Every MacBook that Apple sells comes with an SSD. While SSDs are crazy fast, they don’t offer that much storage space. If you’ve been using a Mac for a while, chances are you’re still rocking that 128 GB drive. And that’s just not enough.
And it’s not like you can just swap it for a bigger drive. No, you have to learn to live with it. A part of the process is the frequent “you’re running out of storage space” popups. If you’ve got one of those, don’t worry, we’re here to help. Follow our guide and you will have cleared up dozens of GBs in no time.
1. CleanMyMac 3
For those applications on Mac that you downloaded from the Web, here’s how to remove apps from Mac with the help of Finder: To open the Finder window, click the Finder icon in the Dock. Click Applications section on the sidebar. Even though my Mac is new, it was filling up and this way I can easily keep on top of it, without spending much time clicking and diving into each app or the Finder. By thekeegs77 ( – US) This is a great app for clearing space on my hard disk! Clearing disk space on a Mac can make your computer feel like new. Over time, most Macs, especially those that experience regular use, get full of documents, files, apps, images, videos, and other junk and clutter.
CleanMyMac 3 is an all-in-one tool for freeing up disk space and speeding up your Mac. If you’d rather not spend a couple of hours doing 15 different things and downloading 4 different apps, just download CleanMyMac and run its scan.
Here’s what CleanMyMac can do:
- Look for and remove system and photos junk.
- Clear our app and system cache.
- Remove files from Trash.
- Identify old and corrupted iOS backups.
- Help you uninstall huge apps you’re not using.
- Lists large and old files so you can quickly get rid of them.
But what might be CleanMyMac’s best feature is its ability to clean up system files, junk, and backups that you manually can’t. If your storage bar currently displays a significant amount of space as “Other”, CleanMyMac’s scan might just do the trick getting rid of it all.
Or you can just run CleanMyMac’s Scan and let it take care of everything with just one click. For me, I gained 10 GB just by running the scan.
The biggest culprit was, of course, old and huge files. CleanMyMac’s Large and Old Files section helped me identify and delete them in one click.
The app costs $40 and is well worth the money as it continually helps you run your Mac better (including periodic maintenance tasks). But you can start out for free by downloading the trial from here. CleanMyMac is also a part of MacPaw’s SetApp service which is like Netflix but for quality mac apps.
Mac Disk Space Utility
Download: CleanMyMac 3
2. macOS Sierra’s Storage Management Tool
If you’re running macOS Sierra and you don’t want to download a third party app, the built-in storage management tool will help you free up some space as well.
Click on the Apple icon from the menu bar and select About this Mac. Go to the Storage tab and select Manage.
From the Recommended section you’ll get shortcuts to clear out the trash or review huge files.
I would suggest you start from the top of the sidebar and go through each category and clear things out.
- From the Applications tab, remove large and unused apps.
- From the Documents tab, remove large files you haven’t opened in the past couple of weeks.
- From iOS Files section, remove old iOS backups. This is a silent killer and sometimes a manual iOS backup can take up 10 GB of space on the Mac.
- From the iTunes tab, remove any large movies or TV show files you have lying around.
- From Trash tab, clear out the entire trash in one click.
Just remember to go through this once in a while
3. The Manual Cleanup Checklist
If you’re not running Sierra or you don’t want to install CleanMyMac here’s what you should do.
- Go to Applications folder in Finder and delete the apps you’re not using.
- In Finder, go to Documents and Downloads folder, sort files by size and remove the largest files you no longer have use for.
- Alternatively, you can use a third party app like Disk Inventory X or DaisyDisk to remove large files as well.
- Download Monolingual app and delete language files for languages you don’t speak. Just be careful when selecting which languages to delete, the UI is a bit confusing.
- Use the CCleaner app to quickly get rid of system cache files as well as cache files for apps like Google Chrome and Safari.
- There’s also a manual way to delete old iOS backups. Open iTunes, go to Preferences -> Device Preferences. There select an old backup and remove it.
- And lastly, clear the Trash.
If you want to go a level deeper, you can also manually clear out cache files. Mac apps routinely cache files as a way to make the apps run faster and smoother. But if you’re in a need for a couple of GBs of data, you can clear them real quick (they’ll start building up again once you restart your Mac).
Open Finder app and from the menu bar, select Go -> Go to Folder. Type “~/Library/Caches” and delete the files and folders that are taking up the most space.
Next from the Go to Folder menu, type in “/Library/Caches” (this time without the ~ symbol and do the same.
This Thing Called Cloud
It’s possible you have some large files you just can’t get rid of. In this situation, the best thing to do is to upload them to a cloud storage service. Either Dropbox or Google Drive. If it’s a particularly large file, you can look into Amazon’s cloud syncing service as well. The rates are pretty cheap.
When it comes to photos, the best policy is to use iCloud Photos Library and tell the photos app not to keep original files on the devices. This way, you’ll be able to download photos on demand from iCloud when and only when you need it.
Alternatively, you can upload photos and videos to Google Photos as well (the service is free if you don’t upload the photos in original resolution).
If you don’t like the cloud, take the external storage strategy. Get a 1-2 TB hard drive (external SSD drives are getting cheaper every day) and use it to store all the things that aren’t absolutely necessary.
The Life and Times of a 128 GB MacBook
Yeah, living with a 128 GB SSD is not at all easy. Especially if you use pro applications that take up a considerable amount of space.
What do you do to make sure you never get that “Startup Disk Full” notification? How do you free up space on our Mac? Share with us in the comments below.
