#How to manage mac hard drive space how to
#How to manage mac hard drive space software
#How to manage mac hard drive space plus
#How to manage mac hard drive space tv
#How to manage mac hard drive space free

Though, don’t just randomly delete files unless you’re sure you don’t need them or have other copies of them. To delete an item in this column browser, right-click and choose Move to Trash. I can delete that and save nearly 5 GB.Īs you click the different entries in the column browser, you see the largest files and folders first you may find some very large items you didn’t know about, or that you don’t need. For example, in the image below you can see that I have an old copy of my Photos library, perhaps created when I updated to macOS Sierra. Furthermore, you can use the File Browser to view the contents of your Mac sorted by size.

#How to manage mac hard drive space software

These may be videos, software installers, or other files.Ī Downloads tab lets you scan your Downloads folder in list view, showing the size of files. You can go through this list and delete any you don’t need. Want to locate large files on your Mac? If you click Review Files in the Reduce Clutter section, you will see a list of the largest files on your Mac. Reduce Clutter lets you find files you don’t need to keep.You can, of course, manually delete the Trash, but if you don’t often do so, this is a good setting to turn on. Empty Trash automatically tells your Mac to delete files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.Note that you can revert these settings in the preferences for iTunes and Mail. This saves a lot of space if you buy or rent iTunes videos, or receive many files via email.

#How to manage mac hard drive space tv

Optimize Storage lets you choose to have your Mac automatically delete movies and TV shows in iTunes when you’ve watched them, and only download recent mail attachments.

Store in iCloud lets you save space by offloading some of your files to iCloud Drive.

#How to manage mac hard drive space plus

There are four main recommendations, plus a number of entries in the sidebar that you can consult. Many of these are the purgeable files that macOS Sierra assumes you can safely delete, since you can easily re-download them.

#How to manage mac hard drive space how to

When you click Manage, you’ll see the recommendations for how to cull unneeded files.

In the window that pops up, click on the Storage tab, and then click the “Manage…” button.

To access Optimized Storage in macOS Sierra: While the storage numbers can help you get an idea what’s using up your disk space, you can also use Optimized Storage to clear some of the cruft. This is because you can easily re-download Apple Music files, and they’re technically not “yours.” In the example above, I have 22 GB of music on my MacBook, and they don’t show as being iTunes content.) How to manage Optimized Storage in macOS Sierra (Note that System includes music files you’ve downloaded with Apple Music, so you may have a lot of iTunes content that doesn’t show as being part of iTunes. Although if you have lots of photos, videos, or iTunes content, those sections might be larger for you. For most people, the leftmost section-System, in yellow-should be the largest. If you hover your cursor over the different colors in the storage bar, you’ll see a popover showing the type of files each color represents and how much space they take up. You’ll see below how to tell your Mac to do this.

These purgeable files are ones that macOS can remove for you, sometimes even automatically, to ensure that you have enough space on your drive. You may find much larger numbers, depending on what type of files your Mac contains. (It’s not my main Mac, so I don’t store lots of files on it.) I’ve hovered my cursor over the Purgeable section of the storage bar it shows that about 6 GB can be safely removed from my Mac.

In the window that pops up, click on the Storage tab.īelow is a screenshot from my MacBook it has a 256 GB SSD, and I keep it fairly empty.

The first thing to do is to check your Mac’s drive to see what it contains.

#How to manage mac hard drive space free

While there are several ways to increase available disk space, this article covers how you can use Optimized Storage to free up space on your Mac. Optimized Storage is particularly useful if you have a Mac with an SSD these solid-state drives have much less capacity than hard drives, so you need to be parsimonious in what you store on them. It also contains a great feature that you might not know about, called Optimized Storage, which can help you increase disk space. This new Optimized Storage feature in macOS Sierra helps you find and remove unneeded files that are clogging your drive. MacOS Sierra has all sorts of features to make your Mac more powerful and more efficient, and to help you increase your productivity. How To How to Use Optimized Storage to Increase Disk Space