Storage On A Mac

Automatically Clean Up Your Hard Drive of Mac. A better way to do Macbook storage expansion is. To make things easier for you, we have listed eight different solutions on how to free up space on Mac. Furthermore, we have even provided a smart guide on how to see storage on Mac beforehand. In this way, you can see the difference in your Mac storage before and after following the listed suggestions.

1. The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Free, or Purgeable.
2. With a single click, Umate Mac Cleaner will remove all the unwanted files to make storage space on your MacBook with the features - Clean Up Junk. Another feature of the application is Manage Apps and Extensions, it can uninstall unused applications and remove unnecessary extensions on the Mac to make more space available.

The amount of data you can store on your hard drive is a precious resource and one of the important features you check on the list when buying your new Mac. But what to do when your Mac storage is almost full? You can go to 'About This Mac' to see how your memory is distributed in your machine. In this article we will tell you about how to manage storage on Mac.

You Need to Know About The Types of Storage on Your Mac First

The drive storage on your Mac can be categorized into three types depending on where the files are placed and what applications use them. In order to understand how you can manage MacBook storage optimally, you need to understand what these storages are and what files are included in it. The three categories are discussed below: Mpv player mac download.

1. System Storage

Macbook System storage includes all the files on your Mac which are required by the operating system to load and run properly. Your macOS is also stored in your System storage along with startup applications and system update files. The files on this storage include important files for your system to function properly to the system logs and junk files your MacOS keeps for system troubleshooting or maintenance.

2. Other Storage

Even when you didn't read about System storage before this, you probably had an idea that these files are on your Mac for something related to the ‘System'. But the really confusing part is where you see Other storage. The storage bar almost lists everything I can ever put on my Mac; like photos, movies, audios, apps, system, so I have always wondered what is Others and how can I clear all the space which is occupied by Others. We can simply say that all the other files you have on your mac which cannot be listed in the above titles, they go to others. The others may include any documents, zipped archives, temporary files, etc.

3. Purgeable Storage

Purgeable storage is part of macOS storage management to intelligently handle the storage on your machine. MacOS makes use of iCloud storage in most efficient manner and limits the actual amount of data on your disk. Your Mac storage optimization feature identifies these files as safe to delete from the system. This is either because the files haven't been used in a very long time, or copy of these files have been placed in the Cloud storage and they can be deleted from the Mac storage.

How Do You Check Storage on your Mac

You can easily check the status of your Mac storage in your Mac OS X system information depending on the macOS version you are using.

macOS 10.7 or Later

To check the storage details in MacOS 10.7 or later. Go to About This Mac in Apple Menu and click More Info. Here you can see different tabs, click Storage. You should be able to see this window.

macOS 10.6 or Earlier

1. For macOS 10.6 or earlier versions, you can see your disk space using Finder. Open a new Finder window and select your disk drive in the sidebar.
2. Now go to File and click Get Info, you should see the following window.

Now, that you know what your storage space looks like, you are probably thinking how to manage my storage on Mac?

The answer is pretty simple as there are three options available with you to manage Macbook storage space by using your operating system applications, third-party applications, and manual hacks. We will discuss all of them in detail.

Use All-in-one Tool to Manage Storage on Your Mac (Free Up 40% Disk Space)

However, your Mac OS applications will give you minimum control over the space you can free up by letting you clean your Trash or some of the unneeded files. The better way to do that is to use a third-party application like Umate Mac Cleaner.

Umate Mac Cleaner is designed to clean up more than 40 types of junk files piling up in your Mac storage. It will automatically scan your Mac storage to detect any unnecessary junk file which can be deleted safely from your system. You can select from 2 cleaning modes; Quick Clean or Deep Clean. With a single click, Umate Mac Cleaner will remove all the unwanted files to make storage space on your MacBook with the features - Clean Up Junk. Another feature of the application is Manage Apps and Extensions, it can uninstall unused applications and remove unnecessary extensions on the Mac to make more space available. The advantages and steps of using Umate Mac Cleaner are shown below. You will love it like most of Mac users!

