on your Mac. This software can take up a lot of system resources, and a large number of background processes may also consume your internal space.

1. Open Finder and click the "Applications" folder.
2. Drag any applications you no longer use to the Trash.
3. Click the "Go" menu in Finder and select the "Go to Folder..." option.
4. Paste ~/Library into the search box and press "Return".
5. Navigate to folders like Caches, Application Support, and Containers to find and delete the files associated with the app you deleted.
6. Once done, empty your Trash.

For more details, refer to How to Completely Uninstall Apps on Mac.

3. Remove Large Files and Duplicates

Over time, your storage can become messy with large files such as high-resolution photos, videos, or other media files. These files, along with their duplicate files, can take up a substantial amount of internal space. To create new room for the latest maoOS Tahoe files, you can identify and delete these files.

1. Navigate to Documents, Downloads, and Desktop folders.
2. Find and delete big folders or files that you no longer need.

4. Clean Up System Files

System files such as log files, temporary files, and caches also accumulate and take up valuable storage on your Mac. Your apps and system usually create these files to facilitate functionality. However, you can safely delete them if you don't need them anymore. By deleting these files, not only can you free up space for installing the new system, but you can also enhance the overall performance of your computer.

1. Open Applications, Utilities, and Terminal.
2. Enter and run the command: sudo purge to clear out system caches and temporary files. This requires administrative privileges.

5. Delete Old Backups

You can significantly increase available disk space on your Mac by deleting old backups on your computer, as you may have created several backups via Finder.

Some backups are used for data recovery, while others may no longer be needed. By deleting old backups, you can free up internal space and create room for new installations.

1. Open Finder.
2. Go to the menu bar and click "Go" > "Go to Folder…".
3. Enter the path ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/.
4. You will see folders with long strings of letters and numbers. Each folder represents a backup.
5. Select the backups you don't want and move them to the Trash.

6. Empty the Trash

This step is quite necessary. If you don't do it, files moved to the Trash are still stored on your Mac drive, taking up your valuable storage space.

To free up disk space manually on your Mac,

1. Control-click on the Trash icon in the Dock.
2. Select the “Empty Trash” option to permanently delete the files in the Trash.

What to Do if Your Mac Still Doesn’t Have Enough Storage Space?

If your Mac still doesn’t have enough disk space and there are no more files to delete, you can use an alternative method to install macOS Tahoe. This involves using an external drive with sufficient space.

Here's how to install macOS on an external drive:

1. Connect a USB flash drive or an external hard drive with at least 60GB of storage to your Mac.
2. Launch “Disk Utility” and select the external drive from the sidebar.
3. Click on the “Erase” tab, choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” and “GUID Partition Map”, and click the “Erase” button to format the drive.
4. Download the macOS Tahoe installer from the Mac App Store (if available) or a third-party source.
5. Open “Terminal” and use the “createinstallmedia” command to create a bootable macOS installer on the external drive. The command format is: sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Tahoe.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/YourDriveName
6. Replace YourDriveName with the name of your external drive.
7. When the macOS Tahoe bootable installer is ready, restart your Mac while holding down the “Option” key.
8. When you see the Startup Manager windows, select your external drive.
9. Follow the instructions to install macOS Tahoe on the external drive.

Conclusion

If you want to upgrade to macOS Tahoe 26, ensure you have up to 60GB of free disk space on your Mac. If it says you don’t have enough free disk space to finish the task, use BuhoCleaner to delete unwanted files and applications with one simple click.

Also, you can locate these files or apps manually, but it can take a lot of time to do this. Alternatively, you can install the macOS Tahoe on another external hard drive, but this requires complex steps and patience.