Free Software To Free Mac Hd Space

Optimized Storage in macOS Sierra and later* can save space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand. When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically. Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it. Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.

Jan 09, 2011  This video will show you a simple, and effective tip on how free up a large amount of hard drive (HD) space from your computer. If this does not free up at least 10gb from your HD I will pay you. When using your Mac, maintaining a small amount of free drive space is required to keep your system running optimally. While nothing stops you from adding files to your drive until it can hold no.

* If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.

Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below. This button is available only in macOS Sierra or later.

Manage storage on your Mac

The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.


Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:

  • Desktop and Documents. Store all files from 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 stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
  • Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. 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.
  • Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.

Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.

Optimize Storage

Click the Optimize button, then choose from these options.

  • Automatically remove watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from the iTunes Store and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.
  • Download only recent attachments. Mail automatically downloads only the attachments that you recently received. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.
  • Don't automatically download attachments. Mail downloads an attachment only when you open the email or attachment, or save the attachment to your Mac.

Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Trash Automatically

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you to identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.

You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.

Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.

Where to find the settings for each feature

The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.

  • If you're using macOS Catalina, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. Then click Options next to iCloud Drive: Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders setting. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
    In macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
  • In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
  • In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
  • If you're using macOS Catalina, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
    In macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”

Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

  • Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
  • Reminds you to delete used app installers
  • Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
  • Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

How to free up storage space manually

Even without using the Optimized Storage features of Sierra or later, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

  • Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
  • Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
  • Move files to an external storage device.
  • Compress files.
  • Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.

Learn more

  • 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. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
  • When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
  • If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.

Junk files are often invisible, but the amount of storage space they take is enormous. Therefore, to help Mac users manage storage space and recover wasted space, the company added optimization tools in macOS Sierra and higher versions.

To use it and to know about available storage space on macOS Sierra and later versions, follow the steps:

  1. Click the Apple menu > About This Mac > Storage.
  2. Here you will be able to see a segment bar specifying how much storage space is taken by which category.
  3. To optimize data, click Manage and head to the Storage Management window.
  4. You will get recommendations that will help optimize Mac.

But clearing the hard drive on Mac manually can be tricky. Hence, to simplify the task and to automate Mac cleaning to free up storage space, here’s a tip.

Additional Tip

Try Smart Mac Care for free and get rid of junk files, temporary files, cache, cookies, browser history, app cache, and much more. This powerful Mac optimization app is fantastic. What’s more, it helps secure your Mac from malicious threats like malware, spyware, virus, and other similar infections.

So, you are facing a problem with your Mac and things don’t feel ok? Although Macs don’t require regular optimization, junk files, malware infections, duplicate files, app leftovers, and other similar things do slow down the performance. Hence, to boost Mac’s performance and to free up space on Mac hard drive, we share simple and easy ways.

How to Free Up Space on Mac Hard Drive

First thing first, to reclaim storage space on Mac, we need to know what’s taking up unnecessary space. For this, we can use the in-built method discussed above or can use a smart way.

Usually junk files, large and old files, duplicates, app caches, etc. that you can’t quickly locate take up a lot of space. Sadly, clearing them manually isn’t easy; it takes several hours. So, if you are short on time and are looking for a quick way? Use Smart Mac Care.

This powerful tool uses advanced algorithms and cutting-edge technology to detect useless files and removes all clutter from Mac. In addition to this, Smart Mac Care knows how to find unnecessary files and remove them without leaving leftovers. It can do the job of hours in a couple of minutes. Moreover, it locates and cleans junk files from Mac’s hard drive that you don’t even know exists, thus resulting in a speed boost.

How to Clean Mac Hard Drive Using Smart Mac Care?

  1. Download Smart Mac Care for free by clicking the Download Now button below:
  2. Once installed, run the app & clean system junk and other unwanted files that take up storage space on Mac.
  3. To begin scanning click Start Scan and let the scan finish.
  4. When the scanning is done, you will see several junk files detected, privacy traces, infections found (if any), and more.
  5. To clean only Junk Files, click Clean Now under it. However, if you want to clean all detected traces, click Fix All Items.

That’s all. You have successfully cleaned Mac’s hard drive.

Now, we know how to use Smart Mac Care to free up space on a Mac hard drive. Let’s learn about the modules in detail.

