Free Disk Space For Mac

• Free Disk Space Cleaner Mac
• Free Up Space On Macbook
• Free Disk Space For Mac Reviews
• Free Disk Space Mac Terminal

It all starts with “Disk is almost full”

If you are reading this you are probably familiar with the “Disk is almost full” message on Mac. The lack of free space is in fact a global issue. According to a MacPaw research, since the Great Lockdown of 2020, people are 28% more likely to clean their computers. Isn’t it because we started to consume more content? Anyway, the limitless hard drives haven’t been invented yet.

Let's take the new MacBook Air 2020 edition that offers startling capacities of 256 GB. That’s roughly the storage of the previous year’s iPad! And how soon you will fill that space full, given today’s media consumption trends, is a different question. And as of summer of 2020, iCloud storage still remains a paid option and 50GB will cost you $0.99 per month.

So whether you have a new or older Mac, it’s critical to know how to clear system storage on Mac. Further below I’ll show you my favorite methods of recovering disk space on Mac. They are a bit like alchemy because we’ll be turning junk into free space.

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.

Okay, let’s go.

1. Free Disk Space interactively scans your drives and shows them as a tree-map. It hides small files and folders and makes the rest as big as its size on disk is. If you don't see enough details click on a folder your are interested to zoom in. Right-click to get rid of junk.
2. RELATED: How to Open Finder with a Keyboard Shortcut on Mac. How to See Detailed Disk Usage in “About This Mac” Since Mac OS 10.7, Apple has also included a built-in tool to view both free disk space and detailed disk usage that can be accessed through the “About This Mac” window. Here’s how to see it.
3. Just right-click the file and select Free up space. Only files that you mark as Always keep on this device have the green circle with the white check mark. These always available files download to your device and take up space, but they’re always there for you even when you’re offline. Download and set up OneDrive Files On-Demand.

How to check storage on Mac

It’s good to check your storage details before we get down to deleting things. For example, this my disk space structure:

Documents: You have too many downloads and media files on your drive
Apps: There are probably tons of hidden and forgotten apps on your Mac
System: Your OS + caches, temporary files, and app localizations that waste space

To view your storage details, click on the Apple icon > About this Mac > Storage

How the full hard drive affects your Mac?

If your drive reaches about 80% of its capacity, your Mac will get noticeably slower. Partly, this is because of the so-called fragmenting. When there is only so much space left on disk, your Mac will split every new file into pieces or fragments and fit them into available slots elsewhere on your Mac. This slows down how your Mac processes these files. Also, some amount of your RAM (virtual memory) will be taken out to compensate for the loss of disk space.

So, how do you free up space on your Mac?

Free up disk space on Mac

1. Find large files you don’t need

Potential space reclaimed: 2-5 GB

1. Go to your desktop and press Command + F
2. Choose “This Mac”
3. Select Other in the dropdown menu
4. Under the Search Attributes menu, tick File Size and File Extension

Well done! Now you can type in different file extensions and sort the results by size. I recommend starting with the .DMG files or application installers. They are just dead weight and you can live without them. The same goes for .ZIP archives

2. Delete your system junk

Potential space reclaimed: 2-5 GB

There are tons of articles written about system junk and some Mac users claim the system junk is pure evil and slows your Mac down. In my view, it’s only an excess burden to have on your machine — outdated files, browser caches, app localizations, and old-time machine backups.

To delete system junk manually, would be a hot mess, even for an experienced user. So if you want to free up space on Mac quickly, just run CleanMyMac X once, and forget it. This app, unlike some supposed 'Mac-Saviours', is actually notarized by Apple so you’re safe running it.

1. Run CleanMyMac X — download the app’s free edition here
2. Click the System junk tab.
   

After you run the Scan, review the files and click Clean.

What else can you delete with this tool:

• Time machine backups
• Temporary documents versions
• Outdated system logs
• App localization files

3. Remove unused apps and all their leftovers

Potential space reclaimed: up to 5 GB

Did you know there are 3 ways of deleting apps on Mac? One is dragging them straight to the Trash from Applications, the other involves Launchpad. And, finally, you can use a third-party Uninstaller tool, which also makes sense because the first two methods leave parts of old apps on your drive.

Delete apps via Launchpad

Still, I prefer deleting apps via Launchpad because it’s more fun. Open Launchpad from your Dock. Now, press the Command key and hold any app icon until they start shaking. You will see the [X] symbol above the icon — click it to delete the app.

