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How To Clean Up Mac System Storage



  1. Clean Up Storage
  2. Clean Up Storage On Mac
  3. How To Clear Up Mac System Storage

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

How to clean up system storage on Mac with CleanMyMac X: Download CleanMyMac X for free here. Run the app and go to System Junk. So for you to be able to delete the system storage on Mac, go ahead and clean up your Mac’s cache: Launch Finder on your Mac. Then go ahead and click on “Go to folder”. From there, go ahead and type in /Library/Caches then remove all the files that are taking up most space. I had a large system file using up over 800 GB on my iMac Pro. Which was massively high. But i could not find those files by search 'About this Mac' storage. Methods to clear system storage on Mac.Download CleanMyMac X free edition here:How to clean up Mac OS system storage:1.

  • When storage space is needed, files, photos, films, email attachments and other files that you rarely use are stored in iCloud automatically.
  • Each file stays exactly where you last saved it, and will download when you open it.
  • Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimised versions of your photos.

If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, find out about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac and 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 optimising your storage. If some recommendations have already been turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.

Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button and 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 work offline easily. Files only stored in iCloud will display a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Find out more about this feature.
  • Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimised) 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. Find out 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 50 GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Find out more about the prices in your region.

Optimise Storage

Click the Optimise button to save space by automatically removing films and TV programmes you've watched. When storage space is needed, films or TV programmes that you've purchased from Apple and have already watched will be removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a film or TV programme to download it again.

Your Mac will also save space by only keeping 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.

Optimising storage for films, TV programmes and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Bin Automatically

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

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you may no longer need. Click the Review Files button and then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation or Bin.

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.

Find out how to re-download apps, music, films, TV programmes and books.


Where to find the settings for each feature

Sql for mac download. The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control these settings directly within each app.

  • If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, and then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimise 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 Optimise Mac Storage settings.
  • In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences and then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimise 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. Optimise Storage selects “Automatically delete watched films and TV programmes”.
  • In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimise Storage selects “Automatically delete watched films and TV programmes”.
  • In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar and then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimise Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Empty Bin Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Bin Automatically selects “Remove items from the Bin after 30 days”.

Other ways that macOS automatically helps to save space

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

  • 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 Optimised Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

  • Music, films and other media can use a lot of storage space. Find out how to delete music, films and TV programmes from your device.
  • Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Bin, then emptying the Bin. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you may 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 Deleted Items 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 may 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 only frees up the space required by any data that 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 Optimise Mac Storage, find out how to make sure your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.

The use of solid-state drives for storage in most Macs, and its stubborn refusal to fall in price means that most Macs produced in the last decade or so have less storage space than their predecessors. If you have, say a MacBook Air with 128GB of disk space, it will soon fill up. It’s important, then, to acquaint yourself with a few tricks to free up disk space, and that’s what we’ll show you here. Let’s get started and give your Mac’s disk a cleanup.

How to free up disk space using Apple’s built-in tools

Apple recognized that storage space was an issue for many users, so they introduced tools to help users optimize their space on Macs. Here’s how you can do that:How To Clean Up Mac System Storage
  1. Click the Apple menu and choose About this Mac.
  2. Select the Storage tab and press Manage.
  3. Click on Recommendations and review each of the options.

Tip
The first option allows you to store files, photos, and messages in iCloud and keep only recent files and optimized photos on your Mac. However, if you’d rather store messages and files on your machine, you can choose only to use iCloud for photos. We'll show you how to do that later in this article.

  1. Go through each of the headings on the left one-by-one. Click each and read the description in the main window then decide if you want to take the recommended action.
  2. When you're done, go to the System Information menu and press Quit System Information.
Now, let’s move on to other ways to free up some disk space on your MacBook.

1. Use iCloud Photo Library

iCloud Photo Library allows you to store the full resolution versions of your photos and videos in iCloud and keep a lower resolution, optimized versions on your Mac. You’ll need to download the full version when you want to edit a photo or video, but other than that there is no downside and you’ll save several gigabytes of space if you have lots of photos and videos. Here’s how to optimize your media files:

  1. Launch Photos.
  2. Click on the Photos menu and choose Preferences.
  3. Choose iCloud and tick the box labeled iCloud Photos.
  4. Now, check the box labeled Optimize Mac Storage.
  5. Close Preferences and quit Photos.
Mac

Now, the high-quality versions of your photos and videos will be stored in iCloud.

2. Clear out junk and other files you don't need

Your Mac stores a ton of files that you probably don't even realize are there and that you don’t need. From language files for languages, you don’t use to temp files that should have been deleted long ago and libraries of applications you have removed.