Step 1. Install and launch Umate Mac Cleaner.

Step 2. Click the Scan button on the Clean up Junk part. Select unwanted files and click Clean to free up more storage space.

If you want to manage your storage on Mac and free up more space, you can also perform the feature - Manage Apps & Extensions.

Step 1. Choose 'Manage Apps & Extensions' tab and click the 'View Items' respectively on 'Uninstall Apps' and 'Remove Extensions' for loading all the apps and extensions on your Mac.

Step 2. After scanning, just choose those unneeded apps and extensions and delete them in a flash.

Or You Can Manage Storage on Mac Manually with These 9 Ways, Maybe Time-Consuming

We are listing down some manual ways you can use to manage your Mac storage. However, they are time-consuming and not so effective on managing storage, so we don't recommend that. Anyway, you can still take a look at them and follow the steps.

Way 1: Default Mac Storage Management Tools in macOS Sierra

MacOS 10.12 Sierra has built-in features for Mac storage management to free up space in your MacBook. You can go to Apple Menu -> About This Mac -> Manage to see the list of options you can choose from.

• Store in iCloud
• Optimize Storage
• Empty Trash Automatically
• Reduce Clutter

Way 2: Delete System Files And Temporary Files

The operating system continuously creates system logs and cache files which are essential for the system operation and necessary for troubleshooting of any problem your mac faces. These files are of temporary nature and their purpose is time limited, but they usually don't get deleted from the system right away. These files keep piling up and eventually take up a lot of space on your Mac. Cleaning up these types of files is a good storage to manage Macbook storage.

To delete these files, you can go to the system folder location ‘~/Users/User/Library/Application Support/'. Here you can manually delete the temporary files of the application which are using a lot of space. However, manually deleting these files still run a risk of any important file being deleted. Try using Umate Mac Cleaner for this purpose.

Way 3: Clean Downloads Folder

The Downloads folder is where everything on your mac is stored and this is the largest folder on anyone's computer (Size-wise). Naturally, this is your default location and you hardly ever feel like moving files from here. After a certain time, you end up with a lot of files (which you probably don't even remember what you downloaded for) taking up more than 50 percent of your storage space. The best way is to go through this folder periodically and delete any file which is no longer required.

Way 4: Delete Time Machine Local Backups

MacOS 10.13 High Sierra comes loaded with Time Machine. A system application that creates local snapshots in case you need to restore data without the backup disk. You can delete older snapshots to free up space on your mac. Open Terminal.app from Utilities and then type the following commands

• su root
• sudo su
• tmutils listlocalsnapshots
• tmutils deletelocalsnapshots (filename)

Way 5: Remove Plugins and Extensions from Apps on Your Mac

Application plugins and web browser extensions are installed automatically in the application packages or as a part of webpage. However, you must clean these to avoid any unnecessary trouble with the system. And you also get the space of your storage cleaned up in the process. To remove extensions;

1. Goto browser preferences (Safari, Chrome, Firefox).
2. Find the tab labeled Extension.
3. Remove unnecessary extensions from the browser.

Way 6: Remove Storage-eating or Unused Apps

Any file on your system which has not been used for a longer period of time is just eating up the storage space on your Mac. There is one quick hack to sort out what files are taking up the largest space and delete any unnecessary items. Check the Applications installed (Arrange the applications according to Size to give you a better idea about space management). Also, you can search Download folder for any unwanted and old file taking up a lot of space. This is definitely an efficient way to manage storage on your Mac and free up more space!

Way 7: Delete Mail Attachments

The email attachments are downloaded on your Mac for viewing offline. These attachments start stacking up on your disk storage. Therefore it is a good practice to periodically delete large attachments with your mail. Search you Mail and in View, select Sort by and list the received mail according to Attachment. Select and delete unwanted mail attachments.

Way 8: Find and Delete Large Files

To manually search and delete large files, you can use the basic features of the Spotlight in your Mac.

