How to partition Mac hard drive

As a quote from the Bible goes, “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor,” it’s always better to have something more than one (other than the problems in life). The same goes for the benefits if you partition your Mac hard drive.

If you don’t know how to do it, I got you covered with the guide below. Here, I have mentioned all the steps you need to follow and how you can entirely erase or delete these partitions. But first things first!

• Why should you partition a Mac hard drive?
• Create a hard disk partition in macOS
• Switch between partitions
• Delete Mac Partition
• Erase a partition
• Create a new volume on Mac

Why should you partition a Mac hard drive?

There are many reasons why you should partition your Mac hard drive. The primary among them is the ability to run a stable version of macOS and a macOS beta version or even Windows on the same Mac.

You can also create a backup of the data on the other partition and thus, prevent worrying about losing the data. Now that we know the use cases for creating the partitions, it’s time to learn how to do it.

Create a hard disk partition in macOS

Before you begin the process, it is best to take a backup of your Mac if things don’t go well, leading to data loss. Now since that’s sorted, let’s look at the steps:

1. Open Disk Utility.
   Either open from Spotlight or Launchpad.
2. Select the volume in which you want to create a partition from the sidebar.
3. Now, click the partition button from the toolbar on the top.
   
   
4. Click the plus button (+) at the bottom of the pie chart.
   
   
5. Then, select Add partition on the pop-up.
   
   
6. Next, you can customize the size of the new drive.
   The unshaded part of the chart shows the free space available.
7. Add details such as name and format.
8. Once done, click Apply.
   
   
9. Click Partition to confirm.
   
   
10. Wait until the process is completed and click Done.
    
    

Sometimes if it takes a long time, macOS may give the option to continue installation or to wait until it’s completed.

How to switch between partitions

1. Click the Apple logo → System Preferences.
2. Select Startup Disk.
   
   
3. Click the lock button and enter your TouchID or password.
   
   
4. Now, select the particular partition you want to boot.
5. Restart your system.

Your Mac will open to the new disk that was selected. Other than that, you can also select the disk when your Mac is booting up. Simply press and hold the Option key and select the partition from the Startup Manager screen.

Delete Mac partition 

As one can guess, when you create a partition, it divides the storage inside your Mac, reducing the storage for a particular partition. Chances are that you might have accidentally allocated extra memory to a partition, which will also affect your Mac. To resolve this, delete that partition. Here’s how:

1. Open Disk Utility.
   Either open from Spotlight or Launchpad.
2. Select the volume from which you want to create the partition from the sidebar.
   You can click View → select Show All Devices if you don’t see the partition to delete.
3. Now, click the partition button from the toolbar at the top.
   
   
4. Select the partition you want to delete from the pie chart.
5. Click the delete button (-).
   
   
   If the delete button appears dim, you can’t delete that partition.
6. Next, click Apply.
   
   
7. Click Partition to confirm again.
   
   
8. Wait until the operation finishes, and click Done.
   
   

As you can guess, deleting the partition will also erase all the data stored in it. So, be sure to take a backup.

Erase a partition 

If you don’t want to delete a partition but only want to erase the contents in it, you have to:

1. Open Disk Utility.
   Either open from Spotlight or Launchpad.
2. Choose View → select Show All Devices.
   
   
3. Now, select the partition you want to erase.
4. Click Erase from the toolbar on top.
   
   
5. Name the partition → select the format → click Erase.
   
   
6. Wait until the formatting is finished, and then click Done.

Create a new volume on Mac

Since you are dividing the disk storage into individual sections, it can’t be dynamically changed later. Hence it is best to create APFS volumes instead of dividing your Mac storage for creating partitions. And yes, you can even install another macOS version on an APFS volume.

Even if you create multiple APFS storages, the space will be allocated dynamically between them, thus making sure you won’t lose any space. Now that we have seen the benefits of creating an APFS storage, let’s look at the steps for it:

1. Open Disk Utility → select the volume from the sidebar.
2. Click the Plus button (+) from the toolbar on top.
   
   
3. Enter the name for the new APFS volume.
4. Choose an APFS format according to your needs.
5. Optional: Select Size options and choose any of the below:
   • Reserve Size: Make sure the storage of the volume won’t be allocated for other volumes.
   • Quota Size: This will limit how much storage can be allocated to the volume.
6. Now, click Add.
   
   
7. Wait until the process is finished, and click Done.

FAQs 

That’s it!

If you love to play around with macOS Beta versions or experiment on macOS, it is always best to carry it out on partitioned storage, especially if it is your primary device. I hope that this guide helped you understand how you can partition your macOS hard drive, and if you have any doubts, let me know.

Here are some more reads on Mac:

• How to fix corrupted hard drive and recover data on Mac
• External hard drive not showing up on Mac? Quick fixes!
• How to eject an external drive on Mac? Quick ways explained!
• How to add, delete, or erase APFS Volumes on Mac

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