Limited storage space on a Mac can cause your device to perform below its full potential. Cluttered unnecessary files can slow down boot times as well as be an inconvenience when trying to find files that are actually important. Here are some of the ways to free up space on Mac.
Table Of Contents
Optimizing storage space
Firstly, you want to take all of the automated options at first as these do some heavy lifting on your behalf. One way to do this is to head to the About This Mac window under the Apple menu and select Storage. Under the Manage button, there are four options presented. These can help you automate the clearing of sorting through files that are no longer needed, as well as automatically erasing items found in the Trash after they’ve been there for 30 days.
This will also be a place to view your storage. Under the Storage tab, it will declare your remaining storage as well as categorizing what is culpable of consuming it. This is your chance to spot if anything, in particular, is the problem. For example, if it’s media files like pictures and video, this is a good chance to store them on iCloud or back them up on an external HDD for them to be deleted.
Remove unused applications
If you head to the Applications tab under Finder, you will find all of the applications you have previously installed. Many will now likely be redundant, so deleting the ones you rarely use can make the biggest impact on storage because many applications run into the tens of Gigabytes. Simply drag the app to the Trash and empty the trash. Alternatively, you can delete them via the Launchpad by holding it and pressing the X button when it appears.
Clear cache
Cache is something that often comes up in solutions on how to optimise products, nevertheless, it’s often ignored. Somewhere you will find plenty of cache is what your browser gets up to. Unfortunately, if you use multiple browsers, you will need to do this same process for each. Simply open up the browser, head to the settings, and look for history. Under history, you can usually delete all history or simply delete the cache. Whilst vague, these are the rough instructions for pretty much any browser.
Safari can be the most tricky though, so in this case, head to Safari, Preferences, Advanced, then press the Show Develop menu. Now, you can click on the Develop menu button that’s now appeared and click Empty caches.
You will also want to delete system caches by heading to Finder, Go, then press Go to Folder. Type in “Library/Caches/” and press Go. From here, simply go into each folder and choose what to delete. You can also press sort by Date Modified to see what hasn’t been added anytime recently.
Delete old iOS backups
Finally, head to the Apple menu, press About This Mac, then Storage Tab, then press Manage. On the window that appears, press iOS Files and delete any old, redundant backups, as these can be huge in size. Be careful not to delete a relevant/your only backup, however.
