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Can I delete the duplicate "Macintosh HD" under "Volumes"?

Hello Apple Community,


In trying to download the latest Monterey OS, I was informed that I only have 16 GB of storage available (out of 121 GB total). While looking for ways to free up storage, I found that by opening Finder and selecting the "Systems" and "Volumes" folder that there is a complete duplicate copy of my entire hard drive. Is this by design, or is this something I can delete by choosing "Eject Macintosh HD"? I am attaching an image of my Finder window, as well as my disk storage, if that is helpful. Thank you in advance to any of you who are willing to provide advice.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Feb 21, 2022 4:12 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 21, 2022 5:11 PM

No, do not delete it. Beginning with macOS 10.15, macOS now uses multiple APFS volumes....a read-only system volume and a read+write data volume. Each version of macOS since 10.15 has changed slightly and Apple uses slightly different "tricks" to link the various volumes together and places the mount points at slightly different locations depending on the version of macOS. Keep in mind the mount point is within a "System" folder. You usually don't want to touch anything located within a folder named "System" since it implies the contents belong to macOS.

About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina - Apple Support

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4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 21, 2022 5:11 PM in response to fullmac

No, do not delete it. Beginning with macOS 10.15, macOS now uses multiple APFS volumes....a read-only system volume and a read+write data volume. Each version of macOS since 10.15 has changed slightly and Apple uses slightly different "tricks" to link the various volumes together and places the mount points at slightly different locations depending on the version of macOS. Keep in mind the mount point is within a "System" folder. You usually don't want to touch anything located within a folder named "System" since it implies the contents belong to macOS.

About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina - Apple Support

Feb 21, 2022 5:40 PM in response to HWTech

HWTech wrote:

No, do not delete it. Beginning with macOS 10.15, macOS now uses multiple APFS volumes....a read-only system volume and a read+write data volume. Each version of macOS since 10.15 has changed slightly and Apple uses slightly different "tricks" to link the various volumes together and places the mount points at slightly different locations depending on the version of macOS. Keep in mind the mount point is within a "System" folder. You usually don't want to touch anything located within a folder named "System" since it implies the contents belong to macOS.
About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina - Apple Support

Seconded.


OP, the "Macintosh HD" volume that appears in /System/Volumes is actually your Data volume. It is where all of your apps, settings and files are stored.


For context, in macOS Catalina and later, your Mac uses two important volumes: the read-only System volume (Macintosh HD, the root volume), and the writeable Data volume (Macintosh HD - Data, mounted at /System/Volumes/Data). These two volumes are linked together in a volume group, and firmlinks (bi-directional wormholes) intertwine the two volumes together.


When you use the Finder, it presents a unified view of the two volumes, and shows their merged contents. If you want to see a good example of the Finder's magic at work, check the system-wide Applications folder. It contains both the preinstalled apps (located in /System/Applications) and your third-party apps (located in /System/Volumes/Data/Applications).

Feb 22, 2022 7:22 AM in response to fullmac

MacOS itself contains over 350,000 files. This means that the way to increase free space is to use a process I call "Boat-Anchor Analysis" (a highly technical term :-) Specifically, you are looking for files the size of a boat-anchor, and dealing with only those files, which will have the most impact on free space. This article has some good suggestions:


What is “Other” storage on a Mac, and how… - Apple Community


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Can I delete the duplicate "Macintosh HD" under "Volumes"?

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