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What is VM on a Mac?
A virtual machine (VM) is a replication of an operating system within a users computer—which means the ability to run Windows on Mac allows a user to unlock endless possibilities with their Apple device. IT Managers have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by using virtual machines!
What is VM on my Mac hard drive?
It means “Virtual Memory” and is where swapping takes place these days (after HS/APFS conversion). Container disk1 is a group of APFS volumes that cooperate together to consume the space allocated to the container. You need to make sure that your cloning method is APFS friendly (if there is such a tool yet).
What is this in private / var / VM?
I have about 9GB in my /private/var/vm (my system has 16GB of RAM, and the sleepimage is taking up most of that space). DO NOT try to delete these files. sleepimage is just going to come back when you put the Mac to sleep again, and swapfiles are deleted and recreated as needed after each boot.
How to delete / var / VM / sleepimage safely?
You can delete /var/vm/sleepimage safely, but it will be recreated when you put the Mac to sleep. If you run sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0; sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage, the Mac will use a normal sleep mode (like desktop Macs by default) and it won’t recreate /var/vm/sleepimage. hibernatemode = 0 (binary 0000) by default on supported desktops.
Is it safe to delete files in private / var?
If you identify anything specific you think is in excess, then post the file (or files) and their sizes in the form, and someone will tell you if it is safe to delete it. DO NOT BLINDLY DELETE anything in /private/var, or you may break something OS X is depending on. When using OmniDiskSweeper, or any utility that shows all your files…
What is this in private / var?-Apple community?
Found admin has 3 GB of Apple updates in private/var. what’s that mean? the computer seems sluggish to me, is this stuff dirt in the fuel line? Most likely logs and pageing files /private/var/vm – is where all the virtual memory page/swap files are stored _AND_ the sleepimage which contains a copy of your Macs memory when you put the Mac to sleep.