1. Open a new Finder window, press Command + F.
2. In the search field, click on Kind > Other, and choose File Size.
3. Select the ‘is greater than' filter and enter the file size (e.g.; 100 MB)

Way 9. Add External Storage

The mechanical spinning hard drives are getting cheaper every day, and this makes the option of carrying an external disk drive a very affordable solution. You can find a 1 TB Hard drive supported by USB 3.0 in between the range of $50 - $80, easily. By moving your large files and the files which you do not need all the time to your external storage, your storage management becomes a lot comfortable.

Final Thought

The manual space management can take up a lot of your time in digging through millions of bytes of data. Using the powerful Umate Mac Cleaner to manage storage on Macbook will do this for you in just a few clicks and your Mac becomes as good as new. So easy!

A slow Mac is no fun for anyone. It happens to the best of us — which is why everyone should know how to declutter and free up disk space on their Mac. Not only will this speed up your computer, it's also a great opportunity to organize your files.

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.

In this article, we'll show you how to free up space on Mac computers, and highlight some apps that make maintenance of your computer's file system much simpler.

What's taking up space

Have you ever seen this pop up on your Mac?

It's frustrating! This occurs because the memory your Mac has is full. It may be saved movies, large documents, mail attachments, or just plain cached items from apps like iMessage that are taking up space on your Mac.

Not only is the popup message annoying, diminished disk space on your Mac can prevent you from being productive. Mail attachments or other files may not save to your Mac, all because you've got a bunch of old stuff cluttering your memory system. It can even cause apps to quit, or fail to load.

Low disk space isn't always an 'old Mac' problem, either. While it's true older Macs typically have less memory available to them, even modern Macs can get cluttered. That's why it's important to know how to clear space on Mac hard drives.

How to check storage on Mac

Here's how to check the storage on your Mac using Apple's method:

1. From the menu bar on your Mac, click the Apple logo on the top left
2. Select 'About this Mac'
3. Select the 'Storage' option in the new window

This is a basic way to check how much storage is being occupied on your Mac. Another good tip is to check your disk usage with iStat Menus. It's an app that allows you to monitor – in real time – how your Mac is performing. iStat Menus lives in your Mac's menu bar, running in the background until you need it. Each of its monitoring services has a menu bar icon, including one for memory.

When you click on the iStat Menus icon, it shows you exactly what's happening with your disk space. When your Mac is running slowly, it's possible an app is taking up more resources than you would like. iStat Menus shows you which app is to blame.

How to optimize storage using macOS

If you're using macOS Sierra or later, you can benefit from Apple's Optimize Storage functionality. It allows you to store files in iCloud, renewing your access to these files whenever you need. Here's how to use the Apple way of managing storage on Mac:

1. Repeat the steps above to check the available and used storage on your Mac
2. Click on 'Manage' to access the storage management window
3. Enable the 'Empty Trash Automatically' and 'Reduce Clutter' options to remove files you deleted, and large files you might no longer need.
4. Select 'Store in iCloud' to move your desktop file and docs, photos, and messages to iCloud. You can choose what file types to transfer.

Note: iCloud provides only 5GB of free storage. If you want more, you can upgrade your iCloud storage plan — it will cost you $0.99 per month for 50GB, $2.99 per month for 200GB, and $9.99 monthly for 2TB.

Go to the Optimize Storage menu and choose from three options that help you use storage more cleverly. You can select to remove watched files from your Apple TV app (or iTunes if you use macOS Mojave and earlier), download only recent attachments, or not to delete attachments at all.

Move Files to the Cloud

iCloud is Apple's preferred method for storing files and folders in the cloud. It makes your data available across devices, and is now the default service for system backups.

Apple gives you 5GB free iCloud storage, but it's just enough for an iPhone backup and a few gigabytes of pictures. It's almost never enough for the average user.

Activating it on your Mac will help save room in your system memory, though. It moves the actual storage of files to the cloud, and ann image of those files on your Mac. It also compresses images for optimized storage on the Mac, but keeps them available in the Photos app.

