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Artie is dead right on. You still have 120 GB on your drive, but you have cut it up into three partitions.. You are trying to run three operating systems on a drive that is big enough for one.

It is time to fish or cut bait. You need to either move on to Catalina, or make the decision to stick with Sierra until you buy a new Mac. Artie said to clone Macintosh HD to your external drive. My recommendation is to make a choice between Sierra or Catalina, (I strongly encourage Catalina). Tell me what your decision is and I can give you specific step-by-sep instructions from there, that will minimize any risk in the process of eliminating the other two operating systems, as well as th disk full error.

Since you have already erased the content of the other partitions, these instructions are for rebuilding your internal drive as Sierra only. Hopefully, you are not so short on Storage space this will work. 🤞

FOLLOW EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING STEPS IN EXACT SEQUENCE

1. PREPARE THE EXTERNAL DRIVE
   1. Open Disk Utility
   2. in the Disk Utility sidebar, select the external DRIVE
   3. On the Disk Utility toolbar select Erase then Name: External, Format Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Scheme: GUID Partition Map
   4. Click Erase (This will effectively erase all content on your external drive, including any partitions.
2. CLONE SIERRA TO THE EXTERNAL DRIVE
   1. The exact process will depend on the cloning utility you use, whether it is Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, but the process is fairly straight-forward. If you need help, let me know which cloning utility you are using.
   2. In either case you are cloning from Macintosh HD to External
3. BOOT FROM THE EXTERNAL CLONE
   1. Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk
   2. Select the External drive
   3. Click on Restart
4. PREPARE THE INTERNAL DRIVE
   1. Open Disk Utility
   2. in the Disk Utility sidebar, select the internal drive DRIVE
   3. On the Disk Utility tool bar select Erase then Name: Macintosh HD, Format Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Scheme: GUID Partition Map
   4. Click Erase (This will effectively erase all content on your internal drive and all partitions)
5. CLONE SIERRA BACK TO THE INTERNAL DRIVE
   • Reverse the process used in step II preceding
6. BOOT FROM THE INTERNAL DRIVE
   1. Go to System Preferences > Startup Disk
   2. Select the internal drive
   3. Click on Restart
7. You should now be running Sierra from your internal drive and have the entire 120GB available. 👏

Once Sierra is working correctly, upgrading to Catalina is very straight-forward, if you decide to go that route.

I'm surprised you told me how to do this. I was under the assumption you were going to tell me how to download Catalina and forget about Sierra. I know that's what you want.

We're just troubleshooters...and advisers if advice is solicited or if we feel it's appropriately given.

But basically, we're here to help you do what YOU want to do, not to impose our judgement on you.

Right. But awhile back it was strongly suggested I upgrade to either Mojave or preferably Catalina. That's was I was referring to. It's fine.

I realize that, but in the end, it was still just advise for you to deal with a YOU see fit.

If you indicated even in the least that you were interested in upgrading, bet the farm that we'd be right on top of it.

I know. In fact, when I thought there was no hope yesterday of fixing anything, I was ready to do the Catalina thing. I wish I wasn't so wishy-washy about it.

I stopped at Snow Leopard...skipped Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, and Yosemite before finally taking the leap to El Capitan, and I dreaded what I'd find, but I guess I could say I was pleasantly surprised that even having skipped four versions of OS X I wasn't all that far behind.

Yeah, some apps had to be upgraded, and I had to go through system prefs to see what was new (and to make sure my security settings had been perpetuated), which is SOP after ANY upgrade, but the bottom line is that the learning curve was far less daunting than I"d feared, and I never had to post here.

Don't let the dread make you wishy-washy, and if you're worried about losing features, I can't say that you won't lose some particular things that you like, but I doubt that any of them will be critical rather then "Oh, darn!"

More: By the way, I suggest that even if you never look at any threads here other than your own, you follow joemike's threads on whichever forthcoming version of macOS he's beta testing...Big Sur at the moment. They're invaluable for getting a jump on what's coming! (Yeah, they get technical, but ignore that stuff and focus on his comments about features.)

Nobody's answered my question about if upgrading or clearing my hard drive will restore my "all my files" and spotlight.

Joe Mike said to do the opposite to restore info from my ex drive to my HD but I'm not sure exactly how to do that. I'll look it up. I'll need to do that before I wipe it.

I haven't read through either all your earlier posts in this thread, or your other thread yet, but I will later. Maybe I'll d/l OnyX to see if I can see what you may have done.

If I'm understanding you, the info on your external can all be restored by drag & drop. As long as the OS on your internal is OK, you don't have to clone.

I plugged in my external hd and brought up SuperDuper. When in ex. drive 2015 Sierra I could see "all my files" in finder. I dragged it onto the desk top and it disappeared! I looked it up on Spotlight and it showed up but not the icon in Finder. I couldn't figure out a way to drag and drop so that it would show up on my internal HD.

I've got no idea what SuperDuper! has to do with this.

OK, you dragged "all my files" from 2015 Sierra on your external onto your desktop in Macintosh HD on your internal and it disappeared.

Where does Spotlight say it is? Does Spotlight have a "Show in Finder" option? Maybe if you right-click "all my files?"

