Emptying trash on Mac will completely remove them and free up the disk space. However, Mac OS has multiple trash cans, so you may need to empty more than one. To empty main trash of your user account: Step 1: CTRL-Click or right click on the trash icon at the bottom right corner. Step 2: Now, choose empty trash. It will delete all the files.
- How To Free Up Space On My Mac Hard Drive Without
- How To Free Up Space On My Mac Hard Drive
- How To Free Up Space On My Mac Hard Drive And Reinstall
- Mar 16, 2021 Dumping old downloads is a tried-and-true way to reduce clutter on your Mac and free up disk space for your vacation photos and other useful files. Here’s how to do it: Open Finder; Select Downloads on the left; Right-click the useless files and select the Move to Trash option from the drop-down menu; Empty the Trash; Parting thoughts.
- DaisyDisk check & freeing up disk space on Mac computer with efficiency and simplicity. This is mainly because it has a beautiful interface, presented in the manner of an interactive wheel for easy and intuitive visualization. DaisyDisk is very fast, and shows an overview of all disks connected to the Mac.
- About This Mac shows how much space is available on your hard disk. Empty The Trash. The most obvious and easy way to free up some space is to empty the Trash. Remember that individual applications such as iMovie, iPhoto and Mail each have their own Trash, so empty those frequently too. There’s no need to keep your Mac’s Trash can full.
The limitations of Mac storage often create a problem that prevents the Mac from running smoothly, which results in inconvenience to every user. With that said, we take a look at the four ways to free up the storage space on the device manually, according to Apple.
How to Free Up Storage Space Manually on Your Mac
1. Store the contents of the device to the iCloud storage.
iCloud is an online storage service that enables Mac users to save their files and other data online. This is a safe and secure place for your files. It will save the files automatically after editing or modifying its contents. Also, a user can always check and access these files online, anywhere and anytime. All Apple users have a free 5 GB storage space in iCloud and can subscribe to more storage through monthly subscription
- To use the iCloud, go to the 'Apple menu'. After, you will see the option 'About this Mac.' Click it.
- Once you see this on the screen, select the 'Storage.'
- Then, click 'Manage.'
- Click the 'Store in iCloud' and it is done.
For documents stored in iCloud, you can always download these documents locally on your Mac anytime. For photos and videos, the iCloud will store full resolution images and videos. It can also save the messages and attachments.
2. Uninstall unused or unnecessary applications in the device.
Sometimes, there are unnecessary applications in the device that occupy spaces in the storage. To free up the storage, users can uninstall these applications.
Read Also: How to clean up your Mac quickly? Outbyte MacRepair's Guide
This can be done in three easy steps, per Tech Solutions:
- Choose the 'Finder' in the device's dock.
- Then, click 'Go.' After, browse the options, find and click the 'Applications.'
- After clicking it, it will show you all the applications in your Mac. Browse through the applications and choose those applications that are unused and unnecessary. To uninstall each application, drag the application's icon to the Trash icon that you will see in the dock. Continue doing this until you have uninstalled all the unneeded applications.
3. Empty trash
The items in the Trash can also occupy space in the storage. There are two options you can choose from. You can manually empty the Trash once in a while or enable the feature that automatically and permanently delete all the items in the trash every 30 days.
- To delete manually, click the Trash icon in the device's dock. Browse through the items and delete the items that you do not need anymore. You can also select all and empty the Trash.
- To enable the feature that will automatically and permanently delete all the items in the trash every 30 days, follow the instructions in storing in iCloud above mentioned. However, this time, browse and choose the 'Empty Trash Automatically' and click 'Turn On...'.
4. Free up a large storage space on the Mac
You can use an external storage to help maximize the storage of the device. These external storage devices are: USB flash drives, external hard drive, SD or Micro SD card, and external port adapters. There are four steps to move the items from the Mac to an external storage device, per Business Insider.
- Check for an available port on your Mac device and plug the external storage device.
- After plugging it in, it will appear in the finder and the desktop of the device.
- Copy or move the items or files that you do not need currently and are often unused in the Mac.
- Lastly, after copying and moving the items in the external storage, delete all the original documents and other items in the Mac to free up storage.
Related Article: Mac Running Slow? Here Are 4 Tips to Help Improve Its Speed
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Why clean your Mac’s hard drive?
The most obvious reason is that you're running out of space on your boot disk. And, while there are many things you can do to free up disk space, including using Apple’s own storage management tools, it’s a good idea to start by getting rid of the junk that’s accumulated and that you don’t need. That way, not only will you free up space, you will also give your Mac a boost and help it run more smoothly.
What are the files that I should clean up?
Most of them are files that are left behind by applications, many of which you probably no longer use, and some of which you may have deleted and thought you’d uninstalled. These include:
Application libraries
Preferences files
Launch agents
Temporary cache files that were never deleted
Log files
In addition, web browsers store files on your Mac, including:
Cookies
Cache files of their own
History
Every email client you use stores attachments you’ve downloaded. You may also have language files on your Mac for languages you don’t need. And we haven’t even touched duplicate folders and outdated backups.
How To Free Up Space On My Mac Hard Drive Without
All these files take up space and could slow down your Mac.
Use automated junk detector
There are a number of things you can do by yourself to clean up files on your Mac’s main disk. However, I’ve found that the quickest and easiest way is to use a tool designed specifically for the purpose. There are several available, but I use CleanMyMac X because it has a ton of great features and it’s notarized by Apple. Here’s how to use its System Junk tool to get rid of junk files.
