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I am running macOS Big Sur 11.5.2 and I am trying to partition my internal hard drive so I can Dual-Boot PopOS, which is a linux distro. However, I am having problems with partitioning my internal ssd.

Disk Utility says my internal hard drive can't be split. I have cleared my hard drive to have about 55 gb free and I will be clearing it further.

System Information shows this:

enter image description here

53.97 GB available of 121.12 GB

Disk Utility Shows This:

enter image description here

This container has 107.88 GB used space. Its minimum size is 121.12 GB. This container can’t be split, because the resulting containers would be too small.

It also has all the add, minus, and partition buttons disabled. I have tried recovery mode, but it shows the same thing. I need macOS for XCode and the Adobe Suite as they are not available on linux.

Sorry If I did something wrong, this is my first question on stack exchange.

EDIT:

@Jean_JD asked me to include the output of disk util list internal

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI ⁨EFI⁩                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS ⁨Container disk1⁩         121.1 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +121.1 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume ⁨Macintosh HD - Data⁩     50.4 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume ⁨Preboot⁩                 591.7 MB   disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume ⁨Recovery⁩                626.4 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume ⁨VM⁩                      1.1 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume ⁨MacBookLS⁩               15.3 GB    disk1s5
   6:              APFS Snapshot ⁨com.apple.os.update-...⁩ 15.3 GB    disk1s5s1
theamazing0
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  • Welcome ;-} Can you add to your question the results of terminal command : diskutil list internal ? –  Oct 03 '21 at 14:27
  • @Jean_JD I added – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 14:33
  • Also I forgot To Include, I already have linux installed on an external hard drive, I'm trying to install it on my internal rn – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 14:34
  • What size do you want for Linux? –  Oct 03 '21 at 14:57
  • You will want to shrink your container disk0s2 after making sure you have everything backed up. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/370205/370gb-unused-but-cannot-shrink-apfs-container – bmike Oct 03 '21 at 14:59
  • @Jean_JD I'm thinking about 60-70 GB but I'm still clearing up my installation. I just wanted to post this question rn bcus then I'll be ready when I have enough free space – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:01
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    120GB is barely enough space for macOS, many run out of free space and struggle to update macOS. Adobe takes a lot of space. But try selecting the container volume not the physical disk and reduce the size. In Disk Utility - View - Show all devices. Highlight the container and reduce it. – James Brickley Oct 03 '21 at 15:07
  • I think your disk is too small for the operation. 40 or 50 Go is the extreme limit for a Mac os x installation. You may not be able to update Mac Os X in the future. The solution would be to use an external Thunderbolt 3 SSD (if your Mac allows it) to install Linux and leave the 128 GB of the internal SSD for Mac Os X –  Oct 03 '21 at 15:08
  • @Jean_JD I already have an external linux installation running, I'm trying to get linux on my internal for portability. I'm considering installing macOS on an external drive and installing linux fully on my internal tho. – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:13
  • @JamesBrickley Yeah I agree, thats one of the reasons I'm trying to switch to linux. Oh wait I just tryed selecting "Container Disk 1" and now it says to make a volume or partition, which should I do? – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:15
  • I would copy disk1s1 content to an external and then delete the user folder. You can have Macos change the home folder location to your external, then shrinking the container will be very easy. You only need 20 GB for BigSur and possibly less internally in my experience – bmike Oct 03 '21 at 15:21
  • @bmike You all are right about the part where macOS takes a lot of space. I've removed like everything and I'm still struggling for space. So do you mean I should Move my Home Folder To An External Drive And Then change it from my internal to the external? – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:29
  • @theamazing0 It's a solution to have Mac os X on external disk. What is the exact model of Mac? Intel I suppose. Carbon Copy Cloner is the best way to clone your installation on SSD external. However your internal EFI partition must exist for any updates to the firmware of the mac. I think Linux use this EFI partition too. Good luck. –  Oct 03 '21 at 15:30
  • @Jean_JD thats what I'm coming to aswell, I have a MacBookAir7,2 which an Intel Model from 2017. It only has USB-A ports tho. I have no reason to clone my internal to external, I can just install a fresh copy on external, only part I would be worried about doing that would be removing the macos partition from the internal. – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:32
  • To Be Exact On The Specs I have 8gb of RAM, 128GB Internal Hard Drive Storage, and 2.2 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 Proccesser – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:37
  • Yeah, just do an erase install. You got this! – bmike Oct 03 '21 at 15:38
  • Having never installed Linux other than in a virtual machine through Parallels, I couldn't help you on this part. Can be viewed on the Linux forums. On the other hand, it is necessary to remember to keep the EFI partition which is essential for possible updates of the Mac's firmware, even if it is installed on an external drive. Another thing, the USB interface is slower than Thunderbolt and does not allow the TRIM function to be activated. Normally you have a Thunderbolt 2 connector on this Mac, but the difficulty is to find a box of this type. –  Oct 03 '21 at 15:41
  • @Jean_JD Yeah, Linux Runs Decently tho and I don't need a top notch install so I'm just going to try an install. – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:43
  • The command which will tell you how much you can shrink the APFS container is diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 limits. – David Anderson Oct 03 '21 at 16:31