Spotlight on my internal HD doesn't work after using OnyX. When I dragged the "all my files" off of Sierra 2015 Ex. hd, that disappeared off of my sidebar not to return. I still have "all my files" on my internal HD but it's empty. I had SuperDuper uploaded because I was hoping I could transfer files from the Ex Drive to my Internal HD via SuperDuper, but nope. Not sure what JoeMike meant by doing it the opposite way from loading onto the ex drive. I probably misunderstood. It's probably impossible to transfer anything from the external drive to my internal drive.

If I d/l Catalina will it take care of all my woes? Will it make spotlight work again? Will it find the files that have disappeared off my HD?

Since you have already erased the content of the other partitions, these instructions are for rebuilding your internal drive as Sierra only. Hopefully, you are not so short on Storage space this will work. 🤞

FOLLOW EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING STEPS IN EXACT SEQUENCE

1. PREPARE THE EXTERNAL DRIVE
   1. Open Disk Utility
   2. in the Disk Utility sidebar, select the external DRIVE
   3. On the Disk Utility toolbar select Erase then Name: External, Format Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Scheme: GUID Partition Map
   4. Click Erase (This will effectively erase all content on your external drive, including any partitions.

Joe Mike said to do the opposite to restore info from my ex drive to my HD but I'm not sure exactly how to do that. I'll look it up. I'll need to do that before I wipe it.

OKAY!

Given you have a bootable copy of Sierra on your external drive we can shortcut the process.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT GET AHEAD OF ME.

FOLLOW EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING STEPS IN EXACT SEQUENCE

1. BOOT FROM THE EXTERNAL CLONE
   1. Attach your external drive to your computer
   2. While booted from the internal drive on your computer,
   3. Verify you have SuperDuper installed on the external drive
   4. if possible verify the missing files are on the external drive
   5. go to System Preferences > Startup Disk
   6. Select the Sierra 2015 as the boot drive
   7. Click on Restart (When this completes you should be booted from Sierra on the external drive)
2. PREPARE THE INTERNAL DRIVE
   1. Open Disk Utility
   2. in the Disk Utility sidebar, select the internal drive DRIVE (Be sure you select the physical drive not one of the paartitions on the drive)
   3. On the Disk Utility tool bar select Erase then Name: Macintosh HD, Format Mac OS Extended (Journaled), Scheme: GUID Partition Map
   4. Click Erase (This will effectively erase all content on your internal drive and all partitions)
3. CLONE SIERRA BACK TO THE INTERNAL DRIVE
   • I don't have SuperDuper as an exemplar but I believe you know how to use it correctly. Your target drive is labeled Macintosh HD
4. BOOT FROM THE INTERNAL DRIVE
   1. While booted from the external drive go to System Preferences > Startup Disk
   2. Select Macintosh HD as the boot drive
   3. Click on Restart (when this completes you should be running Sierra from the internal drive on your computer and have a full 120GB available storage)
   4. If your missing files were on the eternal drive they will now e on your internal drive. If not, you should have had a backup system like Time Machine running regularly.
5. IF YOU WISH TO UPGRADE TO CATALINA
   1. Open App Store
   2. Search for Catalina
   3. Click on Get
   4. Follow the on-screen instructions.
   5. Your computer screen will go blank several times and there will be excruciatingly long pauses but after 45 minutes or so...
   6. You will be prompted for your logon password and you will be running Catalina
      1. There will be a new folder on your desktop that you can ignore
      2. Your internal drive will have been converted to APFS and there will be four APFS volumes on your internal drive (all showing a capacity of 120GB -- I will explain what is going on if you are interested)
      3. As time goes on, you will find you need to approve all sorts of things as part of Catalina's increased security precautions
      4. You will need to immediately update OnyX, SuperSuper, and probably a few other applications.
      5. You will have entered the 21st century of Apple computing
      6. If you switch to Carbon Copy Cloner you can turn on APFS Snapshots which will provide some limited protection against inadvertent file loss.

[quote=plantsower]I don't exactly understand everything you meant (TYPICAL), but I will ask when actually I do this. I will do it when I get back from vacation. I didn't bring my external with me. Thanks, JoeMike.
I tried to write the steps in such a way that you would not have to understand them, but could simply follow the instructions. I may have you following a different procedure than you have used in the past for certain functions, but there is method in my madness. I have used processes intended to minimize the risks of...

1. Misunderstanding
2. Error
3. Overthinking

When you get back and are ready to start...

1. Print out the instructions (You will need the printed instructions because you won't be able to view them on your Mac during the process)
2. Read them carefully
3. BEFORE YOU BEGIN ask questions about anything you do not understand. (NOTE: I will answer questions about the process, but not the "why". I don't want to complicate the issue.)
4. Please don't take shortcuts.

I posted recently about all the things that are going wrong with my Mac, including Spotlight not working anymore nor "all my files" showing up after I used OnyX. Terminal is acting wonky, too. All since I ran OnyX which I will delete after this.

If I d/l Catalina will it take care of all my woes? Will it make spotlight work again? Will it find the files that have disappeared off my HD?

Thanks.