- And, if you want your Mac to work smoothly you need to keep 10% of your hard disk space free at all times. So, if you are out of space, it would really hamper your performance. Lately, we examined all the possibilities for cleaning up storage on MacOS and Mac OS X.
- To make more space on your startup disk you will need to: Delete files from your Mac. Move files to an external hard drive or cloud storage. Or install a second internal hard drive on your Mac.
- How Do I Free Up Disk Space On My Macbook Air
- Clear Space On Mac
- How Do I Free Up Disk Space On My Macbook Pro
Optimized Storage helps you save storage space 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.
One of the easiest ways to estimate what's taking up disk space on your Mac is to use Storage option (available in macOS Sierra or later). Just click on the Apple logo in the top left corner of the screen and then click on About This Mac (first option). Now, click on Storage tab and it will display an aggregated view of types of files you have. When you open an online-only file, it downloads to your device and becomes a locally available file. You can open a locally available file anytime, even without Internet access. If you need more space, you can change the file back to online only. Just right-click the file and select Free up space.
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.
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 to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.
Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. Control v on mac. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving 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 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.
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 or later, 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. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
- If you're using 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 or later, 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 you're using 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.
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 described in this article, 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
![Macbook Macbook](https://www.wikihow.com/images/thumb/f/fe/Free-Up-Disk-Space-on-a-Windows-XP-PC-Step-1Bullet2.jpg/aid2740759-v4-728px-Free-Up-Disk-Space-on-a-Windows-XP-PC-Step-1Bullet2.jpg)
- 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.
Getting low on space?
If you're working most of the time in front of your Mac, having low hard disk space can surely get in the way of your daily activities and as much as possible, the occurrence of this event must be too slim, or best, must be avoided.
So, how do you free up the hard disk space on your Mac?
Let's count the ways.
Why Do We Need To Clean Up Hard Disk Space?
Your available hard disk space is a contributing factor to your overall Mac speed and experience, which means that if you have enough disk space, your Mac can perform most of the processes you demand it to do.
That's why it is important that we periodically free up the hard disk space on our Mac.
If you think you're ready to do the following simple steps, then scroll down to learn.
Access and Manage Your Storage
As a user, we must first learn to navigate our Mac.
Using it immediately after it was removed from its box will not do you (and your Mac) any good as you will eventually store small and huge blocks of data every time you work on it.
These blocks of data will gradually accumulate in your hard disk space, and without knowing, your Mac starts slowing down, greatly affecting your business and other tasks.
How Do I Free Up Disk Space On My Macbook Air
So, here, let's try to access the storage of our Mac. To find it, hover over the Apple logo on the upper left corner of your menu bar.
Choose 'About This Mac' and a pop-up will show you an overview of your Mac specifications.
Click on Storage.
That, right there, is your available hard disk space. As you can see, there is a 'Manage…' option on the right side of the pop-up. Click on that.
Upon clicking that, you will be given recommendations on how to free up some space on your Mac and to tell you honestly, they are all useful tips.
Even so, in the next section, we will give you 5 powerful methods to clean up your hard disk space.
5 Powerful Methods to Free Up Hard Disk Space on Your Mac
1. Consider storage management options for Mac.
As mentioned earlier, these recommendations are very helpful to maximize your Mac's storage capacity.
If you have other Apple devices, you may enable the 'Store in iCloud' option to sync your files across your devices, thus, allowing extra space on your Mac.
If you are subscribed to Apple TV, you can opt for the 'Optimize Storage' option to further expand your storage capacity.
By turning on the 'Empty Trash Automatically', you save more space since items you delete will not have to occupy extra disk space by bypassing Trash.
Clear Space On Mac
Finally, 'Reduce Clutter' means you have to review your files and documents in your Mac one by one to select which to remove or retain.
2. Compress huge files.
Without question, you are likely to develop large deposits of data in your Mac over time. These include huge files such as HD movies, RAW images, and other baggy documents and downloads.
With all these spacey files, your disk space will significantly decrease in size, leaving you no space for extra processes that you want your Mac to execute.
One powerful method to clear up a lot of space in your Mac is to compress these huge files.
To do it:
- Select the file or folder you want to compress.
- Right-click it and choose 'Compress folder/filename…'
- After clicking it, a .zipfile will appear beside the file. Compressed files acquire the .zip extension and as you will notice, it has a smaller space compared to the uncompressed file/folder yet they have the same contents.
3. Transfer files to an external hard drive or flash drive.
This option is never new to anyone since flash drives are now used anywhere. External hard drive and flash drives can be your handy ally in optimizing your storage.
How Do I Free Up Disk Space On My Macbook Pro
Practically speaking, if you don't want to delete or compress huge files, you may go through your library and transfer those huge files effortlessly to your external hard drive or flash drive. This will save you not just space but also time.
4. Clear browsing data such as history, cookies, and cache.
Locked out of my mac. It is undeniable that there's not a day we don't browse through the internet and along with these activities, we tend to store small amounts of data such as history, cookies, and cache that become too heavy in our disk space in the long run.
This calls for clearing your browsing data from time to time and only when you do it, you will realize how powerful this method is.
To learn more about how to clear your browsing data, click here.
5. Download and use Mac cleaner applications.
Year after year, the advancement of technology has offered new applications and these include Mac cleaner applications that are now employed by most Mac users.
Try your hardest to look for the best Mac cleaner applications as utilizing it can be a powerful method of clearing up your hard disk space.
They are optimized and meticulously designed to perform all of the mentioned options.
One example of a good Mac cleaner application is CleanMyMac X. It's an app used by a significant population of Mac users. Like mentioned earlier, this Mac cleaner software can do these things stated above with so much ease.
Imagine, you just have to download one app to do it all. How powerful, right?
Final Words
Mac has given you ready options to clear up your disk space, and what's more convenient about it is that they're just a few easy clicks away. If you are running short of space, you will never go wrong settling on one of these powerful methods to free up your hard disk space.
Have you tried one of these steps? Which method do you prefer? Let us know in the comments below.