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I have a 500gb ssd and I have 1 container which its size is only 70gb. I can't add the remaining 430gb of storage to this container using disk utility for some reason enter image description here

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I tried adding the remaining space using terminal but it doesn't work:

diskutil list

    /dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         70.0 GB    disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +70.0 GB    disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume MacOS - Data            29.9 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 25.8 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                525.7 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      1.1 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume MacOS                   11.2 GB    disk1s5

I tried using diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

but this is what I got:

Started APFS operation
Error: -69743: The new size must be different than the existing size

also when I used

diskutil info disk0s2 | grep -e Offset -e Size

it showed I have 512 bytes of device block size but I'm not sure if that's the problem and if so, how to fix it...

Partition Offset:          430107840512 Bytes (840054376 512-Byte-Device-Blocks)
   Disk Size:                 70.0 GB (70000001024 Bytes) (exactly 136718752 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size:         512 Bytes

any help is much appreciated!

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  • help someone???
    – tal mayron
    Jun 30, 2021 at 8:43

1 Answer 1

2

The free space resides between the EFI type partition and the Apple_APFS type partition. For macOS to reclaim this free space, the APFS container would have to be first cloned to the free space. In this case, there is enough free space to accomplish this. The steps are given below.

This answer was tested using Catalina (macOS 10.15.7). For Big Sur, see this question.

This answer uses the asr restore command and verb to clone the APFS container. The default argument is --useReplication. However, this results in error messages when resizing the new APFS container. Therefore, the legacy --useInverter argument is used instead. This argument requires that all volumes in the target container must be unmounted and the source volume can not have any local snapshots in it.

  1. Delete any local snapshots. An example is given below. The output from

    tmutil listlocalshapshots /
    

    should be as follows.

    Snapshots for volume group containing disk /:
    

    If any local snapshots are listed, then enter the following command to delete these snapshots.

    tmutil deletelocalsnapshots /
    
  2. Boot from an installer for macOS Catalina. Instructions for creating an installer are given in the Apple article How to create a bootable installer for macOS. Alternatives to booting from this installer are discussed below.

    • Boot from macOS Recovery over the internet. This is an acceptable alternate provided the macOS version is Catalina. According to the Apple article How to reinstall macOS, using the Option-Command-R or the Shift-Option-Command-R key combination during startup will only boot to a Catalina version of macOS Recovery for certain Macs.

    • Boot from macOS Recovery stored in the hidden Recovery volume. For example, using the Command-R key combination during startup. In tests, this alternative appeared to work. However, when booted to macOS Recovery, the Recovery volume is mounted read-only and can not be unmounted. This leads to error messages which you will have to choose to ignore.

  3. Open the Terminal application by selecting UtilitiesTerminal from the menu bar.

  4. Verify the macOS version is 10.15.7. An example is given below. The output from

    sw_vers
    

    produced the following output.

    ProductName:    Mac OS X
    ProductVersion: 10.15.7
    BuildVersion: 19H15
    
  5. Create a new APFS container. An example is given below. The output from

    gpt show disk0 | grep -A1 C12A
    

    should be as follows.

             40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
         409640  839644736
    

    The second line of the above output provides the offset sector and sector size of the free space where the new APFS container will be created. Each value is used as an argument to the -b or -s options of the command given below. If you have different values, then make the appropriate substitutions. Enter the command below to create a new partition.

    Note: The GUID 12345678-1234-1234-1234-1234567890ab is a dummy value used to insure no new volumes are mounted until the new APFS container is created.

    gpt -f add -b 409640 -s 839644736 -t 12345678-1234-1234-1234-1234567890ab disk0
    

    The output from this command should be as follows.

    disk0s3 added
    

    Enter the command below to create the new APFS container. The identifier disk0s3 was taken from the output of the previous command. If you have a different identifier, then make the appropriate substitution when entering the command below.

    diskutil erasevolume apfs NewAPFS disk0s3
    
  6. Clone your existing Big Sur installation to the new APFS container. An example is given below. First, enter the following commands to get the device node for the MacOS and NewAPFS volumes.

    diskutil info MacOS | grep Node
    diskutil info NewAPFS | grep Node
    

    In this example, the output was

       Device Node:               /dev/disk2s5
    

    and

       Device Node:               /dev/disk25s1
    

    respectively. If you have different device nodes, then make the appropriate substitutions for the /dev entries in the remaining commands. Next, enter the following commands to unmount all volumes in the APFS containers holding the MacOS and NewAPFS volumes.

    diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk2s5
    diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk25s1
    

    The command to clone is given below. When prompted, enter y.

    asr restore --source /dev/disk2s5 --target /dev/disk25s1 --erase --useInverter
    

    An alternative to the asr command would be to use the Carbon Copy Cloner.

    Below is output from the above command.

        Validating target...done
        Validating source...done
        Erase contents of /dev/disk25 ()? [ny]: y
        Validating sizes...done
        Restoring  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
        Verifying  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
        Inverting target volume...done
        Restoring  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
        Verifying  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
        Inverting target volume...done
        Restored target device is /dev/disk25s1.
    
  7. Restart your Mac by entering the commands below.

    bless --device /dev/disk25s1 --setboot
    shutdown -r now
    
  8. Remove the original. An example is given below. The commands to enter would be as follows.

    diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0s3
    diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3
    
  9. Reclaim the free space. An example is given below. The command to enter would be as follows.

    diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0
    

 

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