Delete your unseen apps

That was easy but here’s the deal. Every Mac has apps that don’t show up anywhere. They may have installed themselves as parts of other apps or be small supporting applications that programmers call “Launch agents” or “Daemons.” In total, they may eat up a whole lot of disk space.

In my experience, of all app cleaners, CleanMyMac X still tops the list. My personal record — 30 GB I was able to clear up on my Mac that had been taken by unused and suspicious programs. So what can you do

1. Download CleanMyMac X free edition here
2. Click the Uninstaller tab.

From there you can delete apps on a massive scale - simply select the ones you don’t need. Make sure to check the Leftovers section. These are parts and pieces of your old apps that you can’t otherwise access.

4. Delete your duplicate files

I often download an app twice by clicking on it several times or double-save a track to my iTunes library, which creates quite a mess. So if your Mac has started to run out of storage, there is a way to put an end to it. At first, you can try to find duplicates manually, but it can take you way too long with little to no result.

There is a good app called Gemini 2 - the duplicate finder. It allows you to clean out many gigabytes of duplicates in a few clicks. Plus, it allows you to check what would be deleted and deselect items you want to keep.

So, if your Mac is suffering from the invasion of the duplicates, give this software a try.

5. Remove browser cache

If you are a heavy internet user (like I am) your Mac’s drive is full of the browser cache. These are kinds of bookmarks left on your drive by every site that you visited. What’s your primary browser? Here are the solutions for Chrome and Safari.

To clear Chrome cache

While you are in Chrome,

1. Click the three-dot icon at the top right
2. Click More tools > Clear browsing data
3. Choose a time range to clear the browsing data
4. Also, clear “Cached images and files.”

To clear Safari cache

1. Click Develop in the top menu
2. Click Empty caches

6. Use Optimized Storage

Since the arrival of macOS Sierra Apple introduced the storage management tools that come pre-installed on your macOS.

Click on the Apple logo > About this Mac Click the Storage tab > Manage.

How to manage storage on Mac with built-in options

First, inspect the tabs in the sidebar on the left. Your largest files will most likely be stored in Documents. Go inside this category to find files you can scrap. A quick tip: You can mass-select and delete screenshots on your Desktop right from here.

Then, click Recommendations in the top left corner.

Here Apple offers you 4 options, more generic than practical, really. The first option “Store in iCloud” is self-explanatory. Is iCloud paid? Yes, if your storage needs exceed 5 GB which in 2020 is laughably small. The second option “Optimize Storage” will remove your already watched content from iTunes and the old attachments in Mail. This may help you free up a couple of gigabytes. When you need to clear disk space on Mac, every little helps.

7. Create the map of your drive

This method was shown to me by my programmer friend, who also happens to be a fan of CleanMyMac. There is a tool in CleanMyMac called “Space Lens” that builds a map of your entire drive. You can see all your disk’s contents in the form of interactive bubbles that represent your big and small folders. It’s the most exciting way to clear space on your Mac. Wow!

Here you can spot the folders that hog the most space. You’ll also find your “Russian dolls” folders that are hidden inside other folders.

Get this app here for free.

8. Take out the Trash

This advice is easiest of all. Nevertheless, people forget to do it all the time. We throw things down the Trash and think they are over with. But that’s just moving things from one pocket to another. To free up Trash, Command + click the bin icon. Then, choose Empty Trash.

How to empty the Trash automatically on Mac

If you don’t like to empty the Trash every time, there is a scheduled option. Your Mac will auto-delete Trash every 30 days if you tell it so.

• Click on Finder > Preferences (in the upper menu).
• Now choose Advanced.
• Check this box “Remove items from Trash every 30 days.”

9. Delete extra language files

Potential space recovered: 1 GB

There are 180+ languages in the world and most of your Mac’s applications can operate in these languages. However beautiful the language diversity is, people usually use just one or two. When you need to clear space on Mac, extra localization files are another target. How to see your language files? Language files end with “lproj” extension, which stands for “language project”. Unfortunately, finding them manually is problematic. Still, if you want to recover 1 GB of free space out of thin air, get hold of CleanMyMac X. It deletes extra localizations automatically.

1. Get CleanMyMac X here — a link to a free edition
2. Click System Junk and Scan.
3. Then press Review Details.

After you click Review Details you’ll see the tab called Language Files. As one can see, each of those files takes up about 30 MB. You can only guess how much more will it be with 180+ languages.

