OceanBlast

Thank you Brian and I read the article and it was very helpful.  I just didn't understand why from 19 GB it suddenly went to 8 GB.

I love how at the end of the article you have Donate beer to Brian lol I love beer too so will be donating for sure

Cheers!!!!

Also for future how many  GB should a desktop/laptop should have? So that next time I get the proper equipment

I save all my things on external drives nothing on the laptop.  I even asked the apple guy telling him what I need the laptop for.

programs I use and need:

photoshop

bridge

PortraitPro Studio

Beauty retouch

Brother iprinter & scan

GTA imaging (photo lab here in Toronto Canada )

Clean my Mac

EOS utility for Canon ( to download my images)

Google Chrome

and Wacom tablet oh and x-rite 

should I just reset the whole Mac to zero erase everything and download photoshop again? (erase as if it was new)

I have a Mac laptop running Big Sur 11.6 and Photoshop 23.3.1. It is over 2 years old, and has 8 GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 8.92GB free out of 121.02GB. The last time I shut down was just before posting this thread. I run a cleanup program about once a week.

Is it save to update to Monterey? I have noticed my Mac has been acting up, I have cleaned a lot to make space and use "CleanMyMac"  from 19 GB yesterday today it keeps jumping to 6 GB left.  I have restored the Mac many times and shut it down too.