Home Screen

Camera

Scan results are divided into two sections:

  • Security
  • Optimization and Tuneup

Under Security, you see scan results of Malware Scan and Web Protection. If an action is required simply click Clean Now under each section. Moreover, you can also perform Deep Scan by selecting the box under Malware Scan.

Under Optimization & Tuneup, you get information about Junk Files, Privacy (Cache, cookies, browser history, and others). You can fix detected threats individually by clicking Clean Now or can simply click Fix All Items to remove all identified unwanted traces.

Further, you can even rescan your Mac by clicking the Rescan Now button. See the last scan performed to date, the total number of items cleaned, and the Database Version.

Search Tab

Get a brief report of all the infections detected. Best mac programs for graphic design. You can click each one of them to unhide and see what’s detected. This will help you decide what action you want to perform.
Once satisfied with scan results, click Fix All Items.

Web Protection

Under this section, Smart Mac Care tells whether your browsers are protected or not, and if not, then what could be done. If you want to protect them, click Enable Extension, and protect your installed web browsers from unknown threats.

Here, I faced a problem. Although Chrome was still installed, it was showing not installed. Check the screenshot below:

However, the problem was resolved after re-launching the application.

Advanced Features

In the left sidebar, you get to see advanced features offered by Smart Mac Care. Using them, you can clear hard disk space, thereby recovering valuable storage space.

Note: Before using this section, you will need to grant access permission. To help grant permission, Smart Mac Care shows a step by step tutorial, like the one shown below. Click Next Step to move to the next slide.

Uninstaller

This will help completely uninstall applications from Mac without leaving any traces. You can select the apps that you wish to uninstall to see how much space you will be able to recover and click Clean Now to remove selected from Mac.

Why an Uninstaller?

Indeed, by moving apps to the Bin, you can uninstall them but what about the app leftovers? When you select an app > to right-click and select Delete. This removes the app but not the corresponding files. And if you like to test the application before purchasing then these leftover files increase in number and slow down the Mac. Therefore, the best way to get rid of such files is to use an App Uninstaller.

There are several Mac app uninstallers available, but why invest in an additional product when you are getting it with Smart Mac Care. Right?

Hope this answers why the uninstaller module in Smart Mc Care.

Login Items

Many times, we don’t know the reason behind the slow Mac startup. This module resolves the mystery and lists down all the apps and login items that launch at boot time, thereby slowing down the startup process. Using it, you can remove these unwanted apps and can improve Mac startup time.

Note: Removing them doesn’t mean you are uninstalling an app. It only means you are disabling the app from launching at startup.


Duplicate Finder

Duplicates occupy unnecessary storage space on Mac. With the help of the Duplicate Finder module, you can quickly identify duplicates and get rid of them. This will help clear Mac hard drive and recover valuable storage space that can be used for other important data.

Disk Usage

Explore the largest and oldest files, Archives, photos, music, videos, and other files stored on Mac that have forgotten about. This will help you decide whether you want those files or not.

Failed Downloads

As the name explains, this module helps know about the corrupt and incomplete downloads that take up unnecessary space on the hard disk. With the help of Failed Downloads, you can easily remove these files and free up space on Mac hard drive.

Flash Cache

Flash videos take up space as they store cache data; therefore, to recover hard disk space, it is best to remove Flash Cache. Not only this, it even speeds by browser’s speed.

System

Details about any kind of obsolete data from iTunes, iOS updates, backups, downloads, etc. are listed here. You can erase them quickly to make space.

Memory Optimizer

The last module under Advanced features that help optimize memory and boost Mac’s performance. Using it, you can recover space occupied by unnecessary app cache and other files. Hit the ‘Optimize Now’ button to free up space on the Mac hard drive.

That’s all using Smart Mac Care you can not only save your time but can also save money. How?

Unlike other Mac optimizers, this Mac cleaning utility knows what all areas need to be scanned to free up storage space and clear the hard drive on Mac. Alongside scanning and cleaning junk files, temporary files, cache, etc. It even removes spyware, malware, uninstalls apps, allows disabling startup items, and more. All this helps boost Mac performance and speed up Mac.

Goodbye “Your startup disk is almost full” message.

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So, now that we’ve covered everything that will help clear Mac hard disks we hope you will be able to fix the storage issue on Mac. Not only this, you now can help others know what junk files, cache files, how to clear them, and free up storage space are.

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