Reaching full storage mark on the Mac hard drive? Thinking about affordable ways to expand the storage? Even though there are multiple methods in which you can increase the storage in your computer, read this article to learn the ways to clean up the existing one.
So, to be straight and quick, you must be looking for possible ways to clean your hard drive storage while saving time and money. Right? Here’s the solution.
First, Check How Much Storage Is Available
Before you move ahead to implement any of the disk cleanup workarounds on your MacBook, make sure to check the storage to determine how much space is available. To identify the overall volume of storage that is being used, including the left space, navigate to the Apple menu, click About This Mac and tap the Storage tab.
Next, check the bar to understand the segments that denote the space given to Apps, Photos, System, Music, and other large-volume files. To know more in detail, you may hover over each individual segment.
Now, let’s move to the different ways to manage storage and free up hard drive space without spending much time, money, or effort.
Optimal Ways to Clean Up Disk Space
Now is the time to start working on hard drive storage space. But, before we step forward, we recommend you backup your hard drive using a built-in or a third-party app. This is an important step as it ensures that your data is safe even if anything goes wrong and you end up deleting data from the disk.
1. Use Built-in Utility to Optimize Storage
Regardless of the storage space available on the hard disk, you can optimize it using built-in tools to use more. The Storage Management feature available in macOS allows you to manage storage in different ways.
Navigate to Apple Menu, click About This Mac, select the Storage tab, and then click Manage. You can move all your data to iCloud drive by selecting the Store in iCloud option. When you sign up to iCloud, you get 5 GB of free space, so you can move all your important files to iCloud storage and free up space on disk.
If you wish to purchase paid iCloud plans, you may subscribe for 50 GB, 200 GB, and 2TB plans and use it as a backup tool for storing your hard drive data.
Alternatively, click on the Reduce Clutter option under the Manage tab to find useless files and delete them right away. Tap the Review Files button to view containers, unsupported applications, and other unnecessary data that is no longer needed. Delete all old files by clicking them one by one.
2. Erase Redundant Apps via Finder/Launchpad
Multiple ways are available to remove data from your Mac computer. So, if you are wondering how to uninstall programs on mac, you can actually use quite a number of methods, and they are equally effective. The simplest one is the Finder.
So, click on the Finder icon on the Dock and select Applications. From the right panel, pick an app that you do not need anymore and drag it to the Trash. Next, don’t forget to empty the Trash can to claim space on Storage media.
Another method to delete apps is via Launchpad. Click on the Launchpad icon in the Dock. Spot the app that you want to delete, click its icon until it starts to shake, and click the X sign available next to the app.
When you delete an app, although it gets deleted from the computer, its leftovers remain there on the hard drive and continue to consume space. You may find these supported files in the junk and delete them right away or use a third-party app to make your work easier.
3. Empty Trash Folder Automatically
As discussed earlier, deleting apps from the computer will not help much in claiming space as the deleted items remain in the Trash folder and consume the same volume of storage. So, you might oversee clearing the item from the Trash every time you delete something from the computer.
However, you may automate this process to prevent files stored in the Trash folder for another 30 days after deletion. Click on the Apple menu, tap About This Mac, navigate to the Storage tab, and select Manage. Next, click on the Empty Trash Automatically option and tap Turn On to automate the option.
The Conclusion
Apart from following the above-mentioned methods to optimize storage on Mac, you may also delete other ways as well. Some of these methods include erasing duplicate files, clearing browser cookies, terminating unnecessary language files, removing main attachments, deleting junk mails, and more. In addition, delete iOS backups from your computer to claim huge storage space.
