How To Clean Out System Storage On Mac



Optimized Storage helps you save storage space space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:

And below are some usual and free methods to free up your Mac storage. Delete useless iOS backup files, applications, and documents. Transfer media files like photos, video, music, and iBooks to external disk drive or cloud. And then delete them. Find hidden junk, large old folders, background apps, and heavy memory consumers. Use CleanMyMac X to free up space on your Mac and tune it for maximum speed. The new version effectively blocks. Launch CleanMyMac X. Choose System Junk in the sidebar.

  • 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.

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. 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

How To Clean Macbook Storage

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

Clean

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

Clean Up Storage On Mac

How To Clean Out System Storage On Mac

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

How to clean up system storage on macbook pro

Clear System Storage Mac

  • 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

  • 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.

Many people would agree that now Macs take a significant place in our lives. In a good way, of course. They help us immerse ourselves in the virtual reality, communicate with the whole world, and engage greatly in our work or hobbies. However, our Macs need constant cleaning and this not only applies the external cleaning of the screen, keyboard, and other things but the internal cleaning itself. Today we will show you how to clear Mac hard drive using 8 simple ways.

Follow These Steps to Clean Your Mac Hard Disk

A great news to all Mac lovers, there is a brand-new and useful cleaning app called MacFly Pro. This cleaning software will become your fast and effective assistant in taking care of your Mac. MacFly Pro finds and removes unnecessary files, duplicates, downloads, Mac cache files, old applications on your hard disk. Furthermore, this tool will make space on hard drive Mac and improve the PC’s working performance.

Now, let’s get back to the manual cleaning of your Mac. Below, you will find 8 most practical methods to clean hard drive and free up some space.

How To Clean Up System Storage On Macbook Pro

1. Empty Trash

This is the most common tip among all Mac users to cope with a lack of storage space. Have you heard that you should periodically empty your Trash? This will help reclaim some space and get rid of unnecessary files that you no longer use.

2. Clear cache

The second step to clean out hard drive space on a Mac is to clear system, user and also browser cache. Cache are temporary files and can accumulate very quickly, that’s why one should delete them from the hard disk. Make a habit to delete cache on Mac and browsing history to prevent slowdowns of your favorite browser.

3. Uninstall old and useless apps

Some applications on your computer may have no value so you should search and destroy all old and unwanted apps from your hard drive. It may be difficult a bit to part with different apps, even if you never opened them, but it will help clean your Mac hard drive.

For instance, Mac OS has pre-installed applications and a big part of them may not be valuable. To reclaim more hard disk space on your MacBook Pro, go to the Application folder and drag-and-drop useless apps to the Trash on your desktop (and don’t forget to empty Trash!).

4. Delete language packs

To make your iMac run a bit faster, clean up the hard drive by eliminating localization and language packs. It’s worthy to delete language packs if you don’t need them, and you can do it manually or rely on some effective cleaning apps like MacFly Pro.

5. Remove disk space hogs

From time to time, monitor your Mac hard drive to discover which files to move to an external storage device and which to delete completely. Never put off until later what you can do now to maintain the good performance of your Mac.

6. Manage e-mail files

This is definitely not the best way to clean much space on your Mac hard drive, but at least it will complement the manual cleaning. You can either remove or archive e-mail files to free up extra space on a disk for other worthwhile items.

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7. Use some maintenance utilities

Now that you know how to clear your Mac hard drive on your own, let’s move on to some maintenance utilities. To keep your Mac in a good condition and boost its performance, you can buy or download online utilities. These digital cleaners will delete system caches, log files, temporary files, duplicate files, and other stuff from your PC.

8. Ask for help from third-party applications

And the last tip for today is to look for efficient third-party applications.

Those guys will do your job of reclaiming hard drive space and speeding your Mac up. As mentioned before, MacFly Pro is a truly clever solution to performance problems. This is a universal application that will clean up the hard drive, scan the overall condition of your PC and support its life in the future.

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