It’s all still there causing your system to take up disk space on your Mac.

The easiest way to remove it quickly is to use an app that is designed for the purpose, like CleanMyMac X. Python for mac idle. It can free up several gigabytes of space with just a couple of clicks. Here’s how to free up space using its System Junk module as an example.

  1. Download CleanMyMac X, install, and launch the app.
  2. Choose the System Junk module in the sidebar.
  3. Press Scan.
  4. When it’s done, it will tell you how many GB of junk files it has found.
  5. Press Clean or Review Details if you want to check files that you delete first.

Additionally, CleanMyMac X features the Malware Removal module, which not many Mac cleaners have. It scans your Mac for all malware, including adware, keyloggers, viruses, and worms, and lets you remove those from your MacBook immediately.

3. Find out what is taking up space

It’s likely that as well as thousands of small files taking up space on your drive, there are a few very big files that you don’t need or can archive elsewhere. You can do that manually by following these steps.

Clean up storage on mac
  1. Open a new Finder window.
  2. Navigate to your Home folder.
  3. Press Command-F to start a new search.
  4. Click on the dropdown menu labeled Kind and choose Other.
  5. Scroll down to File Size and choose it.

Now, you can filter your files and delete the largest ones:
  • In the menu next to that one, choose “is greater than” and choose a file size then type it in. Remember to select This Mac to get a full list of results.
  • You’ll see the window fill up with files that meet the criteria.
  • Click Save to save the search.
  • Review the files and drag those you want to get rid of to the Trash or move them to an external drive.

If you’re looking for an easier way to find and delete large files, you can try doing it with CleanMyMac X. Choose Space Lens in the sidebar and press Scan. You'll see the categories listed in order of the space they occupy. Click any of them to see more details. Mouse over a bubble to see what it is and how much space it is taking up.

Clean Up Storage


Explore the folders to find files that take a lot of space. If you find a file or folder you want to delete, check the box next to it in the middle window and press Remove. Make sure that you don’t need it or that you have another copy somewhere else.

Space Lens lets you quickly find the largest folders and see what’s stored inside of them. By starting with the files that are taking up most space, you will free up more room quickly.

Clean Up Storage On Mac

4. Remove Mail attachments

Whichever email client you use, downloading attachments can soon take up lots of space on your boot disk. The good news is that if you use an IMAP client, like Apple’s Mail or Gmail, you can delete attachments safely, knowing that they will remain on the server if you need them at another time. That’s another job you can do manually. Just open the Downloads folder and clear out all old attachments.

5. Move your Music library

It used to be the case that one of the most effective ways to save space was to move your iTunes library folder to an external drive. As of macOS Catalina, iTunes no longer exists. However, its replacement, Music, still references a folder called iTunes, where it stores music you downloaded from the iTunes Store. If you still download music or play from local files, rather than stream it, you can move your collection to an external drive to save space.


  • Go to ~/Music/iTunes (is your Home folder).
  • Copy the iTunes Media folder to an external drive.
  • Launch Music, click on the Music menu, and choose Preferences.
  • Press Files, then Change.
  • Navigate to the folder where you copied your iTunes Media.
  • Press Ok.
  • You can now quit Music and delete the iTunes Media folder from your Mac.

6. Uninstall applications

Most of us have lots of applications on our Macs that we never use. Getting rid of them can free up lots of space. However, just dragging the app icon to the Trash and emptying it won’t uninstall it completely. There will still be lots of files left behind.

Fifa download for mac. There are two ways to uninstall an application properly: track down every file associated with the application and manually drag it to the Trash, or use a dedicated uninstaller. CleanMyMac X is one such tool.

  1. In the CleanMyMac X's sidebar, choose Uninstaller.
  2. Locate the application you want to uninstall (Tip: you can use the filters in the middle window to narrow down your search).
  3. When you find the application you want to delete, check the box next to it.
  4. Press Uninstall.
  5. Repeat steps 2-4 for each application you want to uninstall.

CleanMyMac X also removes all application data, which is usually left on your Mac unexposed. So, deleting any app with CleanMyMac X you automatically remove all files associated with the application and save up some space.

How To Clean Up Mac System Storage

How To Clear Up Mac System Storage

7. Compress folders

If there are folders of files you don’t want to trash or move, compressing them will save some space. Control-click the folder and choose Compress from the menu.


As you can see, there are lots of ways to save space on your Mac, without resorting to buying extra storage. Follow the steps above, and you could save several gigabytes.