10. Clear your Desktop

Desktop may not seem a big deal in terms of storage space but only because people rarely visit it. It’s a well-known fact that a messy desktop wastes tons of space — and most importantly — slows your Mac down.
To see your Desktop, press Command + F3
On a MacBook with a Touch Bar, press Fn + F11
If you running macOS Mojave or Catalina, you can click anywhere in the middle of the Desktop and then choose “Use Stacks” in the window that appears. Everything there will be neatly sorted by categories like Screenshots. Now you can delete all the thousands of screenshots that most of us have.

If you are using macOS High Sierra, or older, you can clear disk space on your Mac Desktop manually.

1. Click Finder > Desktop.
2. Under View, choose the 3-line icon

Now you can sort all items by size and delete the largest files.

11. Compress your files

Archiving or compressing files is a nice alternative to permanent deletion. Not all file types compress similarly well, though. For example, documents and presentations can be substantially reduced in size by compression, while movies are harder to shrink.

Luckily, you don’t need a third-party solution to zip things up — your macOS has its built-in tool.

How to free up disk space on Mac using compression?

1. Open Finder and go to your Documents.
2. Command + click on a folder (or multiple folders).
3. Choose Compress.

Be aware that macOS leaves the original file untouched, so once you have the archive, the original folder can be deleted. After you’re done, you may transfer the newly-created archive onto an external drive.

Well done, you’ve just saved some space!

12. Slim down Time Machine snapshots

If you have Time Machine set up properly, it creates backups of your whole system in any given time. I’m not recommending you to delete these backups completely but to trim down their size. This doesn’t affect your user-created data. I’ll show you how to do it with a free version of CleanMyMac, the tool I mentioned in the previous section.

1. Get a free edition of CleanMyMac X
2. Click the Maintenance tab.
3. Choose 'Time Machine Snapshot Thinning'.

Here you are after you click Run you will successfully reduce the size of backups on your Mac.

13. Trash the old iPhone backups

Potential space reclaimed: 10-20 GB

Outdated iPhone backups may take enormous space. Once your iPhone is synchronized with iTunes, iTunes will be backing up your data without your knowledge. So, it makes sense to check your drive for the outdated backups before they grow out of proportion.

If you have macOS Mojave or older macOS:

1. Click Finder > Go to Folder…
2. Paste in: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
3. Move the insides of the folder to the Trash and that’s it.

If you have macOS 10.15 Catalina you can do it even easier.
Open Finder > Preferences > General.
Click Manage Backups.

Right-click the name of the backup to see “Show in Finder” command. Move the backup someplace else or delete it using the Delete option.

Note: do this only if you are 100% sure you don’t need your iPhone backed up.

14. Get rid of your junk Mail

Potential space reclaimed: 50 MB

Everyone hates junk email. Apparently, Apple hates it too because they included automatic junk mail deletion to their Mail app. Junk mail doesn’t weigh much but still, deleting it is good for the hygiene of your Mac.

1. Open Mail app.
2. Click on the Mailbox tab.
3. Choose Erase Junk.
4. Beware that this operation cannot be undone.

Other great tips to automatically reduce clutter

• Use Safari. Starting version 10 it automatically removes duplicate downloads.
• Backup your pictures to Photos.Google.com — it offers unlimited storage. Really.
  
• Delete extensions in browser — you can use a free version of CleanMyMac X.
• Delete desktop apps for services that offer online analogues, like Figma.

Okay, I’ve told you my favorite ways to free up disk space on your Mac. You can bookmark this article and revisit next time when the annoying “Your disk is almost full” message pops up. Decluttering your Mac can add a fresh spark to your digital life — so try it today.

/PowerMyMac /How Do I Free Up Disk Space on My Mac?

How do I free up disk space on my Mac? This is the question present on your mind for some time. Although you can free up space by removing files and elements that you have downloaded, it will not get you far. Remember that majority of the space on your Mac can be freed up by clearing temporary files, language files, attachments, duplicate files, or emptying the content of the Trash cans.

At present, the Mac still has a limited hard drive that can be filled up easily. In case you fail to efficiently clean your hard drive, you will sooner or later receive the “Your disk is almost full” error. If you want to avoid this ordeal, you should start to clean up your hard drive now. And there are a variety of ways on how to free up disk space on Mac, just keep on reading to learn more.

