- 1. Mac Files Tips
- 2. Mac Software
- 3. Mac Storage Tips
- 4. Mac Troubleshooting
- 5. Mac OS
by Jenefey AaronUpdated on 2019-07-25 / Update for Data Recovery
Clear system storage on Mac. System storage cleanup sounds like a serious undertaking. The bigger the files you can delete, the more space you can free up—so let's go hunting. Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the menu bar and choose About This Mac.
Have you ever been warned of insufficient storage space on your MacBook after youdownloaded a lot of awesome apps, games and movies? Your storage space is limited, especially now most new MacBooks with flash-based storage, the average amount of space becomes smaller than it has been in the past. If you wondered whether storage space on MacBook Air/Pro is running out of or dangerously close, here's what you can try to check the available hard drive space on a Mac.
Part 1：How to Check Storage on MacBook Air/Pro
Step 1: Firstly go to the 'Apple logo' on the top of the screen, then you tap on the option 'About The Mac'.
Step 2: Up next, you can select 'More Info' and click on 'Storage' tab.
Step 3: There you can get the storage allocation of your Mac book.
Part 2: How to Free Up Storage Space on your MacBook Air/Pro
You can free up storage space by storing your content in the cloud if you want to remove unwanted files after checking storage on MacBook Air/Pro. Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:
Files from Desktop and Documents in iCloud Drive. Store all files in 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 easily work offline. Files that are stored only in the cloud show a download icon, which you can double-click to download the original file.
Photos and videos in iCloud Photo Library. All original, full-resolution photos and videos are stored in iCloud Photo Library. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
Part 3: Recover the Deleted Files With Any Data Recovery for Mac
If you mistakenly deleted some significant files, you still have a chance to recover them with the help of Tenorshare Data Recovery for Mac, it is the powerful Mac file recovery software that can recover lost, deleted, or formatted files from Mac. Here's how
Step 1: Download and install this program to your computer, then select a partition to scan deleted/lost files on your Mac in the main interface.
Step 2: After scanning, all the recoverable files are displayed by file type and file path. Check the files you need, and then click 'Recover' to get back the files. Before recovery, you can preview photos and audios to check if they are indeed your need.
Step 3: Specify location to save the recovered files. Please keep in mind that you can't save them to the partition where you lost files. Otherwise, the lost files will be overwritten.
That is the elaborated guide to teach you how to check storage space, how to free up storage space and how to recover deleted files. Welcome your feedback and comment.
Today, in 2020, MacBooks are more spacious than ever. The new MacBook Air 2020 is confirmed to be shipped with a 256-GB hard drive. But no amount of storage seems to be enough as the ever-inflating digital media is taking over our hard drives. Cloud servers are only a partial answer to that. They aren't getting cheaper and consume insane amounts of the world's electricity. So if you want to take a load off your drive and help the planet, you should teach yourself a couple of storage-keeping tricks. Let's go.
That's the bad news. Now for the good. There are several simple ways to fix the low disk space problem, including one we're especially fond of: wiping out junk files with a cleaner app. We recommend CleanMyMac X — it removes system junk and empties multiple trashes to free up disk space on your Mac. You can download it now and get cleaning right away, or take a look at some DIY ways first.
What's causing low disk space on your Mac?
Before you begin to free up disk space, let's identify what's taking it up. From the Apple Menu in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, select About this Mac and then click the storage tab in the window that opens. You'll get a handy, color-coded graph that looks like this:
Free professional photo editing software for mac. In the above example, you can see that apps, audio files and 'other' (for details on what this 'other' category consists of, look here) have commandeered most of the disk's available space.
It's nice to see what's stored on your Mac, and even nicer to be able to browse the folders that contain the files themselves. Now that you've identified what's on your drive, let's look up at freeing up some space.
How to increase disk space on your Mac
There are several options here, so let's go through a few.
1. Move large, old files off your Mac
Often times the files that end up taking the most space are tucked away in 'cold storage' on your computer. These are big movies, photos or the like that you rarely look at, but can't part with, either. In this case, archiving the files and moving them to an external drive is a good way to free up storage space on your Mac.
