The bigger the files you can delete, the more space you can free up—so let's go hunting. Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the menu bar and choose About This Mac. If that overview. An overfilled startup disk will also cause your MacBook to run slower since it won’t be able to use RAM as effectively. This means keeping your disk clean is extremely important for daily operations. To check what’s taking up space on your mac, you can choose “Manage” on the startup disk warning notification. Ways to free up disk space on a Mac. Before we show you how to clear disk space on your Mac, a word of caution is in order. Hard drive cleaning requires time and, in some cases, expertise. So, when in doubt, use a professional cleaning app. Now, let’s make some room for the files that truly deserve space on your Mac.

A slow Mac is no fun for anyone. It happens to the best of us — which is why everyone should know how to declutter and free up disk space on their Mac. Not only will this speed up your computer, it’s also a great opportunity to organize your files.

How to free up disk space on Mac using compression? Open Finder and go to your Documents. Command + click on a folder (or multiple folders). Choose Compress. Be aware that macOS leaves the original file untouched, so once you have the archive, the original folder can be deleted. The quickest way to free up disk space Mac is to delete its files permanently. You can do it by long clicking the trash can icon and then selecting 'empty trash' in the interface that pops up. Mac will ask for a confirmation and then permanently delete the files from the trash can.

Clearing disk space on a Mac can make your computer feel like new. Over time, most Macs, especially those that experience regular use, get full of documents, files, apps, images, videos, and other junk and clutter.

Pre-preparations Before You Make more Space on Your Startup Disk. Before you start to free up drive space on Mac, there are two things to do: 1. Check the used/available disk space - Click the Apple menu Select 'About This Mac' Click on the 'More Info' button Choose the 'Storage' tab to check the disk storage overview and capacity. What’s causing low disk space on your Mac? Before you begin to free up disk space, let’s identify what’s taking it up. From the Apple Menu in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, select About this Mac and then click the storage tab in the window that opens. You’ll get a handy, color-coded graph that looks like this.

In this article, we’ll show you how to free up space on Mac computers, and highlight some apps that make maintenance of your computer’s file system much simpler.

What's taking up space

Have you ever seen this pop up on your Mac?

It’s frustrating! This occurs because the memory your Mac has is full. It may be saved movies, large documents, mail attachments, or just plain cached items from apps like iMessage that are taking up space on your Mac.

Not only is the popup message annoying, diminished disk space on your Mac can prevent you from being productive. Mail attachments or other files may not save to your Mac, all because you’ve got a bunch of old stuff cluttering your memory system. It can even cause apps to quit, or fail to load.

Low disk space isn’t always an 'old Mac' problem, either. While it’s true older Macs typically have less memory available to them, even modern Macs can get cluttered. That’s why it’s important to know how to clear space on Mac hard drives.

How to check storage on Mac

Here’s how to check the storage on your Mac using Apple’s method:

1. From the menu bar on your Mac, click the Apple logo on the top left
2. Select 'About this Mac'
3. Select the 'Storage' option in the new window

This is a basic way to check how much storage is being occupied on your Mac. Another good tip is to check your disk usage with iStat Menus. It’s an app that allows you to monitor – in real time – how your Mac is performing. iStat Menus lives in your Mac’s menu bar, running in the background until you need it. Each of its monitoring services has a menu bar icon, including one for memory.

When you click on the iStat Menus icon, it shows you exactly what’s happening with your disk space. When your Mac is running slowly, it’s possible an app is taking up more resources than you would like. iStat Menus shows you which app is to blame.

How to optimize storage using macOS

If you’re using macOS Sierra or later, you can benefit from Apple’s Optimize Storage functionality. It allows you to store files in iCloud, renewing your access to these files whenever you need. Here’s how to use the Apple way of managing storage on Mac:

How To Clear Space On Mac

1. Repeat the steps above to check the available and used storage on your Mac
2. Click on 'Manage' to access the storage management window
3. Enable the 'Empty Trash Automatically' and 'Reduce Clutter' options to remove files you deleted, and large files you might no longer need.
4. Select 'Store in iCloud' to move your desktop file and docs, photos, and messages to iCloud. You can choose what file types to transfer.

Note: iCloud provides only 5GB of free storage. If you want more, you can upgrade your iCloud storage plan — it will cost you $0.99 per month for 50GB, $2.99 per month for 200GB, and $9.99 monthly for 2TB.

Go to the Optimize Storage menu and choose from three options that help you use storage more cleverly. You can select to remove watched files from your Apple TV app (or iTunes if you use macOS Mojave and earlier), download only recent attachments, or not to delete attachments at all.

