Ways to free up disk space on a Mac. Before we show you how to clear disk space on your Mac, a word of caution is in order. Hard drive cleaning requires time and, in some cases, expertise. So, when in doubt, use a professional cleaning app. Now, let’s make some room for the files that truly deserve space on your Mac. Select “Find Junk.”. This action will detect duplicates, temporary files, caches, outdated files, and other garbage on the drive of your choice. Observe the offered list of potential junk. Pick the items you would like to remove. Choose “Clean” to free up gigabytes of space. Mac cleaner for Mac OS X 10.7. Best Mac cleaner for Mac OS X 10.7 - clean up your Mac system junk files (caches, logs, trash) and remove unwanted appli. Free download iMac Cleaner. Free download iMac cleaner - EaseUS CleanGenius can remove hidden data and applications hogging the disk space so that m.
Have you ever gotten a notification that you're running low on disk space on your Mac? Or have you checked your storage only to find that your Photos are taking up an appalling 84GB?
If you've had one of these experiences and now need to clean up your Mac, this is the guide for you.
First, check what's taking up so much space
Click the little Apple icon in the upper left corner of your screen. Select the first option, 'About this Mac', so you can see what's going on.
Once you're there, select the Storage option (in the middle) and check out what's taking up space. You can hover over unnamed sections to see what they are and how much space they're taking up.
If you click the 'Manage' button, you can see what Apple recommends to help you clean up your Mac. So let's dig into those options a bit more now.
Manage your storage
The first important task is to manage your storage properly and efficiently. There are several ways to do this, and Apple recommends a few:
Store your content on the cloud
Instead of storing all your old photos, college papers, and projects on your actual computer, move that stuff to the cloud. That's why it exists.
And you know what's great? You can access anything in the Cloud, from any device, just by signing in with your Apple ID. It's like magic!
Just click 'Optimize' next to the 'Store in Cloud' option when you're managing your storage.
Optimize your storage
Say you've downloaded a movie but you've already watched it. Like 5 times (no judgement).
But do you really still need it on your Mac? No! Five times is enough, even for gems like Princess Bride and Star Wars (ok, no it's not). But still, get rid of it. You can just download it again if you really need to rewatch.
You'll find the 'Optimize Storage' option right below the 'Store in iCloud' option - just click that 'Optimize' button on the right.
Empty trash automatically
Make sure you move any unneeded files (especially large ones) to the trash - and then empty that trash often.
If you leave items in the trash, they're still taking up space. If you set your trash to empty automatically it'll delete items (as in, remove them from your computer) after 30 days.
Just go back to your storage management recommendations (Apple logo -> About this Mac -> Storage -> Manage and then look at 'Recommendations', the top left tab) and click the button next to 'Empty trash automatically.'
Reduce clutter
There are bound to be old documents and other clutter on your Mac that you no longer need. And some of these items might take up quite a bit of space. So you can sort through and remove the chaff.
It'll sort by file size and will tell you the date you last accessed that file. This should make it easier to decide what can go.
You can delete some files directly. Others require you to go into the app and delete the files there. Either way, you can get rid of them.
Move files to an external drive
Here's a little bonus option not listed above. You can also remove large items (like movies) and store them on an external hard drive.
Remove duplicate files
You probably have a ton of duplicate files on your computer and don't even realize it.
Trouble is, it can be really time-consuming to search through manually and find them all.
So find an app to help you do it. Some commonly recommended options are Duplicate Sweeper, Gemini 2 (the free trial should do it), or CleanMyMacX.
Uninstall unused apps
Would it surprise you to learn that your apps take up quite a bit of space? Some of those files can be pretty large.
But I bet you don't use every app on your computer. Which means you can probably go through and delete those that are just wasting space.
Open Finder and select the Apps tab in the left sidebar menu. View the apps as a list by clicking the four little horizontal lines at the top. Then sort the apps by size by clicking on the 'Size' tab towards the right.
Then you can scroll through and delete those apps that you don't use (and hopefully some of them are pretty big!). Simply drag the app to the trash to get rid of it.
And then empty your trash :)
Delete iTunes backups
iTunes backups are useful - you certainly don't want to lose all that angsty 90s music you've been collecting since, well, the 90s. Oh, just me...? Ok.
Regardless, it's valuable stuff. But you can back it all up to iCloud instead of keeping those massive backups of your device on your computer.
How to enable iCloud backup
To set your phone to back up to iCloud automatically, just go to Settings, select your name, and scroll down to 'iCloud Backup'. Just turn it on, and your precious songs/photos/etc will be backed up to the Cloud.
Then you can go into your Mac and delete any backups you have stored there. Just open iTunes, go to Preferences, select Devices, and delete those backups you no longer need.
Delete temporary files (clear cache/cookies)
You might be aware of caching. It allows sites to load faster because resource-intensive files, like images, are stored locally on your machine. That way if you visit a site often you don't have to sit around waiting each time for hefty image files to load. They're already there.
But if you don't clean these up every now and then they can really build up and slow your machine down. Just be aware: even if you remove them now they'll get re-added the next time you visit that site or use that app.
How to clear the cache
Open Finder, and from the menu along the top of your screen select 'Go.' Scroll down to 'Go to Folder', select it, and then enter ~/Library/Caches in the dialogue box.
From there you can clear out any cached files you don't need.
