If you are running out of storage space on your Mac, there are a number of things that you can do to free up storage space on your Mac. This guide is designed to show you a number of different tips and tricks that you can use to free up storage space on your Mac.
There are a wide number of things that can use up your storage on your Mac, this can be things like large files, lots of files in the trash, apps you no longer use and much more, this guide will show you how to work out what is taking up all of your storage space on your device and how you can free up space on your Mac.
Identify what is using all of your Mac storage
The first thing that you want to do is to identify what is using up all of the storage on your Mac, you can do this by going to the Apple Menu and then selecting About this Mac, now select More info and then you want to select General.
You will now need to scroll down until you see Macintosh HD and then select Storage Settings you will then see how much of your storage is being used on your Mac and what is using your storage.
These are things like Appsm Document, Photos and Others, macOS, System Data, and more, if you scroll down you will see a list of all the different storage types and how much each type is using on your Mac.
Next to each of these storage types on your Mac, you will see (i) on the right click this and you will then be shown more details on exactly what is using up your storage for that specific storage type on your Mac.
Empty your Trash can on your Mac to free up storage space
One of the quickest and easiest ways to free up storage space on your Mac is by emptying the trash can. When you delete a file on your Mac it automatically goes to your trash can, it is stored in there until the trash can is emptied.
This is a useful feature that allows you to easily recover files on your Mac in the event that you have deleted them but then realised that you still need that file. You will see the Trash icon located in your dock at the bottom of the screen.
To empty your Trash on your Mac right click on the Trash until you see a new menu appear, You will be given the choice to either Open or Empty Bin, I always select Open as you then get to see all of the files that are in the trash and you can check if there are any that you still need.
Now select Empty from the top right and you will be asked ‘are you sure you want to permanently erase the item in the Bin?’ click Empty Bin and the trash will be emptied and the storage space that was used by these files will now be free on your Mac.
Free up storage on your Mac by deleting unwanted apps
You can easily free up quite a bit of storage space on your Mac by deleting any unwanted apps, to do this go to the Apple Menu and select About this Mac, now select More info then General.
Scroll down until you see Applications and then select the (i) to the right, this will show you a list of applications that are stored on your Mac and how much storage space they are using on your device.
Now select any apps that you no longer use on your Mac and once it is highlighted select Delete, you will then be asked if you want to delete the app and it will also tell you that this cannot be undone. You will see as well how much storage space you will free up on your Mac by deleting that specific app. Once you select Delete, the app will be removed from your Mac and you will now have the extra storage that that app was using. You can do this for each of the individual apps that you no longer use on your Mac.
Use iCloud Drive to store your files
One way that you can free up some storage on your Mac is by using Apple’s iCloud Drive, this will store your files on Apple’s iCloud servers and only your most recently used files and photos and more will be stored directly on your Mac., this is a feature that you will have to enable on your Mac.
To do this open the Apple Menu and select About this Mac, now select More info then General, and then scroll down and select Macintosh HD and Storage settings, you can now scroll down until you see iCloud Drive on your Mac, select the (i) next to it and then turn the feature on. This will then store all of your files on iCloud and give you more storage space on your Mac. This is a handy feature as you can also easily access these files on your iPhone and iPad.
Optimize your Apple TV storage on your Mac
Another way to easily free up some space on your Mac is to optimize the storage for Apple TV on your device, to do this open the Apple Menu and select About this Mac, now select More info then General, and then scroll down and select Macintosh HD and Storage Settings and select the Optimize Storage feature for the Apple TV. You will then be asked if you want to optimize Apple TV storage n your Mac, select Optimize and this will automatically remove any movies and TV shows that you have watched from your Mac, you will be able to easily download them again.
We hope that you find this guide on how to free up storage space on your Mac useful, if you have any comments questions or suggestions, please let us know in the comments section below. You can find out more tips on how to get more storage space on your Mac over at Apple’s website.
Image Credit: Howard Bouchevereau
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