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Apple’s new 11-inch Macbook Air with a 64Gb SSD drive is said to be very popular and flying off the shelves at Apple Stores everywhere and beyond. It represents the smallest notebook computer that Apple makes and the default base model ships with the smallest system disk drive available in any Apple notebook. Therefore it makes sense for users to seek ways to optimize the way they use disk space on this tiny new notebook and it was the computer that inspired me to write this How-To — which actually applies to any Mac.
I’ll start out by saying that these tips are particularly useful for 11-inch Macbook Air users with the 64Gb SSD drive since they have the least amount of system disk space to work with. However, the tips are just as useful for someone like myself with a 13-inch Macbook Air and a 256Gb SSD drive. After all practically anyone can benefit from space-saving tips for portable computers that often have limited access to resources while on the road.
Although you could lug around an extra external USB drive to get around all this, but that kind of defeats the purpose behind carrying around one of Apple’s super slim MacBook Airs.
Empty the Trash
As simple as this sounds it is important. People tend to toss things into the Trash, but rarely remember to empty it periodically. You may not realize that it also fills up with even more files without your interaction, since some activities Mac OS X performs also adds files to the Trash. So make sure that you go to the menu in Finder, select Finder > Empty Trash or Finder > Secure Empty Trash when ever the Trash has content.
Note that the latter takes the longest, but that the SSD drive in late-model Macbook Airs is so fast you probably won’t be able to tell the difference. If you are using the Trash to store files, like I know some people actually do, you are using it wrong — go find some other place to store those files.
Archive Data
I’ve had my MacBook Air for months now and I’ve accumulated some data on my notebook that really doesn’t need to be there any longer. This data is composed of article drafts and related graphics, research, and many other documents for articles I’ve written. I’m not using any of these any longer so it is time to move them to CD/DVD or external archival storage on a RAID array, etc.
There are a lot of ways to archive files to CD/DVD, but one of the easiest is to use the built-in burn-to-disc feature of Mac OS X. Simply locate the files or folders you want to burn to disc, select them all with the mouse, and right-click them selecting “Burn x items to Disc…” from the pop-up contextual menu where x is the number of items you selected. Mac OS X will take care of the rest all you need to do is provide the media.
Once you’ve verified the archive method you used was successful drag the original files to the Trash and empty it. You’ll free up some disk space.
Compress Files and Folders
You can compress single files or folders containing multiple files and replace them with a Zip archive file. This is accomplished by right clicking the file or folder and select Compress “xyz” in the pop-up contextual menu where xyz is the name of the item you selected.
The compressed file created by Mac OS X is often called Archive.zip or it may obtain a name related to the item or items you are compressing with .zip appended to the end. It can be used to replace the original uncompressed files. If you need to keep certain files on your Mac, but seldom use them this is a good way to store them using the least amount of space. Once you have the zip archive created throw the originals into the Trash — just don’t forget to empty the Trash later.
Monolingual
Monolingual is a freeware application for Mac OS X that is currently available on Source Forge. This application will remove unnecessary language resources from Mac OS X and it claims to allow you to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space. I consider this app to be fairly easy to use.
Perhaps it is to easy, so use it at your own risk and read the application FAQ before using it. There is a chance that if you use the application in correctly that you’ll have to re-install either Mac OS X or some of your applications – so use this at your own risk.
Download a copy of Monolingual 1.4.5, a universal binary for Mac OS X 10.5 or higher, here.
Remove Unused Applications
This is another easy no-brainer. If you’ve installed an application that you no longer use – uninstall it.
Look up the uninstall directions on the particular apps technical support website or contact the developer for instructions on uninstalling it. It might be complicated or it might be as simple as dragging the applications folder or icon to the Trash and emptying it.
In some cases the developer might include an application that performs the uninstall. If that exists use it. Just like the one I recommended for removing Adobe Flash from your Mac.
Install Application Suites Frugally
If you’ve purchased one of Adobe’s software suites, MS Office, or any other large application bundle you don’t necessarily have to install every application that ships with a particular suite. The developers often provide custom installs that let you pick and choose between the applications you want to install.
I’m a bit frugal now and I don’t just install every application in a particular suite any more especially ones like Adobe Web Design Premium and MS Office. I only install the applications I know I’ll use and I save a lot of disk space because of this.
Maintain Mac OS X Caches and Logs
I use Maintain’s Cocktail application to manage the caches on my Mac it’s easy and I don’t have to get all geeky to use it. Even though I could get geeky if I wanted too. Once in a while I like to take the easy way out and save my IT Ninja powers for something else. Cocktail saves me time.
Download, purchase (single license $14.95, family license $29.95 or bundles), and install Cocktail from Maintain’s website. Launch it and select the Files icon and select the Caches tab. Next make sure that the User, System, and Internet options are checked are on the left hand side – you can add the other two for all user caches if you have other users on your Mac. Finally click the “Clear” button. You may need to restart your Mac – if you do proceed with the restart and then relaunch Cocktail for the next step.
Now you need to clean your log files by clicking the Logs tab under the Files icon. Click the “Delete” button and your logs will be purged and deleted.
It is recommended that you perform these tasks at least once a month although every other week would be better.
Cocktail can run periodic maintenance scripts for you so you don’t have to remember to do them manually and you can download a trial version for free.
Conclusion
Disk Space Mac
Next week, after New Years, I’ll be writing reviews about Mac applications that can help you analyze how you use your system drive, slim down your applications, and compress your drives content. In the meantime, if you can think of any other tips that will slim down our system drives share it with everyone by leaving a comment.