Let’s Make 2021 the Year of Disk Utility
APFS has developed rapidly since we first started getting to know it in High Sierra. By the time it has reached version 1677.60.23 in Big Sur, it has grown many new features, of which most support the new Sealed System Volume, and Time Machine backups to APFS volumes. These include volume roles, Volume Groups, firmlinks, and the copying of storage blocks into backups.
Despite those, Disk Utility in Big Sur has changed precious little, and can’t for example swap the Data volume in a boot volume group. Although its command tool companion,
diskutil, offers a few more facilities, such as the creation of APFS volumes with specified roles, even there the user has comparatively little to work with APFS’s extensive feature-set.[…]
Disk Utility is sadly neglected, a tool which is vital to every Mac user but lacks the care and attention which Apple should devote to it. Please, Apple, can we target it for serious high-quality engineering effort in 2021, and end these years of neglect?
Dear Apple: It would be great if macOS 12 didn’t require us to use a third-party tool to get an accurate idea of how much disk space we have available.
Previously:
- Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?
- APFS and Time Machine in Big Sur
- Disk Utility’s First Aid in Catalina
- Quantum Computing and APFS: Free and Used Space
- Disk Utility in El Capitan
Update (2021-01-04): Niko Kitsakis:
Well, well, well… Where have I heard this before?
