It’s recommended that you keep at least 15-20% of your Mac’s memory free to keep it running smoothly. Optimizing storage is an efficient way to do this. But there are also several other steps you can take to free up space on MacBook Air, Pro, or any other macOS device. Doing these routinely will ensure you don’t face any storage issues and are able to make the most of your system. So let’s have a look.
Instead of deleting a hundred small files and images, first of all, let us go for the big fish.
Six ways to clean up your Mac. Today's Best Tech Deals. While you’re using Onyx, check out the many other files that the program can delete to clear up space on your Mac. Weed out iTunes.
Related:How to Find iPhone Backup Location on Mac & Windows
You can delete Mac applications in various ways. You may follow the above steps, click on Applications, and remove the large ones.
This comes down to what you are willing to keep and what you are happy to let go of. Nowadays everything is online in the cloud. Thus there is no point in storing too may videos, music, etc. on the local storage.
You may also right-click and sort by size to quickly locate and delete the biggest files first.
If you have many images and word files that you rarely use, but can not delete, then it is a handy idea to compress them. Here is how to zip and unzip files on Mac.
To empty Trash automatically:
Many times, GBs of files pile up and are stored in the Trash, thus occupying significant space. It is better to empty it regularly.
It is best to use iCloud to Store docs etc. on Mac if you have a paid iCloud plan that gives you more than 5 GB of online storage. Here is how to use iCloud to Store Documents.
You may also, enable iCloud Photos from System Preferences → Apple ID → iCloud → Photos or the Preferences of the Mac’s Photos app.
Following these steps, you can delete the attachments that have been saved locally on the Mac from the mail app. Depending on the number of emails you receive, this data can be huge.
Even if you delete from here, the attachments are still in your email that you can view or download anytime. Further, you may also choose to stop the Mac Mail app from downloading attachments.
Duplicate files are a big headache and unnecessarily occupy space. We have a list of some of the best mac cleaner apps that can help you delete duplicate files on your Mac.
Do you have data that you do not use much but can neither delete them nor store them in the cloud? Well, consider investing in an external drive and move infrequently used large files to it.
Signing off…
These were some of the easiest ways to free up space on your MacBook Air. It’s a good idea to do these steps every now and then to keep your system performing well. Are there any other Mac tips you’re looking for? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll help you out.
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The founder of iGeeksBlog, Dhvanesh, is an Apple aficionado, who cannot stand even a slight innuendo about Apple products. Mac os screen capture window. He dons the cap of editor-in-chief to make sure that articles match the quality standard before they are published.
So you’ve had your Mac for a while, and things don’t feel as fresh and clean as they used to? Although Macs don’t require a lot of maintenance for cleaning, those temporary files, app leftovers, and system cache do accumulate. These files may slow down your machine and take up a lot of valuable space. In this article, we share quick and easy ways to clean up your MacBook. Let’s get started!
Here’s a simple diagram to explain the most common types of computer junk, sorted by size. Some of these, like Trash bin files, are easily reachable, while others are stored away in hidden system folders. Sadly, there’s no easy way to clear them up without special skills.
If you don’t feel like spending the next several hours cleaning your Mac manually, you can use a powerful cleaning tool CleanMyMac X to find and remove all the clutter your Mac contains. It knows which files are useless, how to find them and remove completely. CleanMyMac has everything to finish the 3-hour task of a Mac cleanup in under 5 minutes. It will even clean up the junk you didn’t know about and give your computer a speed boost.
How to clean up system storage on Mac with CleanMyMac X:
Done! Now your Mac looks much better!
If you never performed an automatic or manual system cleaning — it means that your Mac has been collecting unnecessary files and clutter for years. You can quickly clean up your Mac with these easy steps.
You’ve probably heard “Remove your cache” as a web browser troubleshooting tip. In fact, your Mac stores a lot of information in files called caches, allowing fast access to that data and reducing the need to get it from the original source again. Unfortunately, those files take a lot of space on your Mac, and instead of speeding the things up, they slow your computer down. Therefore, if you want to give your system a boost, clean your Mac from the cache files.
There are two ways to do that: you can delete them manually or use a MacBook cleaner like CleanMyMac X to do the job for you. Of course, the second way is an easy and fast one. However, if you decide to clean up the cache manually, check out a comprehensive guide on “How to Clear Cache on a Mac.”
The applications you’ve installed on your Mac take up space, of course. And over time when your Mac becomes full of different apps, it may start running slowly. How to clean MacBook? In the first place, you need to remove the apps you no longer use or need. To do this, right-click on the app you want to remove and choose Move to Bin.
You may be surprised to find out that sending an app to the Trash will not uninstall it completely because the app leftovers still remain on your Mac taking up a lot of storage. So, if you want to be a responsible Mac user, you need to uninstall applications the right way. Here’s a step-by-step guide on “How to Uninstall Apps on a Mac.”
Login items are applications that run automatically upon startup. Nowadays, every second app tries to become as prominent as possible and get into your Login Items. First of all, you may not even know what they are (not all of them appear in the Dock). Secondly, such apps consume memory. That's enough reasons to get rid of extra login items you don't need.
