Even with all of the space some Mac users can enjoy - depending on the size of the hard drive you bought — they always run out of room eventually. Sooner or later, a Mac starts to slow down, even overheat, and the space you need is no longer there. Here are ways you can free up space when your Mac hard drive is full. To free up disk space, it’s helpful to know exactly what is using disk space on your Mac. A hard disk analysis tool like Disk Inventory X will scan your Mac’s hard disk and display which folders and files are using up the most space. You can then delete these space hogs to free up space. How to Free Space on Mac Hard Drive “My favorite device is showing poor performance. It is time to get an extra memory or erase the entire content ASAP!” Replacing your existing Apple computer with a new one or buying an external hard drive may be an expensive solution.
How to Clean Your Mac's Hard Disk Drive?
SSD (Solid State Drives) is fast, stable, and offers great performance. Unfortunately, compared to HDDs (Hard Disk Drives), the capacity-to-cost ratio is not good. There are, however, methods to free up hard drives to obtain additional capacity for computer systems, including the macOS.
Certain data and files are important, and you will not want to delete or move them. However, some files are redundant and can be removed without consequences. If you know which files you can safely delete, you can free up this space. Although the Windows operating system is known for inefficient clutter, the macOS also produces unnecessary files that take valuable disk space. In this article, we describe some methods on how to clean macOS disk space.
Video showing How to Obtain Free Space on Your Mac's Drive
Table of Contents:
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Inspect the drive to ensure that the system is running out of free space
Some issues relating to lack of storage might be difficult to determine and can even be a result of fake error logs. So, first, ensure that the system is, in fact, running out of free space. There are two methods to check available space on a hard drive:
1. Access the Apple menu and select About this Mac. Choose the Storage tab.
2. More detailed information can be found within the Disk Utility feature, which is located in the Applications folder under Utilities. Once Disk Utility is launched, select the drive connected to the Mac.
Begin by cleaning Trash
Once you are sure that the drive is actually full, the next step is to simply clean the computer (as if you were cleaning your home: you empty the trash). Open the Finder menu and choose Empty Trash. Bear in mind that some applications, such as Mail, iMovie, iPhoto, and others, have their own Trash. To clean those apps, follow the steps below:
1. Click Mailbox and choose Erase Deleted Items.
2. Select In All Account and Mailbox.
3. Finally click Erase Junk.
Alternatively, to avoid permanently losing your files, choose to archive your emails by following the steps below.
iPhoto
1. Click on iPhoto from the menu at the top of the screen.
2. Choose Empty iPhoto Trash.
iMovie
1. Click on File from the menu on top of your screen.
2. Select Move to Trash or File.
3. Then choose Move Rejected Clipsto Trash.
Clear unnecessary Downloads
The Downloads folder stores all files downloaded from the Internet. Often, these are forgotten after use and continue to use storage space. This is an excellent area to address when looking to free up space on your drive. Delete all redundant Download files.
1. Open Finder.
2. In the sidebar, choose the Downloads folder. Disk image (.dmg) files commonly occupy the most unused storage space.
Remove unused applications
Unused apps in isolation might not take up a great deal of space, but the amount of hard drive storage used by them collectively can be significant. Furthermore, removing apps on Macs is simple, especially those installed through App Store.
1. To delete them, open Launchpad.
2. Click and hold the program's icon you wish to remove.
3. When the icon starts to animate, click the Delete (x) button.
4. To delete any other app, drag the icon to Trash and then empty Trash.
Make space without losing any data
The best way to gain extra space on the Mac is to move non-executable files such as photos, movies, documents, and any large files, to add external storage, for example, an external drive, USB drive, DVD/CD drive, or cloud storage.
Compress large items
Another method to obtain some free space is to compress files. Compressed files remain on the computer but occupy less space. On the other hand, this can be less efficient than deleting or moving files to external storage. To find the largest files on the drive, follow the steps below:
1. Open Finder from the sidebar.
2. Select the Device (the label you provided) and type criteria into the search field.
3. When your search location appears (for example, This Mac), click the Add (+) button.
4. Click the first drop-down menu, and choose Other.
5. Find the logical size option, enable it, and then click OK.
6. Choose the 'is greater than' condition and type the amount (i.e., 50 Mb).
7. To compress items, right-click or hold Control and left-click it, and then select the Compress 'name' option.
If you are using an earlier version of macOS:
1. Click Go from the Finder menu and select Home.
2. Choose File, click Find and open the Find menu.
3. Find the File size option.
4. Choose the 'is greater than' condition and type the amount (i.e., 50 Mb).
5. To compress items, right-click or hold Control and left-click it, and then select the Compress 'name' option.
6. To archive, your emails, open the Mail application and select a folder you wish to archive (e.g., Inbox).
7. Drag it to the desktop. The mbox folder will appear on your desktop.
8. Right-click it or use the Control and left-click combination, and select Compress 'Inbox.mbox'.
9. Now you can delete your messages from Mail.
Delete unnecessary temporary files, system caches, and logs
System stores several System logs and temporary files - deleting them will increase the available space on your drive. To clean the system from this type of file, we recommendCombo Cleaneror other third-party applications.
