Increase Macbook Air Storage
Go to System Preferences > Apple ID after clicking the Apple logo. Click Manage at the bottom of the page. Click Buy More Storage in the next box. Select the quantity of extra storage you want to buy, then click Next. Utilizing your MacBook’s SD card slot is another technique to increase storage.
Your MacBook Pro, MacBook, or MacBook Airs storage can be upgraded to give you more storage space and faster program responses. If you are using an older MacBook Pro model from before 2012, then the answer is yes, you can upgrade your storage by swapping out your hard drive for a faster SSD. If your machine is older and still has an optical drive (like the pre-2012 MacBook Pro), you may be able to upgrade your drives and add a second or third one, as long as you swap out your optical drive for some room.
If you decide to upgrade the storage on your Mac through the SSD, it is best to get a professional to do this for you. To do an upgrade, you will need the new SSD, a set of screws matching your laptop, and an extra external disk or case for the old disk, so that you can make a clone of it. If your device uses SSDs, you could potentially perform this upgrade; you can check with your specific model to see if this is possible.
All of the ways of upgrading the storage discussed thus far only work for older Macs, but there is one option that works for all models. Some of those options are available for specific model years, and the newest MacBook models cannot really add internal storage. If your MacBook was built in 2012 or before, you have more options to add storage.
Fortunately, you do not need to buy an entirely new computer to gain additional storage space in a MacBook. While you could always put that data onto something like an external hard drive, running out of storage space on the MacBook Pro can be painful. Often, the files that ultimately consume the most space are hidden in the cold storage of your computer. In that case, backing up your files and moving them to an external drive is a great way to free up space on your Mac.
Older MacBooks that had a CD drive could even install a second hard drive instead of a CD, effectively doubling (or more) the amount of space you have. If you get an older MacBook that has a card reader, you can also augment the total amount of storage on the MacBook by using SD or MicroSD cards. Another way to increase the storage on a MacBook is by using its SD card slot (assuming you are using a model with one). If your MacBook has USB Type-A (old USB standard, not the new reverse-switch) plugs, then you can add storage with a USB stick with a lower profile.
| Steps | |
| Select | Select a proper SSD and Tools |
| Back Up | Back up data on MacBook Air SSD |
| Replace | Replace MacBook Air SSD with a new one |
| Boot | Make MacBook Air boot from the new SSD |
| Rescue | Rescue data from the previous SSD |
A low profile USB drive is not as fast as high-speed storage as an original MacBook Flash Drive, but it is nice enough for storing documents and media. With the MacOS USB drive, you can install macOS to a clean SSD, or boot to that USB, and use tools & utilities to test or format your MacOS drive. An external hard drive connected directly to your MacBook Pro using the Docking Station or USB-C Hub and it will provide as much additional storage space as you need or need. An external hard drive is useful for backing up your MacBook using Time Machine, but you can also split up the drive to be used as your normal drive.
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On older model MacBooks, you can use an SD card or a flash drive for additional storage. If you do not want to pay that much up front, you can use any of the methods mentioned above to get additional storage in your MacBook Pro. In addition to adding storage to your MacBook directly, you can also leverage some of the storage space that you already have in other parts of your house with this technique.
You could always use external storage methods, which we discuss below, but most Apple computers do not let you add extra storage after you build your machine. You do not necessarily have to swap SSDs out in order to add more storage space on a Mac; using external storage is an easy alternative. That said, these external storage upgrades offer a respectable amount of read-write speeds, which is perfect for expanding your available storage in the MacBook, especially if you are running low on available space.
Unfortunately, these cards do suffer from the same limited read-write speeds issues that USB-attached storage does. Although, it is possible to upgrade your MacBooks storage with a higher-capacity SSD, and it is possible to use your original as a secondary storage device. Some configurations may have been upgraded at time of purchase up to 512GB SSD storage, at a cost of $300 more, but Apple does not plan to let anyone upgrade an SSD drive unit once purchased. You see, at the same price, you could either move from 8GB to 16GB of combined storage, or move from 256GB to 512GB of SSD storage.
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To use iCloud Storage properly, you are probably going to need to buy some storage — you get just 5GB for free. Once you buy additional iCloud storage, you will be able to use it immediately. Once you plug the JetDrive Lite in, it acts just like any other external storage device connected to the MacBook, and you can use it to store media and documents of your choice.
The JetDrive Lite fits completely flush to the laptop, instead of sticking out slightly as would a regular SD card, & because different models of Apples laptops use different SDXC slots, it is important that you buy the card made specifically for your machine. The enthusiast-minded power users could backup the whole hard drive, and then use Disk Utility to create a single partition out of the combined internal drive and JetDrive Lite, then re-backup everything, but this makes using the SDXC slot for anything else impossible, since this card has to remain inserted if the machine is going to function correctly. You can choose additional storage on iCloud if you would like to use features such as iCloud Photos to save original images, while keeping only locally optimized versions on the MacBook.
Buying additional storage space for your Mac through iCloud is usually both more convenient and cost-effective than getting an external drive. Since larger drives are probably more affordable now than when you bought the MacBook, adding more storage may be worthwhile anyway. Thanks to the plethora of stellar external SSD drives from third-party manufacturers, you can add an almost infinite amount of storage space to access on the MacBook Air M2.
Up to 960GB variants of storage upgrades are available from the JetDrive by Transcend, but that depends on your MacBook model. For Retina Display MacBook Pros (2012-2015), the storage is upgradable as well.
How much does it cost to add storage to MacBook Pro?
You have two options if you run out of iCloud storage: buy more or make more storage available depending on the SSD drive capacity and MacBook model; an SSD upgrade for a MacBook Pro costs between $330 and $700, and a MacBook Air, between $350 and 550. Installation of the SSD drive and data transfer are both included in our MacBook SSD upgrade service.
Can I increase SSD in MacBook Air?
OWC, fortunately, has your back. An OWC SSD is the best upgrading option for MacBook Air. You may expand your flash storage up to 2.0TB, which is 16 times as large as the initial disk. The upgrade procedure is also simple and should only take a few minutes.
Can you use an external hard drive with a MacBook Air?
The availability of storage devices on your network (such as external hard drives) is another possibility. The SDXC card port on your Mac also accepts flash memory cards from your camera or other gadgets. You can use a connected card reader to access the data on the flash memory card if your Mac lacks a card slot.