Criminy! Where does all this stuff come from? Suddenly MacBook’s spacious 512GB solid-state drive has 19GB left, and you start feeling pinched. It’s time to do some easy regular maintenance work!
Before you consider buying a new internal or external drive, take the smart step: Sweep your laptop’s drive clean of unnecessary and space-hogging software and temporary files.
Clean things the manual way
Next, let's clean up the applications you are keeping. When you install an app on your Mac, the piece of software arrives as part of a package of files, including permissions that tell MacOS which. How to Clean Mac Hard Drive Manually. If you never performed an automatic or manual system cleaning — it means that your Mac has been collecting unnecessary files and clutter for years. You can quickly clean up your Mac with these easy steps.
If you’re willing to dig into your data a little, you have no reason to buy additional software to help you clean up your hard drive. All you really need is the willpower to announce, “I simply don’t need this application any longer.” (And, sometimes, that’s tougher than it might seem.)
Unnecessary files and unneeded folders
Consider all the stuff that you probably don’t really need:
- Game demos and shareware that you no longer play (or even remember)
- Movie trailers and other QuickTime video files that have long since passed into obscurity
- Temporary files that you created and promptly forgot
- Log files that chronicle application installations and errors
- ZIP and StuffIt archives that you downloaded and no longer covet
- iTunes music and videos that no longer appeal to your eye and ear
How hard is it to clean this stuff off your drive? Easier than you might think!
- You can easily delete files.
- You can move seldom used files and folders to external storage (such as a USB flash drive, an external hard drive, or a DVD) to free up space on your laptop’s internal drive.
- You can uninstall applications purchased from the App Store using Launchpad — from the Launchpad display, click and hold down the icon until it wiggles. If an X button appears on the icon, you can click the X to remove the application from your MacBook.
- You can get rid of an unnecessary application by deleting its application folder that was created during the installation process.
Always check the application’s README file and documentation for any special instructions before you manually delete any application’s folder! If you created any documents in that folder that you want to keep, don’t forget to move them before you trash the folder and its contents. In fact, some applications may come complete with their own uninstall utility, so checking the README file and documentation may save you unnecessary steps.
Removing an application or a file from your drive is usually two simple steps:
- Display the file or application folder in a Finder window.
- Delete the file or folder with one of these steps:
- Drag the icon to the Trash.
- Press cmd+Delete.
- Right-click the icon and choose Move to Trash.
- Select the icon and click the Delete button on the Finder toolbar (if you added one).
Truly, no big whoop.
Don’t forget to actually empty the Trash, or you’ll wonder why you aren’t regaining any drive space. (Mountain Lion works hard to store the contents of the Trash until you manually delete it, just in case you want to undelete something.) To get rid of that stuff permanently and reclaim the space, follow these steps:
- Right-click the Trash icon in the Dock.
- Choose Empty Trash from the pop-up menu that appears.
Associated files in other folders
Some applications install files in different locations across your drive. (Applications in this category include Microsoft Office and Photoshop.) How can you clear out these orphan files after you delete the application folder?
The process is a little more involved than deleting a single folder, but it’s still no big whoop. Here’s the procedure:
- Click the Search text box in a Finder window. Play mp3 in gmail app mac.
- Type the name of the application in the Search text box.
- Decide which of these files belong to the to-be-deleted application.Be sure that the files you choose to delete are part of the deleted application. For example, a Keynote presentation with the name Instructions on Building with Adobe might not be part of Adobe Illustrator.Many associated files either
- Have the same icon as the parent application
- Are in the Preferences, Caches, or Application Support folders
- In the Search Results window, click the associated file(s) that you want to delete and just drag them to the Trash.Don’t empty the Trash immediately after you delete these files. Wait a few hours or a day. That way, if you realize that you deleted a file that you truly need, you can easily restore it from the Trash.
How to use a commercial cleanup tool
If you’d rather use a commercial application to help you clean up your drive, a number of them are available but most are shareware and perform only one task. For example, Tidy Up! 3 from Hyperbolic Software finds only duplicate files on your drive, matching by criteria such as filename, size, content, and extension.
For keeping your MacBook’s drive slim and trim, consider CCleaner for Mac, from Piriform. This great utility can clean everything from Internet crud (browser cookies and your surfing history) to the OS X system caches that can grow so doggone huge, and you can easily fine-tune what CCleaner for Mac will remove. The utility can also uninstall many applications for you with a single click.
Smart board software 11 for mac. Optimized Storage in macOS Sierra and later* can save space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand. When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically. Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it. Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.
* If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.
Find out how much storage is available on your Mac
Choose Apple menu > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.
Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below. This button is available only in macOS Sierra or later.
Manage storage on your Mac
The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.
Store in iCloud
Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:
- Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
- Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
- Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.
Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.
Optimize Storage
Click the Optimize button, then choose from these options.
- Automatically remove watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from the iTunes Store and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.
- Download only recent attachments. Mail automatically downloads only the attachments that you recently received. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.
- Don't automatically download attachments. Mail downloads an attachment only when you open the email or attachment, or save the attachment to your Mac.
Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.
Empty Trash Automatically
Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.
Reduce Clutter
Reduce Clutter helps you to identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.
You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.
Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.
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Where to find the settings for each feature
The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.
- If you're using macOS Catalina, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. Then click Options next to iCloud Drive: Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders setting. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
In macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings. - In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
- In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
- If you're using macOS Catalina, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
In macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.” - In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.
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Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”
Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space
With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:
- Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
- Reminds you to delete used app installers
- Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
- Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed
How to free up storage space manually
Even without using the Optimized Storage features of Sierra or later, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:
- Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
- Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
- Move files to an external storage device.
- Compress files.
- Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.
Learn more
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- The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
- When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
- If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.