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This question is about macOS BigSur 11.6.1 w/ Boot Camp Windows 10.

The HDD was partitioned for macOS and Windows 10. Since the macOS upgrade to 12/13 needs bigger size, I resized the Windows partition and spared 20GB in order to combine this unformatted partition into macOS.

While trying Disk Utility, I cannot find an option to combine that partition to macOS (APFS container + volume).

Would it possible to do this with Disk Utility or do I have to use command line? Or would it be better to do this in Windows using e.g. mini tools? I am concerned whether this software can successfully recognize/resize the macOS APFS container system.

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  • NEVER play around with partitions on the Windows side!
    – X_841
    Nov 2, 2022 at 15:33
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    Please add the output of diskutil list to your question. Be sure to use code tags. At the moment it's not clear what partitions are on your disk. The order they are present on the disk will determine what can be expanded, and how.
    – Andy Griffiths
    Nov 2, 2022 at 16:06
  • Normally, diskutil list should show disk0 has three partitions followed by free space. The partitions should be EFI, Apple_APFS and Microsoft Basic Data, in that order.
    – David Anderson
    Nov 2, 2022 at 17:26
  • thank you all for your comments, I finally did it as following: 1. Resize with mini tool but shift the left bar to right and resize the W partition, then restart & apply. again restart to macOS, Disk U saw the unallocated space, and expanded. Now I got upgrade to Monterey. /BR
    – Gustaf
    Nov 3, 2022 at 9:56

1 Answer 1

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If you used a Big Sur version of the Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows 10 on your Mac, then Windows 10 was installed to UEFI boot. This is based on the information given in following Apple websites.

Basically, you need to move the free space to occur before the Windows partition.

Note: The answer below applies to Macs which UEFI boot Windows. If you have an older Mac which legacy BIOS boots Windows, then you should should not use the answer below.

Your question is basically a duplicate of the question Missing around 20 GB of Space on MacBook, at least in terms of a solution.

To add the remaining free space back to the partition containing macOS, the partition containing Windows would have to be first moved to the end of the drive. There are third party tools that can move Windows partitions. However, not all are compatible with macOS. According to the other post, there are two possible compatible free tools available. These tools are outlined below.

  • GNOME Partition Editor (GParted). A Linux based bootable USB flash drive can be created containing this tool. After booting from the flash drive, the GParted tool can be used to move the Windows partition. If you build the bootable USB flash drive using the zip file downloaded from GParted, then both a keyboard and a mouse (or similar device) is required. One disadvantage is the keyboard and/or mouse may be need to be wired to use this tool. However, if you can boot from a Ubuntu installer flash drive, then only use of a mouse is required. One advantage is this tool does not have to be installed into Windows.

  • MiniTool Partition Wizard. This tool is installed into Windows. To move Windows, the Mac reboots and performs the move without user interaction. One advantage is any existing keyboard and mouse (or similar device) can be used. One disadvantage is this tool has to be installed in Windows and therefore will still exist on the drive after you are finished moving Windows.

Note: Before attempting to move the Windows partition, the Windows chkdsk command should be applied to the NTFS volume in this partition. This can be accomplish by booting to Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and entering the command below.

chkdsk c: /f

Once Windows is moved, the command below can be used to add the free space to the macOS partition (disk0s2).

diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0

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  • Thanks! I don't have the credit to upvote your reply thus just select yours as solution. As comment above under my Q, the key issue is to spare the space at the beginning of the W partition, so it directly adjoined to end of macOS, thus Disk Utility can find it and expand it.
    – Gustaf
    Nov 3, 2022 at 9:59

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