Move Files to the Cloud

iCloud is Apple’s preferred method for storing files and folders in the cloud. It makes your data available across devices, and is now the default service for system backups.

Apple gives you 5GB free iCloud storage, but it’s just enough for an iPhone backup and a few gigabytes of pictures. It’s almost never enough for the average user.

Activating it on your Mac will help save room in your system memory, though. It moves the actual storage of files to the cloud, and ann image of those files on your Mac. It also compresses images for optimized storage on the Mac, but keeps them available in the Photos app.

If you have a different cloud storage system you prefer, CloudMounter makes it easy to back your Mac’s files up to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Mega, Amazon S3, and other services. It lives in your Mac’s Finder app and menu bar, and makes moving files from your Mac to the cloud as easy as dragging and dropping them into CloudMounter, and directly into your connected cloud account.

Manage large files and archive data

You can find and delete large files on your Mac directly. Here’s how:

1. From the menu bar on your Mac, click the Apple logo on the top left
2. Select 'About this Mac'
3. Select the 'Storage' option in the new window
4. Select 'Manage'
5. Select 'Documents'
6. On the right side of the window, click the 'Size' column header to show the largest files first

We prefer using CleanMyMac X’s file system manager. Here’s how to use it:

1. Open CleanMyMac X on your Mac
2. Select the 'Large & Old Files' module on the right side of the window
3. Select 'Scan'

This is a smarter way of discerning which files are taking up space on your Mac – especially if you don’t need access to those files often. It shows you which types of files they are, how old they are, and lets you delete batches of files by size.

Find and delete duplicate files

When you download an app, it usually has associated files it stores on your Mac. That’s normal; duplicates of those files aren’t. Downloading an app more than once, or even updating an app, can cause it to duplicate existing files on your Mac.

You may also download files more than once. Your Mac is smart, but doesn’t bother checking to see if you already have a file before downloading it again. There’s no clean way to check for duplicates on your Mac. Apple would ask that you look for duplicated filenames in your storage, and delete one of them.

A better way is to use Gemini, an innovative cleanup app built to help you find and eliminate duplicate files on your hard drive. Even better, it can identify near-identical files as well, giving you an easy way to delete the slightly shaky versions of your vacation snaps in one convenient window.

Here’s how to detect and delete duplicate files with Gemini:

How Do I Free Up Space On Startup Disc Mac Startup Disk Mac

1. Open Gemini on your Mac
2. Click the ‘plus’ icon, or drag a folder to the app
3. Select 'Review Results' to delete files manually, or 'Smart Cleanup' to allow Gemini to delete all duplicates

Remove temporary files

Your macOS, your apps, and your browser all use a shortcut called 'caching' to run faster. But over time, those caches fill up with useless information that bogs down your computer.

Why is it important to clear the cache? The short answer is that caches litter and bloat Macs. They aren't just a byproduct of browser history — most systems and apps, such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Mail and Photos, create huge amounts of temporary files that linger in the background. These caches of data are essentially just junk files, and they can be safely deleted to free up storage space.

When it comes to cleaning a Mac, you have two options: delete files manually or get a cleaner app to help you. Clearing your cache files with CleanMyMac is the quickest, safest way we know.

Get rid of hidden trash

Another source of system-slowing junk is email and text attachments. Even if you don’t download an attachment, your desktop mail client holds onto a version so that it can show you previews and access the file more easily. 'But I deleted that email!' you say. Often that’s not enough—these downloads can hang around long after the original email is gone.

It’s possible to clean them out manually. You can use the macOS Optimize Storage feature we’ve described above. Choose what exactly you want to be removed — mail attachments, watched video, or both. Still, CleanMyMac X is a much faster option to clean up the trash on Mac. Here’s how to use CleanMyMac X to empty all trash folders on your Mac:

1. Open CleanMyMac X on your Mac
2. Select 'Trash Bins' from the left hand side
3. Select 'Scan' at the bottom of the window
4. Select 'Review Details' to see what CleanMyMac X found, or 'Empty' to delete all trash files on your Mac

Here’s a little trick for you: If you want to be sure you keep the needed files and attachments at your fingertips, use Trickster app to remember them for you. Configure your file tracking inside the app and make sure you’re never confused about what’s stored on your Mac. The important stuff is always in Trickster.

If you want a clutter-free email client, Canary Mail is your perfect choice. The app not only automatically clear away the trash, but also allows to automatically unsubscribe from tons of mailing lists — so that you stop receiving the clutter.

Empty downloads and trash bin

Your Mac’s ‘download’ folder is where most apps, like Safari or Chrome, dump files. It’s also the default folder for email downloads. And it can get really full.