You’re done.
Identical photos, music tracks you’ve added one time too many, saved and re-saved PDF files… all of that sits on your Mac and gobbles up storage. The storage that could be used for better purposes.
So how do you quickly weed them out? The fastest way is to use Gemini 2: The Duplicate Cleaner.
How to find disk utility on mac. That's it. Now your Mac should be completely duplicate-free.
Even though you’ve deleted the files, they reside in your Trash bin taking up a lot of storage on your Mac. They are just waiting to be removed completely. If you want your precious hard drive space back, you need to empty the Trash.
Here’s how to clean your MacBook from the trash:
The process is quite simple, right? There is even a more effortless way to clear Trash. CleanMyMac X scans your Mac for junk and lets you remove all trashed files. To do that, launch CleanMyMac X and press Scan. When the scan is completed, click Review Details to see what exactly CleanMyMac X has found.
I’ve already cleaned Bin a couple of weeks before, but over some time, almost a gigabyte of trashed files has accumulated. Now, I can simply click Back to Summary and then Run to clean Trash and system junk.
Apple has already thought about the clutter that can be generated on the Macs and provided a possible solution. Here’s how to reduce clutter on your Mac:
Here’re some recommendations for saving space on your Mac. You can choose Review Files to examine apps, documents, and other files that are stored on your Mac.
You can choose any file in every category (Applications, Bin, Documents, etc.) and click Delete to remove it and optimize space. Look through other recommendations and make the necessary changes to use your Mac’s space more efficiently.
It has always been a rule of thumb among computer geeks, that you should keep a minimum of 15-20% of free space on your main hard drive. This is just a rough estimation, but the more free space you have, the faster your Mac works. A computer magazine once performed a test on this, which concluded that the difference in speed can reach as much as 35%. If you work with heavy graphics or video rendering, even more free space is recommended.
How to have more free space? Delete large and old files.
The first way is totally manual and requires you to find them one by one, while for the second way, you just need to make two clicks and CleanMyMac X will do the job for you.
How to clean up Mac with CleanMyMac X:
That’s it!
Having your files backed up is a wonderful thing. But over time your Mac becomes overloaded with old backups that take gigabytes of storage on your hard drive. That’s why you should consider removing the old iOS backups you no longer need.
Each backup remains stored on your computer and is accessible via iTunes. To delete the old backups, you need to do the following:
That’s it! The backup files are gone from your Mac forever.
Unused language localizations take up about 1 GB of storage space. Mac applications come with language files for every language they support. It allows starting using the app in that language immediately. Cool, right? Not always. Just consider: when was the last time you used the app in Bengali or Korean? Since you don’t speak those languages, such files just waste space on your Mac. You need to remove the unnecessary language files and clean MacBook from that clutter.
How to delete the language files? Go to Finder > Applications, then right-click the app which language files you want to remove and choose Show Package Contents. Open the Resources folder and then find folders ending with “.lproj.” Every folder contains language files for one particular language. Note that for every app you should manually find and select the files to remove. But there is an automatic way to delete the language files that will save you tons of time — CleanMyMac X. Just download the application (for free) and it will do the job for you.
Disk images (DMGs) often take up valuable space on your Mac. Here’s how to perform a Mac cleanup and get rid of those files:
CleanMyMac X allows you to locate and delete DMGs quicker. With its System Junk module you can remove unused disk image in the single click of a button:
Just press Clean and it’s done!
Useless copies of your documents, files, and photos eat up your Mac’s precious space. Therefore, if you wonder how to clean up a Mac and boost its performance, try to delete the duplicates. Note that the process of finding and removing the duplicates requires either a lot of patience and time (if you decide to delete them manually) or a duplicate finder app. Whatever method you choose, make sure to check out this article on “How to Find Duplicates on Mac.”
Many people use Desktop as their primary destination for files. But this could be tricky because your OS treats every file on a desktop as an active window. When items on your desktop are too many, Finder gets substantially slower. This leads us to the most compelling advice in this article — cleaning up desktop does miracles!
Rather than just leaving every file on your desktop, organize them into folders. The latest macOS does that automatically thanks to the Stacks feature. You can also use Google Drive, Dropbox or any external storage device to save your files and keep your desktop tidy.
Our last but not least advice is to wipe your Mac’s keyboard. As you use your keyboard daily, it quickly gets dirty. Moreover, all those crumbs may live under the keys forever!
If you were wondering how to clean Mac’s keyboard, there are no special rules here. You can try blowing the dust and other particles out of your keyboard once in a while. Disinfecting wipes and alcohol-based sprays may also prove useful. Just choose the piece of fabric and wipe the keys gently to make them clean and shiny!
All in all, be careful with your system files. Don’t delete things you’re not sure about. If you are not completely confident that you can manage the task by yourself, better use a dedicated utility like CleanMyMac X to get a fresh and clean Mac in just two clicks. Here's the video describing quick tips to clean up your Mac:
Happy cleaning!
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