Still need more space? Here are additional things to try:
- Delete unneeded email
- Delete downloads
- Remove logs
- Remove language resources
- Compress files
- Restart your Mac
Now go forth and clean up that Mac!
Summary: Still worry about your insufficient Mac storage? Want to speed up Mac but don't know how? Get the 6 free Mac cleaners to clear disk space, clean junk or duplicate files to free up your Mac.
Many of us know exactly how to clean Windows computer or Android phone, but when it comes to cleaning Mac, few people know about it. Many Apple users think that, there is no need to clean Mac.
However, with more and more junk files occupying your Mac storage, your Mac will slow down and offer a bad performance. You have to rely on some Mac cleaner software to remove all useless data.
Best Free Mac Cleaners
With so many Mac cleaner tools offered on the market, which one you should use? Do you know how to choose a great Mac cleaner? We have tested more than 20 Mac cleaners and select the 6 best ones for you to choose from. You can pick your preferred Free Mac cleaner to speed up your Mac easily and quickly.
No.1 Free Mac cleaner: CCleaner - Free junk file cleaner
CCleaner is one free and top Mac cleaner to delete cookies, search history, temporary files and junk files from Mac. The specific functions are below:
1. Find and remove useless/junk files with the click of a button so your Mac can run faster. Speed up boot times with easy management of Startup items.
2. Clear up your recycle bin, temporary files and folders, broken permissions and others. If you want to remove installed programs, just click one button.
3. Erase your browser search history and cookies so you can browse any Internet confidentially and your identity remains anonymous.
No.2 Free Mac cleaner: Disk Inventory X – Free disk cleaner for Mac
Disk Inventory X is one disk cleaning software and disk usage utility for Mac. With this free Mac cleaner, you can know where your disk space has gone and clean it safely. Just see more about Disk Inventory X.
1. Disk Inventory X shows the sizes of files and folders in a special graphical way.
2. With this Mac cleaner, you can see different files marked with different colors, to help you easily find what you want to delete.
No.3 Free Mac cleaner: AVG Cleaner – Free hidden clutter cleaner
AVG Cleaner is one free Mac cleaner to clean hidden clutter and forgotten duplicates. You can see the detailed information below:
1. Clear more hidden garbage, log, download history and trash bin for freeing up more space on your Mac.
2. Search more duplicate files, including images, music, videos and folders.
3. Created for Mac and easy to use.
4. There is an anti-virus software called AVG AntiVirus for Mac, you can use it to protect Macs on your and your families.
No.4 Free Mac cleaner: OmniDiskSweeper - Free hard drive cleaner
OmniDiskSweeper is one free Mac cleaner to find and delete big files that taking up hard drive space and also it can help you recover lost disk space.
1. OmniDiskSweeper helps you sort every file on your Mac by size and you can identify the biggest file to delete it.
2. After deleting, remaining space and folders are recalculated.
No.5 Free Mac cleaner: Dr. Cleaner – Free memory, disk, system cleaner
Dr. Cleaner is one free Mac cleaning app to offer Memory Optimization, Disk Cleaning and System Monitoring to keep your Mac optimized for the best performance.
1. Smart and accurate selection for duplicates scan and remove on Mac with OS X 10.6.6 or later.
2. Scanned big files and junk files will be deleted easily from your Mac.
3. You can easily view real-time network usage and CPU usage in the Menu bar.
No.6 Free Mac cleaner: Disk Drill
Disk Drill is one very popular free Mac cleaner app. Actually, it is a professional data recovery tool for Mac, which carries some disk cleaning functions. It has the capability to analyze Mac storage space, locate unused, large, and duplicate files and so on. In this way, it enables you to free up your Mac storage effortlessly.
1. Monitor the health of your Mac storage and offer timely alerts.
2. Find and remove duplicate files in multiple locations on Mac.
3. Analyze disk space, locate unused files and space hogs, free up storage.
Professional Mac cleaner recommendation:
With the best 6 Mac cleaner apps above, you can handily remove some junk files and optimize your Mac performance. But some of them only offer trial features. Here you are recommended to directly choose the professional Mac cleaner below:
Mac CleanerDisk Cleanup For Mac Free
- Scan and delete junk files including cache data and logs, email attachments, unwanted iTunes backup and app localization.
- Delete large and old documents and selectively remove worthless files.
- Clean duplicated files or folders on Mac.
- Uninstall apps and clean associated files safely.
- Monitor Mac system in disk utilization, battery status, memory performance and CPU usage.
- Compatible with iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook (Air/Pro) in the latest macOS Monterey.
FAQs of Free Mac Cleaner
How do I clean and optimize my Mac?
Download and install Aiseesoft Mac Cleaner. Click Cleaner and you can clean up your Mac by cleaning system junk, iPhoto junk, email junk, similar photos, iTunes junk, trash bin, large & old files and more.
Why is my Mac so slow?
The reason that why is your Mac so slow may includes there is no enough hard drive or RAM on Mac. Or there is too many startup items or icon clutter on desktop. Perhaps your macOS is outdated and you should update it.
Does Catalina slow down your Mac?
No. Catalina won’t slow down an old Mac. You can check to make sure if your Mac is compatible with macOS Catalina.
By now, 6 free Mac cleaners have been shared here. You can choose your preferred Mac cleaner according to your need. Please share it in comment if you have any better Mac cleaner recommendation. Check ere if you want to speed up your slow iPhone.
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December 29, 2020 17:50 / Updated by Louisa White to Mac Cleanup