One of my many character flaws is that I am a bit of a digital hoarder. I follow the advice given to me many years ago: “If you don’t have three copies of a digital file – each on a separate drive – then you don’t really care about losing it.” Great advice that has saved me many times, but I do tend to fill up hard drives pretty often. (By “hard drives” I mean any place that you can store files: the main storage on your Mac, whether it is a rotating disk or SSD, the cloud (like Dropbox or OneDrive), an external drive, a DVD or CD, or even a USB thumb drive.)
Jan 21, 2020 Parallels v11 continues to work with macOS Mojave although the support pages say it won't. Similarly, does someone have experience of v11 working with macOS Catalina? I use Parallels only occasionally and but want to upgrade to Catalina while retaining Parallels v11, as the latest version of Parallels costs a steep $50 for the upgrade.
So, utilities to manage your hard drives are quite useful to me, and in this blog post I will describe the ones I use – the first of which all Parallels Desktop users already have, and the other utilities you can get for free.
Apr 28, 2020 Parallels Desktop 15 for Mac is fully compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina and supports new macOS features. Older Parallels Desktop versions only partially support working on macOS Catalina due to technical reasons may experience the issues below depending on the configuration. A new version of Windows virtualization tool Parallels is out, bringing with it support for upcoming macOS Catalina features, amongst other improvements. Is it still the best way to run the. Aug 29, 2019 macOS Catalina is the first version macOS to exclusively support 64-bit applications. This means any 32-bit applications will no longer be supported if your Mac is on macOS Catalina. With Parallels Desktop, users can run an older macOS as a virtual machine to support the 32-bit applications you need. Parallels v11 continues to work with macOS Mojave although the support pages say it won't. Similarly, does someone have experience of v11 working with macOS Catalina? I use Parallels only occasionally and but want to upgrade to Catalina while retaining Parallels v11, as the latest version of Parallels costs a steep $50 for the upgrade.
For me, the most important aspect to file management is free space, and this means getting rid of files you no longer need. To maximize the amount of free space you have, you will need to get rid of large, unneeded files first. (You can spend hours deleting unneeded emails, and while this is useful for a number of reasons, it doesn’t usually result in large amounts of space being freed up.) You need a utility to assist you in finding the largest files so that you can decide which ones you really still need.
To quickly view the state of the storage on your Mac, use the two info dialogs in Figure 1.
On Catalina, Mojave, and Big Sur, you click on the Apple () menu > About This Mac > Storage pane. Note that while the storage used by Parallels Desktop VMs is specifically listed, this is only for VMs stored in your User directory. Parallels VMs stored in the Shared directory or other locations will not be included.
Mac Utilities
The Clean Drive tool in Parallels Toolbox
The Clean Drive tool, one of the more than 40 tools in Parallels Toolbox, is tailor-made to help you manage free space on the Mac Hard Drive, especially in the area of files that you really don’t need, like log or cache files, or the temp files created by some Mac apps. (See Figure 2.)
But also note the highlighted link in that figure, “Show Large Files …”. This produces a list of the really big files that you might want to delete. (See Figure 3.)
(You didn’t know that Parallels Toolbox is bundled with Parallels Desktop? Just go to Preferences window of Parallels Desktop, and click on the Parallels Toolbox icon in that window’s title bar. (See Figure 4.))
- Find Any File – a free utility on the Mac App Store
Find Any File is a full-feature file management utility on the Mac App Store. You can also use it to find the really large files that you might want to archive or delete. (See Figure 5.) Note that Find Any File will look inside the VM package, so make sure that any actions you take are on the full VM, not just on files inside the package.
Special file management tips for the Parallels Desktop user
Up until now, this blog post has discussed file management tools and tips that are useful to any Mac user. Now let’s detail some tips that are specifically useful to the Parallels Desktop user.
Reclaim Space
Sometimes Windows needs some extra temporary space for updates or app installs. Over time, this space can grow to consume a lot of space in the VM, as you can see in Figure 6. You can reclaim this space either manually or automatically when Windows shuts down.
