Get at least 512GB, preferably 1TB.

Yes — 256GB is not enough for a modern MacBook Air unless you live entirely in the cloud. Between system files, a few apps, some photos, and a reasonable iMessage history, you’ll be fighting the “disk full” warning within a year.

Modern apps are bigger than you think. Xcode is 15GB+. Photoshop is another 10. Even Slack, Teams, and a handful of browsers can eat 50GB before you blink. And macOS itself takes up around 20GB.

256GB might have been okay five years ago. Today, it’s a stress test. You will end up shuffling files to an external drive or relying on iCloud more than you want. That’s fine for some, but most people just want their laptop to work.

512GB is the sweet spot. You get room for apps, a local media library, and some projects without anxiety. If you do any video work, music production, or keep a lot of photos, go 1TB. The upgrade cost is worth avoiding the headache of constant cleanup.

Future You will be grateful for the extra space. Skimp on RAM instead if you have to — you can’t swap a soldered SSD.