Article GuideHow Do I Free Up Disk Space? (with PowerMyMac)How Do I Delete Files on My Mac When the Disk is Full?Let's Wrap It Up

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How Do I Free Up Disk Space? (with PowerMyMac)

iMyMac PowerMyMac has a variety of tools that you can use to free up disk space on your Mac. The software is dependable and highly-efficient. It also boasts an array of tools to help clean unwanted files as well as optimize your Mac.

The tools that you need are found in the Cleaner and Toolkit module of PowerMyMac. Let us take a close look at some of the tools that you can use to free up disk space on your device.

Cleaner Module

• System Junk. This tool is used to clean up the system junks on your Mac such as the System Cache, System Logs, Application Cache, User Logs, Localization and more to optimize overall performance while also cleaning up unwanted files to free up disk space.
• iPhoto Junk. The tool reduces the size of your photo library on your Mac by cleaning up the photo cache.
• Email Junk. If you want to delete local copies of your email attachments and downloads that were saved in the disk space, this is a must-have tool.
• Similar Photo. This tool functions as a photo manager that helps find and clean similar photos on your device.
• Trash Bins. The tool provides you with access to empty all available trash bins on your Mac to free up disk space
• Large & Old Files. With this tool, it helps you find files that occupy a certain disk space or any outdated files that eat up precious disk space. These are removed to provide you with more space on your device.

Toolkit Module

• Uninstaller. This tool is used to easily remove entire applications on your device especially those that you seldom use.
• File Manager. With this tool, you can check the detailed information of your files and helps remove them completely from your Mac.

How Do I Free Up Disk Space on My Mac with PowerMyMac?

Let's take System Junk as an example, follow the simple steps below to clean up your Mac for freeing space with PowerMyMac:

1. Free download PowerMyMac, install and launch it on your Mac.
2. Select System Junk under the Cleaner module.
3. Begin to scan your Mac to look for junk files.
4. View and choose the files you want to delete.
5. Press the Clean button to remove your unwanted files and confirm the process.

How Do I Delete Files on My Mac When the Disk is Full?

Since you have been asking – how do I free up disk space on my Mac? Let us now take a close look at some of these methods to clear up space on your device. If you don't want to do these manually, all of them can be done easily by iMyMac PowerMyMac.

1. Remove Duplicate or Similar Files

Duplicate or similar files are notorious for eating up most of your hard drive space. One of the initial tasks that you should focus on is to remove these files, especially if you have been using your computer for a long time.

2. Empty the Trash Cans

The Trash on your device is the equivalent to the Recycle Bin on Windows. Instead of deleting files permanently from within the Finder, they are moved to the Trash so you have the option to restore them later in case you change your mind. If you want to completely remove these files to free up space, you must empty your Trash. Since Macs have several trash cans, you must empty several.

How do I free up disk space on my Mac by emptying the main Trash? Simply CTRL+click or right-click on the Trash icon that you can find at the right bottom corner of the dock and select Empty Trash. This action will delete all the files you sent to the Trash from the Finder. Remember that iMovie, iPhoto, and Mail have separate trash cans. In case you have deleted media files from these applications, you must empty their trash cans.

3. Uninstall Unused Applications

How do I free up disk space on my Mac by removing unused apps? Generally, all applications that you installed on your Mac can take up space. It is recommended to uninstall those that you no longer need:

1. Simply open a Finder window and choose Applications in the sidebar.
2. Once you find the icon of the application, drag-and-drop to the Trash on your dock.

Remember that some of these applications might be eating up a lot of space. To distinguish which applications are taking up most space:

1. Open a Finder window and choose Applications.
2. Tap on “Show items in a list” knob on the toolbar.
3. Tap on the Size heading to categorize the installed applications based on size.

4. Remove Any Downloads

Some have downloaded files from messengers, web browsers and mail. If you download files from the Internet, you can find them in the Downloads folder.

Free Disk Space Cleaner Mac

Generally, it is found in this location:

• /Macintosh HD/Users/Current User/Downloads

Based on statistics, an average Mac user can end up with 0.5 GB weekly in the Downloads folder. In most cases, all files in the Downloads folder are left in disarray and eat up precious disk space. It is recommended to sort out the files based on size, date or kind to sift out the unnecessary ones from those that you still need.

