External SSD or hard drive for your Mac: pick by what you are storing, not by price alone
Hard drives are cheaper per terabyte, SSDs are faster and tougher. Which to buy for Time Machine, photo archives, video editing or running apps.
730 guides
Mac storage, explained.
What fills your disk, where it hides, and what is safe to remove. Every guide gives you a way to check it on your own Mac.
Running apps from an external drive: what works, what breaks, and what to move instead
Many Mac apps run fine from an external SSD, but App Store apps and anything with a helper may not. What to move, what to leave, and where the real space is.
Moving your whole home folder to an external drive: possible, but here is the safer way
macOS lets you point your account at a home folder on another drive. It works, but unplug the drive and your account breaks. What to move instead.
Moving your Music library to an external drive without losing playlists or play counts
A music collection from the iTunes years can be 50 GB or more. How to move the media to an external drive and keep the Music app working with it.
A base Mac mini with 256 GB: the external SSD setup that makes it feel like 2 TB
The entry Mac mini is fast and small on storage. How to pair it with an external SSD, what to move there, and what should stay on the internal disk.
How much storage do you need on a MacBook? Work it out from what you have now
Do not guess from the price list. Measure what your current computer holds, add for growth, and pick the size that leaves 20 percent free after three years.
256 GB or 512 GB Mac? The question is where your photos and projects will live
The 256 GB Mac is fine if your large files live elsewhere and tight if they do not. How to tell which kind of user you are before you pay for the upgrade.
Can you upgrade the storage in your Mac? The honest answer, and what to do instead
Current Macs cannot have their internal storage upgraded. What you can do: external drives, moving libraries, iCloud, and which older Macs are the exception.
Your 256 GB Mac says 245 GB: where the missing space went
A new Mac never shows its full advertised size. How much goes to recovery and system partitions, how much to macOS, and how to see each piece for yourself.
A 128 GB Mac that is always full: a setup that keeps it working
Older MacBook Airs and Mac minis shipped with 128 GB. What fills one, the settings that matter most, and how to keep 20 GB free without constant clearing.
Four ways to check how much storage your Mac has left, and which one to trust
System Settings, Finder, Disk Utility and Terminal each show storage differently. Where to find each one, why their numbers disagree, and which is right.
Finder shows two dashes instead of folder sizes: the setting that turns them on
Finder hides folder sizes in list view by default. How to turn on Calculate all sizes, why it is slow on big folders, and faster ways to see what is large.