If you need to clear off space from your Mac's hard drive, there are some places you should look first. You may have some old iPhone backups, installers, or other downloaded files. You can easily see which apps and files take up the most space and get rid of things you no longer need. Applications store support files and caches in your Library folder, but they may not have been cleaned up when you uninstalled the app.
Comments: 15 Responses to “13 Ways To Free Space On Your Mac”
Jonathan
6 years ago
Great video!! I have been looking in Pictures Directory and found a file called Photo Library Master.migratedphotolibrary showing date last modified as April 15. It is 67GB! can I safely delete this file? I do use the Photo app. which shows todays date as the last modified. was this when Apple went from iPhoto to Photo and left this all behind? Any help appreciated :-)
Jonathan: April 15? This year? When did you move from iPhoto to Photos? Apple introduced Photos many years ago. If that file is many years old, you can delete it. If not, it means you have been using iPhoto as well as Photos and you may have some data in one and not the other.
Marcia Karon
6 years ago
This was exactly what I needed.
Jonathan
6 years ago
Hi Gary, sorry. April 2015, so 4 years ago. My mistake. so good to delete then?
TimA
6 years ago
Another folder I like to cleanup are the files that Mail accumulates as temporary items...
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail Downloads/
Darrell: For iOS it is pretty simple. Go to a Settings, General, iPhone/iPad Storage and go through your apps. Delete apps you don’t need. Clear out documents for other apps. Some apps, like Netflix and Audible have functions in the app to clear out docs you don’t need. Then look in the Files app for other documents to clear out. Yeah, maybe I will do a video on this.
BarbaraJ
6 years ago
Fantastic video. My 2010 MacBook Air, was unbelievably slow - found com.apple.bird was 192gb. I unchecked iCloud Drive in preferences as I only use this Mac for email and internet. Now cache is less than 1gb and speed is much improved. Thank you.
Ro
6 years ago
Once again thanks for the info. My MacBook Pro had no room for the recent update. It was my many podcasts. I intend to review your online course to see what I did wrong. Thank you.
Lynda Farabee
6 years ago
Very interesting. Looking forward to getting it done!
Robin
6 years ago
Hi Gary, You mention how to delete on iTunes your old backups from devices when you open it from finder are you able to drag and drop ones you want to keep before deleted the back up? This was very helpful never knew you could open the files that way on your Mac. I have a iMac and MacBook Pro, iPhone XS max and iPad Pro so yeah guess I love my apple products. I am sharing this with my son just graduated from college in IT couple weeks ago!
Jacque
6 years ago
Thank you. Using your directions, I was able to increase free space from 90GB to 175GB on my 8 year old 320GB drive.
Bruce Holland
5 years ago
Thanks Gary. Is it ok to delete all files in my download folder?
Bruce: If you don’t need them, sure. Look at them and decide if you need them anymore. For instance, if you downloaded PDF to read it, then are you done with it? Otherwise move it somewhere like your Documents folder.
Great video!! I have been looking in Pictures Directory and found a file called Photo Library Master.migratedphotolibrary showing date last modified as April 15. It is 67GB! can I safely delete this file? I do use the Photo app. which shows todays date as the last modified. was this when Apple went from iPhoto to Photo and left this all behind? Any help appreciated :-)
Jonathan: April 15? This year? When did you move from iPhoto to Photos? Apple introduced Photos many years ago. If that file is many years old, you can delete it. If not, it means you have been using iPhoto as well as Photos and you may have some data in one and not the other.
This was exactly what I needed.
Hi Gary, sorry. April 2015, so 4 years ago. My mistake. so good to delete then?
Another folder I like to cleanup are the files that Mail accumulates as temporary items...
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail Downloads/
Jonathan: Should be. I archived my old iPhoto library before deleting it. Drive space is cheap, so why not?
Great presentation for MacOS, would there be a Video on "Ways to Free Space On Your iPad"?
Darrell: For iOS it is pretty simple. Go to a Settings, General, iPhone/iPad Storage and go through your apps. Delete apps you don’t need. Clear out documents for other apps. Some apps, like Netflix and Audible have functions in the app to clear out docs you don’t need. Then look in the Files app for other documents to clear out. Yeah, maybe I will do a video on this.
Fantastic video. My 2010 MacBook Air, was unbelievably slow - found com.apple.bird was 192gb. I unchecked iCloud Drive in preferences as I only use this Mac for email and internet. Now cache is less than 1gb and speed is much improved. Thank you.
Once again thanks for the info. My MacBook Pro had no room for the recent update. It was my many podcasts. I intend to review your online course to see what I did wrong. Thank you.
Very interesting. Looking forward to getting it done!
Hi Gary, You mention how to delete on iTunes your old backups from devices when you open it from finder are you able to drag and drop ones you want to keep before deleted the back up? This was very helpful never knew you could open the files that way on your Mac. I have a iMac and MacBook Pro, iPhone XS max and iPad Pro so yeah guess I love my apple products. I am sharing this with my son just graduated from college in IT couple weeks ago!
Thank you. Using your directions, I was able to increase free space from 90GB to 175GB on my 8 year old 320GB drive.
Thanks Gary. Is it ok to delete all files in my download folder?
Bruce: If you don’t need them, sure. Look at them and decide if you need them anymore. For instance, if you downloaded PDF to read it, then are you done with it? Otherwise move it somewhere like your Documents folder.