If you purchase an external drive for your Mac, you might be doing so to free up space on your boot drive, or to provide a central and unrestricted area for all user accounts to access. 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.
This is 2020 and the Macbooks still use small storage variants i.e. 256 GB whereas the Windows laptops offer as much as 1 TB in their entry-level variants. Since the storage is on the lower side, the disk may get filled up faster as you didn’t expect. If you are facing low storage problems on your Mac, here are some ways that can help you to free up storage without installing any third-party apps.
1) Uninstall Applications You Don’t Use
There are plenty of apps installed on your Mac taking up storage space and you should uninstall them if you don’t require them. Sometimes you just use the app once and never use it again, the app remains inside your Mac for no use and consume the storage space. Better remove it to free up some storage on your Mac.
Space.app provides up to 16 virtual workspaces to help you to organize your use of the desktop. When you open Space.app, any nonhidden applications will be added to the first desktop. 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.
It’s easy to remove apps, open the Finder window and select the Applications on the sidebar. Drag and drop the application to the Trash on your dock to remove the app. Sort the apps by its size after clicking show items as list as shown in the image.
Alternately, press the Command + Space and type ‘Storage Management‘ without quotes. This will open the storage management tool on your Mac, select the Applications and sort by size. Remove the apps you don’t need.
Make sure you only remove the app that you don’t use. Check the storage space, this might increase some storage on your Mac once the apps are removed.
2) Clear Your iPhone/iPad iTunes Backups Files That You Don’t Need
If you’ve backed up your iPhone/iPad data to your Mac using the iTunes app, then you’ve probably accumulated a lot of data utilizing a massive storage space. If your iPhone has almost about 32 GB of used storage space, then the backup will consume somewhere around 30 GB storage on your Mac.
If you think your backup data is old and you don’t need, remove it to free up a large amount of storage space. To delete them manually, open the following path to see the backup folders,
Tap Command + Space or use the Search/Magnifier icon in the top right corner and type the following. You can copy and paste it right away.
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
You will be taken to the backup folder of your iPhone or iPad that you’ve saved using iTunes. Delete the folders that are old or not required. This will free up huge space on your Mac.
3) Clear Out Temporary Files
Generally, the temporary files on your Mac accumulate so much that it takes a chunk of storage, take the Google Chrome for instance. Your Mac’s drive probably has temporary files you don’t need. These files often take up storage for no good reason, and this is where you can gain some space on your Mac.
Watch DVD movies on your Mac. Play DVDs using your built-in DVD drive or an external DVD drive, such as a SuperDrive. Preview your own movies. You can use DVD Player to watch movies you created with another app, like Final Cut Pro. How to preview your own movies. To browse the DVD Player User Guide, click Table of Contents at the top of the. In the DVD Player app on your Mac, Choose File Open DVD Media. Navigate to the VIDEOTS folder that contains the movie file you want to play, then click Open. When you play a movie, the DVD Player controller appears in all window sizes. Use these controls when you’re playing a movie. https://renewmil.weebly.com/app-dvd-player-mac.html.
While your macOS removes some temporary files automatically after a restart, you can remove these files manually, cleaning temporary files won’t necessarily speed up your Mac, but it will surely free up some storage.
Let me guess, one of the most used apps on your Mac would be a browser, either Chrome or Safari. Your web browser offers you a built-in option to clear browsing cache that is often accumulated during your surfing.
The cache contains files from the website which are used to load the webpages faster in the future. The web browser will automatically start rebuilding the cache as you browse.
These cache files can be removed safely to gain some storage on your Mac. Do note that, clearing browsing cache will revoke any saved logins, you will require to login again.
To remove cache on Chrome, press Command + Shift + Delete or tap the three dots on the Chrome in the top right corner and go to More Tools -> Clear Browsing Data. Here, just select cache which shows you the cache size, you can keep the rest of the options unchecked. You don’t need to remove history, cookies, saved passwords.
4) Empty Your Trash Cans
If not all, many people don’t empty the Trash cans, the Trash appears to be keeping huge data and if removed can free up as much space on your Mac. If you delete the files from the Finder, it goes directly into the Trash from which you can restore them back.
You can completely remove these files and free up the storage. Open Trash from the dock below and empty it.
