If your Mac runs out of temporary memory during a process that requires a lot of it, such as watching a video or editing a large photo, the Apple logo will appear on the screen for a few minutes until there’s enough space on your Mac to continue. Purgeable storage is limited in size, however, so it’s important to understand when macOS will start using this feature to free up disk space. Obviously, this mechanism frees up a lot of disk space on your hard drive and boosts performance since you’re not wasting resources by opening and saving files to your hard drive. If it runs out of temporary memory, a notification will prompt users to delete some unused applications first before continuing. If the drive has less than 15% of free space left, macOS starts using purgeable memory automatically. The best way to explain purgeable storage is by example: Let’s say your Mac OS needs to open or save a large file so it looks for available drive space.

When you enable purgeable storage, your Mac OS will use RAM as temporary storage when needed and store files there if it runs out of disk space for normal operations. Purgeable storage is a feature that can be used to free up disk space on the Mac OS. Another frequently asked question is ‘How do I clear purgeable storage on my Mac?’ What is purgeable storage on Mac?