Here you can download a free version of this tool.
Install the latest version of CleanMyMac X.
Follow the instructions on screen to install it and then launch it from your Applications folder.
Click System Junk in the sidebar.
When it’s finished, it will tell you how much junk it has found. You now have two choices: get rid of it all with one click, or review what it’s found. To get rid of it, just press Clean. To find out more, choose Review Details.
In the Review Details view, you can see that everything CleanMyMac has found has a checkmark against it. If you see anything you don’t want to remove, just uncheck the box next to it.
Here is what I was able to find on my Mac:
That’s 6 gigs of very odd technical files that are almost impossible to dig out by yourself.
Tip: CleanMyMac X can also identify and remove Malware, which will also help keep your Mac’s drive clean.
Use Apple’s storage management tools
Apple has realized in recent versions of macOS that users who swap a computer with 1TB hard drive for 128GB or 256GB SSD are going to have issues with storage. And to that end, it has created a storage management tool that recommends ways in which you can save space, and provides options for discovering what’s taking up space and helping you do something about it.
Click on the Apple menu and choose About this Mac.
Select the Storage tab and press the 'Manage’ button.
With Recommendations selected, read through the list and press the button next to any that are relevant to you.
For example, next to Reduce Clutter, press Review Files. You can now organize files in the list by size, or see only those in your Downloads folder or that come from unsupported apps. Or you can choose File Browser to see all your files.
If you see any files you don’t need, press Delete.
Go through the rest of the items on the list in the left of the window and take any action that will clean up your hard drive, like removing image attachments from Messages, or deleting iOS device backups.
Tip: Don’t forget to empty your Trash after you’ve deleted some files.
Uninstall applications
Some apps come with their own uninstallers and where that’s the case, the best way to uninstall them is to use that. However, most applications don’t have such a neat solution. And many of us still think that simply dragging an app’s icon to the Trash will uninstall it. It won’t. Instead, it will leave tens, or even hundreds of files scattered in various folders on your drive, taking up space and possibly causing conflicts later on.
The best way to get rid of applications that don’t have their own uninstaller is to use a general uninstaller, like CleanMyMac X. It’s not the only uninstaller around, but it’s the one I prefer to use, because it’s quick, easy to use, and has lots of other functions, too.
Open a new Finder window and click Go (in the top menu).
Choose Applications
You may start by deleting your duplicate apps (see my screenshot)
Once again, you can drag your unwanted apps to the Trash. That’s good but it leaves behind leftovers as many Mac users know.
Luckily, if you’ve downloaded and installed CleanMyMac X (see above), it’s easy to uninstall all apps and their remainders completely.
Launch CleanMyMac X — download the app here (Apple-notarized version)
Choose Uninstaller in the sidebar.
Locate the app you want to uninstall in CleanMyMac’s main window (Tip, you can narrow down you search by clicking on the name of a developer in the middle window or category).
Check the box next to the app or apps you want to uninstall (you can uninstall multiple apps simultaneously) and press Uninstall.
Tip: If an app is misbehaving but you want to keep it around, you can click on the dropdown menu next to its name, labelled ‘Uninstall’ and choose Reset. The press the Reset button. That will return the app to the state it was in when it was first installed and should fix any problems.
Remove user account you don’t need
If you’ve had your Mac for a few years, you may have set up multiple user accounts. Perhaps a friend or family member also used the Mac, or maybe you set up one user account for work and one for leisure. Whatever the reason, if there are user accounts on your Mac that you no longer need, getting rid of them will help clean up your Mac’s hard drive.
Click on the Apple menu and choose System Preferences.
Select Users & Groups.
Click the padlock and type in your admin password.
Select the user you want to remove and press the ‘-‘ button.
Choose Delete the home folder to get rid of it and free up space. Or Save the home folder as a disk image to keep it. Remember to copy the disk image to another location on an external disk and delete it from your boot drive afterwards.
Press Delete User.
The user account and all the files in the home folder of that account will now be deleted – unless you chose to keep the home folder. The great thing about this tip is that each user account contains much more data than you may realise, since each has its own Library folder with possibly thousands of files in it.
More ideas to free up hard drive space:
- Move your Photos to Photos.Google.com — it offers almost limitless storage and there is a Mac version of Google Photos you can download.
- Get a duplicate finder app for Mac (Gemini 2 is a good pick) — duplicates can be extremely large.
- Find large unwanted media — use the Space Lens tool.
Discover your largest folders — build a visual map of your drive
In addition to the thousands of smaller files taking up space on your Mac’s hard drive, it’s likely that there are a number of very large folders and in some old files you don’t need access to regularly. Moving large files to a different location, like an external hard drive can free up lots of space very quickly, while archiving old files will also clean up your Mac’s hard drive without causing any inconvenience.
You could track down these files manually, by using the Finder to create a smart search based on file size or creation date, but CleanMyMac X has a tool called Space Lens that allows you to do it very quickly and easily.
Choose Space Lens in CleanMyMac's sidebar.
Press Scan.
You will see in the right hand window, files listed according to their size.
How To Free Up Space On My Mac Hard Drive
How To Free Up Space On My Mac Hard Drive And Reinstall
Your Mac’s hard drive can become cluttered with files once you’ve been using it for a while, and, as well as taking up space, these files can slow down your Mac and cause performance issues. Fortunately, it’s easy to clean up your Mac, by following the steps above. And it’s even easier if you use CleanMyMac X to help.