5. Clearing the Cache

The cache file is a temporary data file created by browsers, applications, and other programs to allow your Mac to function faster. When cache files are removed, they are recreated once an application is used again. Nevertheless, you might not be using some applications and their leftovers are still in the Cache folder which occupies a lot of disk space. This is the reason why it is recommended to regularly clear the cache.

The cache files are typically stored in the Library folders that you can find in the following locations:

• /Library/Caches
• ~/Library/Caches

In the /Library/Caches, you will find temporary files produced by the system. Generally, these files will not take up too much space. Nevertheless, in the ~/Library/Caches folder, it stores many junk files that are produced when running applications. As a result, this folder increases in size over time.

How do I free up disk space on my Mac by clearing the caches? Generally, the Library folder is hidden on macOS as Apple. You can access it with these steps.

1. Open the Finder window
2. On the Menu, tap on Go > Go to Folder
3. In the dialog box, key in ~/Library/Cache and tap on Go

6. Remove Language Files

The applications in Mac include language files for every language being supported. You have the option to switch the system language of your Mac and start using the apps in that specified language right away. Nevertheless, most are likely to use one language, thus the language files only take up space.

7. Remove Old iPhone Backups

For those who often sync their iPhone with iTunes, the application produces several backup copies on your device. Over time, these files can eat up precious disk space since they usually include music, movies and other large files. You can find these old backup copies by opening iTunes > Go to the Menu Bar > iTunes > Preferences.

You will see a list of all the backups that iTunes managed to produce while working with your device. Once you made up your mind that they are no longer need, you can safely remove them but make sure they are in iCloud.

An alternative approach in finding and removing iOS backups is to go to:

• ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

8. Cleaning up Large Mail Attachments

If you are using the Mail application in macOS with the same email account for a long time, there is a high chance that large email attachments are taking up a large chunk of space on your drive.

Free Up Space On Macbook

The initial step is to change the Mail settings to not download any attachments automatically to help save space or perform a cleanup task to eliminate them. For those who are using Gmail, you can designate limits on the number of messages synced over IMAP by default to only display the last few thousands instead of everything.

1. Go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Account Information.
2. Change the drop-down for “Download attachments” to either “Non” or “Recent”.

Altering this setting will allow the Mail app to not use up any more space but this will not deal with the issue of attachments from emails that were already been downloaded.

How do I free up disk space on my Mac by removing these attachments? Just do it manually with the following steps.

1. Open Mail and tap on the folder that you want to find and remove any attachments.
2. Utilize the Sort by Size option to find large-sized messages
3. Tap on the Message and select Message > Remove attachments from the menu bar. Remember that this will not remove the attachment from the mail server if you are using IMAP.
4. Repeat these steps on all messages that you want to delete attachments from.

9. Clean up Photos

Obviously, if you have a lot of photos on your device, they eat up most of your disk space. Essentially, you can choose those that you can remove such as duplicates or copies are photos mistakenly taken.

Once you have deleted the unwanted photos, the next step is to eliminate the files that your system created. In Photos, it is the cache files while for iPhoto, it is the service copies. Understandably, both are difficult to find but there are ways to do so.

The Photos cache includes the iCloud local copies, Faces cache and other elements related to your apps. How do I free up disk space on my Mac by deleting photos? For macOS versions earlier than Sierra, simply follow these steps:

1. Open Finder and proceed to your Photos library
2. CTRL+click your Photos library and choose the “Show Package Contents” option
3. Access “resources” and proceed to “model resource”

At this point, you will see several folders in the Finder window. The Photos cache rests in these folders, but it can be tricky which ones are safe to remove and what is not. Remember that removing the wrong file can disrupt the overall performance of Photos.

For those who are still using iPhoto, you must find the service copies it produces every time an image is altered. If you are going to work on this task, simply repeat steps 1 and 2 above. Go through the Master, Modified, Original and Preview folders to decide on which photos have original copies that were altered.

Let's Wrap It Up

With the help of these methods obove, you have answers on 'how do I free up disk space on my Mac' now, and you will gain free space for other important uses. Regular cleanup of any unwanted files or elements will free up space on your Mac as well as fix the “Startup Disk is Full” error.

Free Disk Space For Mac Reviews

Although you can clean up your device manually, it generally takes time. With the help of the highly-efficient tools byiMyMac PowerMyMac, you can save time while ensuring that your Mac functions optimally. Feel free to have its free trial below!

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