Your startup disk doesn’t have to contain macOS.įor example, your Mac can boot directly into Windows if you’re using Boot Camp.

What’s a startup disk?Ī startup disk is a partition of a drive or a volume that contains a usable operating system. This tutorial will educate you on choosing a boot disk during the startup process using a feature of macOS called Startup Manager and explain why and when to use Startup Manager over selecting a startup disk in System Preferences. One involves choosing a boot disk via a System Preferences pane called Startup Disk, which my colleague Jeff recently covered. This tutorial deals with the other method which involves picking a boot disk as your Mac is starting up. There are two ways to choosing a startup disk. Well, if you like trying out new things out before they’re available to everyone, chances are you keep the latest beta of macOS installed on a separate partition.īesides, some people like yours truly prefer to keep a bootable USB thumb drive in a safe place for times when something terribly wrong goes with their Mac. But why would anyone in their right mind have multiple operating systems on their computer, you ask? If you’re not fully sure what a particular selected file is, we suggest you don’t delete it because it could cause even more damage.Most people are content with booting their Mac straight into macOS, but certain multi-boot situations warrant choosing a different startup disk. You can’t just go around deleting all large files because your computer may need some of them to work properly. ConclusionĪs you can see, freeing some space on your precious Mac is easy and intuitive, but you still need to be careful while doing so. Just click on the small “X” next to the icon of the app you want to remove and that’s it. The other way to do so is to open the Launchpad where you will find all the apps in one place and then hold down the Option key on your keyboard until all the icons start wiggling. If you want to delete an app, you just drag its icon to the Trash. If you don’t use it, why not get rid of it? Quite often people tend to keep old apps even if they don’t use them anymore, so this may also be why your Mac is so low on disk space.įor example, the often used iPhoto app is 1.1 GB large.

To free up even more disk space, you should check all the applications you have installed.

Bonus Tip – Get Rid of the Apps You Don’t Use

How to free up startup disk on mac