1 Answers1

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In the abstract, use the resizeContainer verb with diskutil to deny some portion of of your 128 GB of space from the APFS storage and then have it exclusively accessible for EFI boot process.

You can see that this causes many people trouble later, so running a virtual Unix OS is my recommendation with a boot drive that small. U less you go bare bones on the macOS side, many people paint themselves in a corner if they aren’t ready to erase everything and restore regularly as they learn disk management.

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 80G

The resize operation is safe and will give you an error if it can not comply with the request. If you need to grow it back to 120 that’s easy as well.

If you’re already backed up the fastest way forward is to do an erase install from recovery. Then you will have a very clean slate to carve out the majority of your space for Linux.

The above resize command could be as small as 40 GB or lower, but start with 80 and then shrink more as needed.

bmike
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  • I looked at your comment on the question box thingy (I don't know what its called) and I saw the command that they ran. Should I run it in Recovery Mode or In Normal Macos? Also, Is there a chance this might mess up recovery mode? I don't have anything important in macos but I dont want to loose recovery mode. – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:04
  • It’s safe to experiment with resizing containers on a live system @theamazing0 it’s the next steps that cause data loss in my experience, but getting the container the right size is safe – bmike Oct 03 '21 at 15:07
  • I saw your edit, I agree that its small but I only have 8gb ram so virtual would be pretty laggy. However, I am ok with going bare bones with macos, I only need a place for it to run from. I will have iMovie, Davnci, and Creative Cloud all installed on my external drive. – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:09
  • so by the next steps do you mean installing linux thru the installer or is there something else I will have to do? – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:10
  • Let's not ask follow on questions in comments - let's get you an accepted answer on how to free up space, then you can ask an entirely new question here. As you see - related questions get linked. You will need to be able to resize the container and "get" how apfs works first in my eyes. You are confusing disk storage with RAM in the comments - so that might need a different question as well. – bmike Oct 03 '21 at 15:13
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    ok i see. I know the difference between RAM and storage, I probably just typed the comment wrong. Another person seems to have posted a gui alternative to what you posted so I'm just going to see what they mean and then I'll select a question as correct. Thank You For Helping Me Out Though! – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:20
  • I love how you are thinking! Seriously glad you found the site :) just get a good backup of your data and know how long it takes to restore it. That will free you to learn and make mistakes and not lose pictures and documents in the process to add stress – bmike Oct 03 '21 at 15:22
  • I'm not really worried about any data because I can install everything I need in about 3 days (I tested this by installing linux on the external) and all my files are in the cloud. It's just the part where I might mess up something and remove the recovery partition or something like that. – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 15:34
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    I followed your answer partitally, but when I ran a reinstall of macos the original problem fixed itself and I was able to use the gui, I'm going to go ahead and mark yours as correct. – theamazing0 Oct 03 '21 at 21:27
  • Well done. Feel free to edit my answers to your question to make them more correct @theamazing0 super happy you can try a new OS running on bare metal – bmike Oct 03 '21 at 21:31