If you have a different cloud storage system you prefer, CloudMounter makes it easy to back your Mac's files up to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Mega, Amazon S3, and other services. It lives in your Mac's Finder app and menu bar, and makes moving files from your Mac to the cloud as easy as dragging and dropping them into CloudMounter, and directly into your connected cloud account.

Manage large files and archive data

You can find and delete large files on your Mac directly. Here's how:

1. From the menu bar on your Mac, click the Apple logo on the top left
2. Select 'About this Mac'
3. Select the 'Storage' option in the new window
4. Select 'Manage'
5. Select 'Documents'
6. On the right side of the window, click the 'Size' column header to show the largest files first

We prefer using CleanMyMac X's file system manager. Here's how to use it:

1. Open CleanMyMac X on your Mac
2. Select the 'Large & Old Files' module on the right side of the window
3. Select 'Scan'

This is a smarter way of discerning which files are taking up space on your Mac – especially if you don't need access to those files often. It shows you which types of files they are, how old they are, and lets you delete batches of files by size.

Find and delete duplicate files

When you download an app, it usually has associated files it stores on your Mac. That's normal; duplicates of those files aren't. Downloading an app more than once, or even updating an app, can cause it to duplicate existing files on your Mac.

You may also download files more than once. Your Mac is smart, but doesn't bother checking to see if you already have a file before downloading it again. There's no clean way to check for duplicates on your Mac. Apple would ask that you look for duplicated filenames in your storage, and delete one of them.

A better way is to use Gemini, an innovative cleanup app built to help you find and eliminate duplicate files on your hard drive. Even better, it can identify near-identical files as well, giving you an easy way to delete the slightly shaky versions of your vacation snaps in one convenient window.

How To Free Up Disk Space Mac

Here's how to detect and delete duplicate files with Gemini:

1. Open Gemini on your Mac
2. Click the ‘plus' icon, or drag a folder to the app
3. Select 'Review Results' to delete files manually, or 'Smart Cleanup' to allow Gemini to delete all duplicates

Remove temporary files

Your macOS, your apps, and your browser all use a shortcut called 'caching' to run faster. But over time, those caches fill up with useless information that bogs down your computer.

Why is it important to clear the cache? The short answer is that caches litter and bloat Macs. They aren't just a byproduct of browser history — most systems and apps, such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Mail and Photos, create huge amounts of temporary files that linger in the background. These caches of data are essentially just junk files, and they can be safely deleted to free up storage space.

When it comes to cleaning a Mac, you have two options: delete files manually or get a cleaner app to help you. Clearing your cache files with CleanMyMac is the quickest, safest way we know.

Get rid of hidden trash

Another source of system-slowing junk is email and text attachments. Even if you don't download an attachment, your desktop mail client holds onto a version so that it can show you previews and access the file more easily. 'But I deleted that email!' you say. Often that's not enough—these downloads can hang around long after the original email is gone.

It's possible to clean them out manually. You can use the macOS Optimize Storage feature we've described above. Choose what exactly you want to be removed — mail attachments, watched video, or both. Still, CleanMyMac X is a much faster option to clean up the trash on Mac. Here's how to use CleanMyMac X to empty all trash folders on your Mac:

1. Open CleanMyMac X on your Mac
2. Select 'Trash Bins' from the left hand side
3. Select 'Scan' at the bottom of the window
4. Select 'Review Details' to see what CleanMyMac X found, or 'Empty' to delete all trash files on your Mac

Here's a little trick for you: If you want to be sure you keep the needed files and attachments at your fingertips, use Trickster app to remember them for you. Configure your file tracking inside the app and make sure you're never confused about what's stored on your Mac. The important stuff is always in Trickster.

If you want a clutter-free email client, Canary Mail is your perfect choice. The app not only automatically clear away the trash, but also allows to automatically unsubscribe from tons of mailing lists — so that you stop receiving the clutter.