Snapshots
Snapshots are an advanced feature of Parallels Desktop that can be very useful in a variety of cases, but they do consume a lot of space. Parallels Desktop has two built-in tools to assist you in managing snapshot space: The Free Disk Space wizard and the Snapshot Manager, both shown in Figure 7.
Recover space inside the VM
Depending on where you store the files you create with Windows apps, you may need to consider deleting some files inside the VM, and then reclaiming that space for the Mac.
As with the Mac, the first thing to do is look at the overall storage state inside the VM, and the Storage setting in Windows provide this information, shown in Figure 8.
There are also a large number of tutorials that assist in finding large files in Windows 10. Here are four:
How to Find Large Files Taking up Hard Drive Space on Windows 10
How do I find the largest files on my PC in Windows 10?
How to Find the Largest Files in Windows 10 (using File Explorer)
4 Ways To Find Large Files In Windows 10
I hope these utilities and tips help you manage the free space on your Mac. Do you have another storage management utility or tip that works for you? Let us know in the comments.
Using Parallels to run AccountEdge on 10.15 Catalina
What is Parallels?
Parallels creates a virtual machine inside your current Mac’s hard drive. Within that virtual machine, you can install a Mac or Windows operating system giving you access to run multiple operating systems at the same time.
Virtual machines allow you to run an operating system in an app window on your desktop that behaves like a full, separate computer. Since AccountEdge will not currently run on Catalina, Parallels will let you install an older macOS on your computer in order to continue to use AccountEdge even if you have already or need to upgrade to Catalina.
Parallels for Desktop 15 is the only version of Parallels that is compatible with MacOS 10.15 Catalina.
For more information on Parallels or to obtain a list of features, please visit http://www.Parallels.com
Installing a macOS on Parallels (on a computer not yet upgraded to Catalina)
To obtain a macOS installation, the easiest method is to download Parallels prior to updating your macOS to 10.15 - Catalina. You can download the macOS from the App Store or use Parallels Desktop for Mac, which contains free systems that can be installed to create a virtual machine. If you’re on a macOS prior to Catalina, the “Install macOS” method “Using the Recovery Partition” will install your recovery macOS.
Installing a macOS on Parallels (on a computer already upgraded to Catalina)
If you have already updated your macOS to 10.15-Catalina, or purchased a new Mac with macOS 10.15-Catalina, the Recovery Partition method will install macOS 10.15- Catalina on your virtual machine. Instead of using this method, you will need to obtain the installation file for a pre-Catalina macOS.
The article below outlines ways to find and download older versions of macOS.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/download-old-os-x-3629363
After obtaining the installation file use the “Install windows or another OS from a DVD or image file”.
Creating your virtual machine using an installation file.
- Launch Parallels Desktop for Mac.
- The “Create New” window should be showing upon launching Parallels Desktop for the first time. If it the window is not showing you can use the Parallels Desktop menu bar to click “File - New “.
- Select “Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file.”
- If the macOS installation is not found you may need to manually locate it through the installation wizard’s “Select File”.
- Follow the installation to complete the virtual machine.
We recommend that you take a few minutes to watch the video below, which details the process of creating a virtual macOS machine using Parallels Desktop for Mac.
The following video is for AccountEdge Network Edition users.We recommend that you keep your AccountEdge file saved locally on your Mac (within the Catalina macOS) and not within the virtual machine. Please make sure you’re creating frequent backups and saving them locally. Parallels Desktop for Mac can share data between your Mac and your Virtual Machine. New Parallels users receive Premium 24/7 phone and email support for 30 days from Parallels. For information on sharing, configuration and best practices we recommend taking advantage of your Premium support.
Registration
Parallels Lagging Mac Os Catalina
Deactivating the license (Machine ID) frees up AccountEdge to be registered on the Virtual Machine.
On a computer not yet upgraded to Catalina:
- To deactivate the license on AccountEdge Pro/Basic/AccountEdge NE for Mac: Click 'AccountEdge' at the top menu bar and select 'Registration' in the drop down. From there you'll see the option to deactivate the license.
If you have already installed Catalina
- You can contact support for assistance with deactivating the license.
Mac Os Catalina Parallels
Once AccountEdge has been deactivated on your machine the license will be available so you can register on the Virtual Machine.