Locating huge neglected files can be a pain, but it gets super easy with CleanMyMac app. It has a dedicated Large & Old File finder. With it you can find some massive documents and sort them by type, last used, and more criteria.
You can download the free version of CleanMyMac X here.
As the name suggests, it finds files that occupy a lot of space on your disk, but haven't been opened for a long time. You can quickly review these files right in the app and decide which ones you want to archive. to see how it works, it's a really handy feature if you have a lot of heavy stuff piled up.
2. Uninstall unused applications
If you're like me, you often try an app '..just to see what it does'. While that's fun, it frequently results in a slew of forgotten apps. It's a good practice to set a reminder to review your Applications folder and clean out the ones you no longer use. Just note, however, that simply dragging an app into your Mac's trash doesn't eliminate all of its related files.
CleanMyMac's App Uninstaller, on the other hand, leaves no leftover pieces behind, which means more available space on your Mac. When told to delete an app, CleanMyMac X finds every related document and file, no matter where it has been tucked away, and marks it for deletion.
And speaking of setting up a reminder, CleanMyMac's scheduler will handle that task for you, too. Just tell it how often you'd like to be prompted to give your Mac a good cleaning and leave the rest to the app.
3. Take out your Trash
Review your Trash bin's contents one last time before you empty it. Click on your Trash and click the Empty button that is found to the right of the pane.
Tip: Use Command + Option + Delete to delete any folder immediately bypassing Trash.
4. Clean up the Downloads folder
Files love to hide in your Mac's Downloads folder. Old disk images, random photos, unused extensions, ZIP files… they're in there, not making a sound. Hiding. ?lick the Downloads stack in the OS X Dock and browse what's sitting in there, wasting space on your disk. Anything that's unnecessary can be dragged to the Trash.
5. Delete duplicate folders and files
How many times do we copy or download things twice? Like many users, I would prefer to have a backup twin of my important files. But that often ends up in my files being quadrupled…or what do they call a 4th or 5th copy of the same folder?
To effectively remove duplicate files and make space on Mac, you can use Gemini 2. This is how this app looks.
You can download this little duplicate finder here.
Gemini 2 analyzes potential duplicates by many criteria, not just the name of the file. It searches for:
- Duplicate folders
- Duplicate movies
- Similar images
6. Learn to use Optimized Storage
Macbook Air Storage Space
Optimized Storage is the built-in feature of the macOS. It's a sorting algorithm that shows different categories of files on your Mac for review and removal.
Click on the 🍎Apple Menu > About This Mac > Storage
Choose 'Manage…'
By far, the most-space demanding of your files will be Documents.
Using the quick tabs above you will decide what is there you can toss away.
Make sure to also check Recommendations (on top of the list). There are a couple more space-saving options there.
7. Delete your Desktop screenshots
Free Up Storage On Macbook Air
Mac's Desktop is where you keep screenshots by default. macOS Mojave and its successor, macOS Catalina have a tool called 'Stacks' that organizes your Desktop into clearly labeled folders. One of such folders will be Screenshots which you can later remove in one sweep.
How To Free Up System Storage On Macbook Air
- Go to your desktop (press F3, or Fn + F11 if you use a TouchBar Mac)
- Right-click somewhere in the middle of your Desktop.
- Select 'Use Stacks'
Now you should see the Screenshots folder with all your screengrabs neatly stuffed inside.
Drag this folder to the Trash and empty it.
8. Get rid of system junk
It's not just your files that are hogging disk space — it's also useless system files like logs, cache, unused binaries, old iOS backups and installers, and what not. Fortunately, CleanMyMac can find and eliminate them all to make low disk space a thing of the past, at last.
System junk is comprised of:
User cache files
Application cache
Broken downloads
Unused .DMG installers
As you can see, the 'User cache' category alone can recover about 3 GB of space. So the best way to free up space on Mac is to start with this type of files.
With just a few clicks you'll discover what's where and what's ripe for deletion. The best way to free up hard drive space is to get CleanMyMac X for free and wave goodbye to space-hogging files. Don't worry. You won't miss them. Hopefully, you liked our tips on how to clear disk space on Mac — drop by for more Mac housekeeping tips😉
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