Empty downloads and trash bin

Your Mac's ‘download' folder is where most apps, like Safari or Chrome, dump files. It's also the default folder for email downloads. And it can get really full.

Many of us simply download a file, access it, then forget about it once we're done with it. The downloads folder can get chock full of files we no longer need, or want. It's smart to comb through it ever so often and delete files you don't want, or move them to cloud storage containers using CloudMounter.

Some downloads are hidden, taking up even more space. And the further back you go the more useless these documents are. Do you really need to keep a text file labelled 'Christmas shopping list 2015' or 'Dream holiday Summer 2016?' Probably not. Free up some much-needed space on your Mac and delete as many of these old download files as possible, and remember to come back and tidy it up every few months.

CleanMyMac can help for sure. But also, consider switching your email client to Unibox, which automatically reduces excessive downloads.

AppleInsider described Unibox as 'the best client we tried,' and Macworld said it is 'A welcome, fresh new approach to email on the Mac.' Unibox groups emails by sender and includes an attachment list, so you can quickly find what you need, then delete those documents out of the Downloads folder.

Uninstall unused apps

Have you ever downloaded an app, then stopped using it? We all have! Those apps occupy memory on your Mac – sometimes a lot of space, too.

Mac Storage Cleanup

CleanMyMac X has a handy 'Uninstaller' module which makes it easy to identify and remove all unwanted apps from your Mac. It even deletes associated files, so all traces of an unused app are taken away.

Get rid of old backups

Something else that comes as a surprise to most Mac users is just how many backups your system carries at any given time. Copying and pasting, and the duplicate feature make it too easy to replicate your work in different folders.

At the same time, you've probably got dozens of cached backups of files and documents that are invisible but taking up more space than you'd want. Like Time Machine backups. Every time you use Apple's built-in backup utility, it creates local snapshots that are stored locally on your Mac. This may result in up to 100 GB Time Machine clutter on your hard drive.

CleanMyMac will find old backups for you and remove them in a click. In its 'Maintenance' module, you can select 'Time Machine Snapshot Thinning' to automatically remove older Time Machine backups you no longer need.

But also, switch your backup client to Get Backup Pro to backup only those units you want (for Mac). If you need to quickly transfer files or folders to another server, use a backup sync app ChronoSync Express.

If you want to quickly backup your iOS device on Mac — for instance, before hard resetting or factory resetting iPhone — you can use AnyTrans. You can even schedule instant backups to never worry about losing data when syncing your iOS device with Mac.

Get rid of desktop clutter

Organizing your Mac desktop doesn't directly help your memory woes, but it can help you find files faster and avoid multiple downloads of the same file.

Optimize Storage On Mac

Apple's chosen method is called Stacks. A simple right-click on your desktop brings up a menu; selecting 'Use Stacks' puts your files into folders by type. Images, screenshots, and other files will be held in expandable folders, decluttering your desktop for good. Future downloads will all fall into those categories, too.

You may prefer Spotless, an app that affords you far more control over how your desktop is organized. You can set rules for organization, and tuck files into other folders on your Mac by dragging and dropping into one location. Spotless takes care of the hard work for you!

You deserve a faster Mac

By eliminating both hard disk and desktop clutter, you'll improve your Mac's performance as well as your own workflow. Plus, Setapp's decluttering, disk cleanup, and analysis apps help you complete what would be a tedious chore in just a few clicks. There's no telling how much time and effort you'll save by giving yourself (and your Mac) a break.

There are plenty of great ways to manage your Mac's memory without rushing out to buy a new computer. We've shown you the best ways here!

All the apps we mentioned in this article are available for free during a seven day trial of Setapp, the world's best suite of productivity apps for the Mac. In addition to ClanMyMac X, Spotless, Gemini, CloudMounter, Get Backup Pro, and ChronoSync Express, you'll have unlimited access to Setapp's full catalog of nearly 200 Mac apps. When your free trial is over, Setapp is only $9.99 per month. Give it a try today!

Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

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