Many of us simply download a file, access it, then forget about it once we’re done with it. The downloads folder can get chock full of files we no longer need, or want. It’s smart to comb through it ever so often and delete files you don’t want, or move them to cloud storage containers using CloudMounter.

Some downloads are hidden, taking up even more space. And the further back you go the more useless these documents are. Do you really need to keep a text file labelled 'Christmas shopping list 2015' or 'Dream holiday Summer 2016?' Probably not. Free up some much-needed space on your Mac and delete as many of these old download files as possible, and remember to come back and tidy it up every few months.

CleanMyMac can help for sure. But also, consider switching your email client to Unibox, which automatically reduces excessive downloads.

AppleInsider described Unibox as 'the best client we tried,' and Macworld said it is 'A welcome, fresh new approach to email on the Mac.' Unibox groups emails by sender and includes an attachment list, so you can quickly find what you need, then delete those documents out of the Downloads folder.

Uninstall unused apps

Have you ever downloaded an app, then stopped using it? We all have! Those apps occupy memory on your Mac – sometimes a lot of space, too.

CleanMyMac X has a handy 'Uninstaller' module which makes it easy to identify and remove all unwanted apps from your Mac. It even deletes associated files, so all traces of an unused app are taken away.

Get rid of old backups

Something else that comes as a surprise to most Mac users is just how many backups your system carries at any given time. Copying and pasting, and the duplicate feature make it too easy to replicate your work in different folders.

At the same time, you’ve probably got dozens of cached backups of files and documents that are invisible but taking up more space than you’d want. Like Time Machine backups. Every time you use Apple’s built-in backup utility, it creates local snapshots that are stored locally on your Mac. This may result in up to 100 GB Time Machine clutter on your hard drive.

Free Up Disk Space For Macbook Pro

CleanMyMac will find old backups for you and remove them in a click. In its 'Maintenance' module, you can select 'Time Machine Snapshot Thinning' to automatically remove older Time Machine backups you no longer need.

But also, switch your backup client to Get Backup Pro to backup only those units you want (for Mac). If you need to quickly transfer files or folders to another server, use a backup sync app ChronoSync Express.

If you want to quickly backup your iOS device on Mac — for instance, before hard resetting or factory resetting iPhone — you can use AnyTrans. You can even schedule instant backups to never worry about losing data when syncing your iOS device with Mac.

Get rid of desktop clutter

Organizing your Mac desktop doesn’t directly help your memory woes, but it can help you find files faster and avoid multiple downloads of the same file.

Apple’s chosen method is called Stacks. A simple right-click on your desktop brings up a menu; selecting 'Use Stacks' puts your files into folders by type. Images, screenshots, and other files will be held in expandable folders, decluttering your desktop for good. Future downloads will all fall into those categories, too.

You may prefer Spotless, an app that affords you far more control over how your desktop is organized. You can set rules for organization, and tuck files into other folders on your Mac by dragging and dropping into one location. Spotless takes care of the hard work for you!

You deserve a faster Mac

By eliminating both hard disk and desktop clutter, you’ll improve your Mac’s performance as well as your own workflow. Plus, Setapp’s decluttering, disk cleanup, and analysis apps help you complete what would be a tedious chore in just a few clicks. There’s no telling how much time and effort you’ll save by giving yourself (and your Mac) a break.

There are plenty of great ways to manage your Mac’s memory without rushing out to buy a new computer. We’ve shown you the best ways here!

All the apps we mentioned in this article are available for free during a seven day trial of Setapp, the world’s best suite of productivity apps for the Mac. In addition to ClanMyMac X, Spotless, Gemini, CloudMounter, Get Backup Pro, and ChronoSync Express, you’ll have unlimited access to Setapp’s full catalog of nearly 200 Mac apps. When your free trial is over, Setapp is only $9.99 per month. Give it a try today!

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

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Free Up Disk Space For Mac Catalina

Have you ever seen the message prompting you that 'Your startup disk is almost full'?

We all faced the situation that running out of space, whether on portable iOS/Android device, or PC/Mac. And this post will mainly talk about how to clear disk space on Mac. If you are a MacBook Air, Pro, Mini, or iMac user, there will finally come a time when you don't have enough storage on Mac. What should you do?

With so many important files needed to be saved on Mac, 256 GB is not enough, 512 GB is not enough, let alone 128 GB of storage. You must feel hard to find space for new files. In fact, there are still lots of things you can do to free up some disk space. Now you can take the journey to check and clear disk space on Mac.