There might be more ways that require some third-party apps to download which may help you better cleanup, however, these are some built-in tricks that let you free up storage. Also, check the top 11 hidden Mac keyboard shortcuts you need to know. For more guides and tutorials on Windows and Mac, visit How-To Guides.
When you check the storage on your Mac, you might see a significant percentage of space occupied by something called ‘Other.’ macOS does not go into much detail. You may wonder what is Other storage on Mac, why it eats up so much space, and how can I delete it? Let me help by telling you more about this to free space on your Mac.
How to Check Storage on Mac
What is Other on Mac Storage?
Just like the ‘Other’ on iPhone and iPad, it is home to several files, cached data, and more. This section houses a mix of junk and important files.
In the simplest of terms, the “Other” category is a combination of files that are not recognized as one of the other file types. Here are some examples:-
How to Delete Other on Mac StorageDelete Cache Files on Mac
In typical situations, you do not need to worry much about cache. macOS handles them smartly. But if you are too low on storage or believe in having the cache of unused/uninstalled apps, here is how to delete them.
Note: Caches are there to make your Mac experience better and faster. Make sure you remove only the unnecessary ones.
Note + Tip: With regular use, macOS will recreate these caches. If you do not understand what to delete, go back and copy the entire Caches folder to desktop (for backup). Next, open the Caches folder, press Command + A, right-click, and then Move to Trash. Finally, empty the Trash. See if everything works properly or not. In case not, copy the contents of the backup Caches folder from desktop inside the actual Caches folder.
Clearing browser cache and website files for Safari also reduce the Other storage.
Clear Temporary Files Located in Other Storage on Mac
Remove Safari Extensions on MacHow To Free Disk Space On Mac
At times, we install a browser extension for a purpose, and then do not reuse them or simply forget that it exists. The extension continues to occupy space (shown differently than the application itself. It is thus categorized under Other)
To remove an extension:
Remove Old Downloads
Downloads are usually saved in the Downloads folder (unless you changed them). We often download .dmg files, large packages, videos, zip files, and leave them there. For example, many people do not delete the .dmg file even after app installation. Same for zip files.
Tip: Use Spotlight Search to search for big file types like – .dmg, .zip, .mp4, .mkv, .avi, etc. Then click on Show all in Finder… from the lower-left of the Spotlight Search screen. Next, you can delete them easily.
The best way to run Windows on your Mac When it comes to running Windows on a Mac, there are two main players: Parallels Desktop 7. Parallels Desktop 7 makes Windows-on-Mac fast, stable. Click on the Apple icon in the top menu bar of your Mac and then click on Force Quit Application in the drop-down menu (See image below). This will open the Force Quit Applications manager which will show you all running apps on your Mac 3. The first application for running Windows-based applications on your Mac that we will. How to make my windows apps run on mac.
Delete Unnecessary iPhone and iPad Backups
iOS and iPadOS device backups might run into various gigabytes. If you have several archived backups or unnecessary backups of old devices, make sure to delete them.
Note: If you accidentally delete a backup, go ahead and easily create a new one now.
Delete Unused Applications
Applications, when combined with their data, folders, etc. might be vast and occupy significant space. If you have several apps that are sitting idle, go ahead and delete them. Additionally, remove macOS install files, if any.
Best App To Free Up Space On Mac Hard Drive
Note: You may also use apps like App Cleaner for perfect uninstallation.
Use Third-Party Software to Free Storage on Your Mac
Apart from the inbuilt solutions, several third-party apps do almost the same thing but in an easier way. You launch them, and in a minute or so, they will help you free significant space. The interface for most is visually pleasing. If you have difficulty following the above methods, you may try one of the apps listed below.
Signing Off…
These are some of the effective ways to delete Other storage on Mac. As stated earlier, it has lots of useful files, too (that are different from listed categories). Thus it is tough to remove Otherdata entirely. But the above ways, help you declutter it. Next, it would be an excellent idea to know how to use optimized storage on Mac.
Free Up Space On Hard Drive
You may also read:
Best App To Free Up Space On Mac Startup Disk
I have been an Apple user for over seven years now. At iGeeksBlog, I love creating how-tos and troubleshooting guides that help people do more with their iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, and Apple Watch. In my free time, I like to watch stand up comedy videos, tech documentaries, news debates, and political speeches.
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