Mac Tips - Free Up Disk Space on Your Mac – DIY in 5 Ep 102

Опубликовано 26 июля 2019, 17:00

If you need more space — whether it’s to upgrade to the new Mac OS Catalina or to download more apps — we’re here to help you out. With Apple’s recent Mac models using internal storage that is impossible to upgrade such as the Macbook Pro Retina 2012 and newer or Mac Pro 2013 and newer, we need to be a bit creative in making space with our built-in storage. Let’s jump right in on how to free up disk space on your Mac computer.

Built-in tools
First, let’s look at the built-in methods using MacOS. We’re using MacOS Mojave so if you’re using an older version it may look different. Go to “Menu,” “About this Mac,” then click on the “Storage” tab. You can see a rough breakdown of what’s taking up the most room on your system - anything from iOS backups to photos or even system files. Click on “Manage” and now you’ll see a rough overview of all the larger file types occupying your system. You can easily eliminate gigabytes worth of storage here by simply clicking through each of the categories and getting rid of what you don’t need. Delete any applications you’ve downloaded that you don’t use, remove any older iOS backups, clean up the documents folder of any “Large files” or “Downloads” you don’t need anymore.

Clean my Mac
If you want to go even further, there are also several third-party apps you can use to help delete more files you don’t need. First app we’ll mention is Clean my Mac. It’s an app with a well-designed interface that makes cleaning up your system easy. It does all the basics of the built-in tool MacOS has but takes it a few steps further with features like identifying files by size, type, age and a few other ways. The program can even find all those random archive files like zip files which you download and never need after you open them. There’s a free version that’ll delete up to 500 megabytes, but if you want to automatically delete more than that it’ll cost you $35. For that price you do get a few other tools like Malware removal, system cleaner, a tool to free up your RAM, and some other things you may or may not ever need.

Duplicate Sweeper
The second one we’ll mention is Duplicate Sweeper that finds duplicate files on your drive and helps you delete them. There’s a free version that will identify all the duplicate files on your Mac, but the $20 version will go one step farther and do the actual deleting so you don’t have to go folder by folder to do the dirty work.

iCloud
Another way to free up storage on your Mac is to move it to iCloud! For files you don’t need daily, cloud storage might be for you. Try not to place anything sensitive on the cloud, but if you must make sure to have 2-factor authentication enabled. Hacking fears aside, the other downsides to cloud storage are the cost and speed. There’s usually a monthly fee for anything over a few gigabytes, and if you’re not connected to a decent internet connection the experience can be a bit slow.

So how many gigabytes of data were you able to free up using these methods? Let us know your high-wipe scores in the comments.