Clear the browser cache storage
Browsers store website data such as cookies and cache information. Cleaning these hidden files might free up storage space. To clean up Safari, simply click Safari on the menu at the top of the screen and select Clear History. Browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox can be cleaned similarly.
Sep 08, 2021 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
Every time you delete any file or document on the Mac hard drive it creates free space. This free space can be utilized for storing other data. However, if this free space doesn’t get overwritten, then it can be used to retrieve the previous data that it held using a data recovery tool. Now, if you are selling the hard drive of your Mac and don’t want the person buying it to recover the documents that you deleted then you must erase free space on Mac hard drive. However, make sure that the erasure is done securely without damaging the hard disk.
Part 1: How to Erase Free Space on Hard Drives in Mac OS X
You will have to use the Disk Utility app provided by your Mac OS X toerase free space on Mac hard drive. It offers you the chance to overwrite on the free space left on your hard disk so that no one can retrieve the data that was previously stored on it. However, do keep in mind that this method for free space erasure is only applicable for traditional hard drive and won’t work on SSD versions that utilize flash memory.
- The initial step is to start the Disk Utility app. This app is located in the utility menu which can itself be found in the Applications menu. You can use the Launchpad for launching this app as well.
- If the hard drive whose free spaces you want to erase is an external hard disk then you would have to connect it to the Mac and then select it from the menu located on the left-hand side of the screen.
- Click the Erase free space button after opening the Erase tab.
- Pick the level of erasure you want and then click the Erase free space to start the overwriting process on the hard drive’s vacant spaces.
- There are three different erasure options available to you which are Fastest, Secure, and Most Secure. Fastest option overwrites the free space just once while Secure and Most Secure options do that three and seven times respectively.
- Select any of the erasure options that you like and then click the Erase free space button.
Part 2: How to Secure Erase Free Space on Hard Drives in Windows
Although the Disk Utility app of Mac OS X can erase free space on Mac hard drive, there is a chance that it might not be able to do so in a secure manner. To make sure that the erasing of the free space is completed without any damage to the hard drive then using a data erasure tool is the best option. There are various such tools available on the internet but the best one among them isStellar BitRaser for File. It can secure erase free space on hard drives and ensure that the deleted data can’t be recovered.
- Completely erases the data, ensuring that it can’t be recovered using any data recovery tool.
- Supports multiple data erase algorithms that can be used for erasing data.
- Provides a search feature for quickly search the file or document which needs to be erased from the hard drive.
- Offers the chance to erase the chat history of messaging services like Yahoo and Skype.
- Capable of erasing all traces of internet activity including the internet history maintained by popularly used browsers.
Step 1: Download Stellar BitRaser for File on your Windows PC, take out the hard drive on Mac, and connect it to Windows computer.
Step 2: Click the 'Erase Unused Space' option on the left, to select your Mac hard drive.
Step 3: Selected your Mac hard drive and click the 'Erase Now' button to process.
Step 4: After a while, the Mac hard drive erase complete and you can reboot the system.
While other data erasure tools take several passes to erase the free space on a hard drive, Stellar BitRaser only requires a single pass to erase it permanently. However, if you feel the need to take another pass then you can take two more passes. This will ensure beyond doubt that the free space on your Mac hard drive is erased forever.
Free Up Space On Mac
For you to use Stellar BitRaser for File to erase free space on Mac hard drive, you need to take it out from your Mac first. The reason for this is that this data erasure tool isn’t compatible with Mac OS X and works only on Windows. So, you need to connect the Mac hard disk to a Windows PC before you erase the free spaces on it using Stellar BitRaser for File.
In short, deleting data on the Mac hard drive doesn’t securely erase it. It just creates free space that can be used for recovering the deleted data using a data recovery tool. So, you need to erase free space on Mac hard drive. The Disk Utility app of Mac OS X can be used for the erasure of these free spaces. However, for secure erasure, you need to make use of a reliable data erasure tool like Stellar BitRaser for File. It can erase the vacant spaces on your Mac hard drive and make sure that the data that they contained previously can’t be retrieved using anyprofessional Mac data recovery tool.
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