How to Clear Disk Space on Mac

Part 1. How to check disk space on Mac

Before we show you how to clean up disk space on Mac, you should know how much storage you can use. Actually, during the daily usage of your Mac, you ought to frequently check the remaining space. If you have already known how to do it, you can skip to the next part.

Step 1Click the Apple menu, and choose About This Mac.

Step 2Click on Storage and there will be an overview of Mac free space and the space taken up by diverse categories of files, including apps, audio, movies, movies, photos, other, etc. As you can see, the Mac system takes a lot of storage.

Part 2. How to clear disk space on Mac (Best way)

Many solutions can help you clean up Mac startup disk. In case you have already know some basic ways to get more space, here we show you the professional method first. A powerful Mac Cleaner is recommended for you to free disk space. You can free download it and have a try.

Mac Cleaner is an all-featured Mac cleaning software which enables you to clear disk space on Mac. It has the capability to remove unneeded, large and old files, uninstall useless apps and delete junk files. In this way, you can easily clean up your Mac and get more disk storage.

• 1. Support to clean junk files, delete browser cookies, empty trash, and uninstall applications with ease.
• 2. Monitor Mac status, such as disk utilization, battery status, memory usage and CPU usage.
• 3. Compatible with iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro.
• 4. Works on Mac OS 10.10 or above (Mac OS X Yosemite, Mac OX El Capitan, macOS High Sierra included).

Step 1Launch Mac Cleaner

Download, install Mac Cleaner and then launch it on Mac. Mac Cleaner will detect the system status of your Mac and show details in the interface.

Step 2Scan junk files

You can check key features on the left panel. Click 'Junk Files' option then click 'Scan' button.

How To Clear Space On Macbook

Step 3Clean junk files on Mac

After scanning, you can see all junk files are listed, including 'Application Cache', 'Photo Junks', 'System Logs', 'System Cache', 'User Logs', 'Trash Bin'. Choose the junk files you want to delete, then hit 'Clean' button.

Step 4Delete unneeded files

Click 'Unneeded Files' option and then click 'Scan'. After the scanning process, all unneeded files will be displayed in the interface, including 'Mail Attachments', 'iTunes Backups', 'Localization', etc. Check the unneeded files you want to delete, then hit 'Clean' button to free disk space on Mac.

Step 5Remove large & old files

Click 'Large & Old Files' option in the left panel, then click 'Scan' button. When all large & old files appear, select the files you want to clean up. Click on 'Clean' button to clean up disk space on mac.

As you can see, just a few clicks, you can easily clear disk space on Mac. Moreover, it can scan all apps and their attached data. You can use it to clean up the files or uninstall useless programs on Mac.

You may be interested in: How to defrag a Mac

Part 3. Common methods to clear up disk space on Mac

Well, to tell the truth, you don't need other ways to clear disk space on Mac if you try the first method. But these regular ways will always be your first trying. Now this part will tell you some simple tips to free up disk space on Mac.

Store in iCloud

From the part one, you know how to view Mac storage space. And you can find a Manage button there. Click on it and you will see more options. The first one is Store in iCloud.

We all know that iCloud can help you store all types of data on Mac and iPhone/iPad/iPod. When you get some files saved on Mac, you can delete the original data as you like. Files that are only saved in the cloud will show a download icon, so that you can double click it to get the data back.

Optimize Storage

Click Optimize Storage button, watched iTunes movies and TV shows will be automatically removed. When storage space is needed, iTunes movies or TV shows you watched are deleted from your Mac to free up space. But you can click the download button to retrieve it.

Download only recent attachments. Choose this, your Mail will only download the recent attachments you received.

Never automatically download any email attachments. Mail downloads an attachment only when you open the email or attachment, or save the attachment to your Mac.

Clear the Downloads folder

One thing you shouldn't miss is the user Downloads folder. This folder will quickly gather all sorts of stuff you ever used, no longer needed. Every time you download something, related files will be downloaded, installed, used, and then not removed. For these useless data, you can delete them to get more space on Mac.

Empty the Trash

Last thing to clear disk on Mac is to empty the Trash. When you drag files to Trash, these data are not removed from Mac thoroughly. It is an often overlooked step, even for some users this may be sound obvious. So when you want to clear disk space on Mac, do remember to empty the Trash.

How Can I Get More Disk Space

You may be interested in: How to defrag a Mac

We mainly talk about how to clear disk space on Mac. Several effective ways are provided for you to free up Mac space. We recommend the first method for you. Because you can easily find and delete the unnecessary apps, large data, old files and more. Surely, if you have any better way, please leave us a message.

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December 15, 2020 11:35 / Updated by Louisa White to Mac Cleanup

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