9 Ways You Can Free up Disk Space on Mac

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If you have seen that annoying ‘Your Disk is Full’ message on your Mac, you’re not alone. Storage on Mac is an ongoing problem because it uses SSDs, which are better than HDD but pretty expensive.

So if you end up with a 128 GB version, you’re bound to keep running into this issue. Not having enough free storage on the laptop will get in the way of your work.

Here are 9 ways you can prevent this from happening –

1. Get rid of duplicate files

Duplicate files are the easiest thing to spot with cleaning apps, and you can get rid of them pretty easily. You also don’t have to think through this step as much because you’re removing a copy of a file that you already have.

2. Clear your Trash

Often, people delete files when they go on a cleaning spree but forget to delete them from Trash. If your files still exist on your system, you are probably not going to see any benefit from all the manual cleaning you did.

You can set your Trash to empty automatically every month or do it manually after a major clean-up.

3. Toss out apps you never use

More often than not, you might download an app and forget all about it if you don’t plan on using it regularly. Take inventory of all the apps you currently have and get rid of the ones you have never used or haven’t used in the last 6 months.

Again, you’re not really losing out on anything because you can always re-download them from the App Store.

4. Remove backups of your old iPhone and iPad

If you’ve used iTunes to backup your iPhone and iPad, you will be surprised to learn just how much space these backups can take up.

This is slightly more complicated because the files have a naming convention that is hard to follow. In this case, follow along with actionable instructions on how to clean your Mac to see if it makes a difference.

Get rid of these files, and you will notice a measurable improvement in the laptop’s performance.

5. Delete temporary files

Your app, browser, and other processes you run on your MacBook can create temporary files to help you navigate quickly or perform an action faster. But these temporary files can start to add up.

For your browser, you can get rid of all the temporary files. On your device, you want to do a search for ~/Library/Caches in the terminal to view all these files and start deleting them.

6. Get rid of language files

All apps on the Mac have language files that allow you to choose the native language that you want to use the app in, but it is probably not useful to you if you only ever intend to use the app in one or two languages.

The language files take up 100s of MBs, so you will clear up a lot of Can Free up Disk Space on Mac once you do this.

The best way to approach this is to use a cleaning app or an app specifically designed to get rid of language files.

7. Remove large mail attachments

Another potential space-saving method is to get rid of large attachments in your Mail app. You can turn off automatic downloads in your settings and ensure that only the recent emails are stored instead of everything.

This will help you prevent attachments from becoming a menace in the future but to clean up existing attachments; you will have to manually delete emails.

You could automate this with a cleaning app to save time and effort.

8. Check your Downloads

Just like with apps, you may have downloaded a ton of files that you no longer need. Scan through your downloads folder to see what should stay and what can go.

You can also filter the files by size so you can delete the large files first. Or use software to automate this for you.

9. Use Apple’s recommendations

If you click on ‘About this Mac’ -> Storage -> Manage, you will see some recommendations to manage your storage. You can start syncing files to iCloud. Keep in mind you will need a subscription if you exceed the 5 GB limit. Other tools available include getting rid of temporary files like videos you’ve already watched.

This information also helps you see what is taking up a lot of your storage. If it is pictures, you can start there and work your way down.

To sum up

Think about getting a MacBook with more storage. SSDs cannot be upgraded, so you will be stuck with it if you don’t plan ahead. iCloud and other cloud storage options are a great way to keep everything saved so you can remove files from your local device.

Before you go about deleting anything, make sure you take a full backup to avoid issues in the future.

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