- Shut down your Mac and unplug the power adapter. Dampen a soft, lint-free cloth with water only, then use it to clean the Touch Bar and Touch ID. MacBook (13-inch, Late 2009) and MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010): The bottom case of these computers uses a soft nonslip material. Use a 3M Gray Microfiber or soft dye-free, lint-free cloth to clean the.
- Best Mac cleaning and optimization software 2020 to speed up your Mac for Free. Disk Clean Pro, CCleaner, CleanMyMac and their alternatives. 21 Years of Excellence.
How to free up storage space on your Mac Save space by storing your content in iCloud or using built-in tools to find and remove large or unneeded files. Optimized Storage in macOS Sierra and later. can save space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand.
What is taking up space on my Mac?
There comes a time in every computer's life when it is full of files and programs, slowing it down so much that its owner searches for an article such as this in order to cure it of these ailments (before it gets thrown out the window!).
Worry not, you're in the right place. This article will take you through 8 steps which will free up space on your Mac - removing unneeded files and clearing space for the stuff you actually need.
No matter if you're tech savvy or not, anyone can use these tips to breathe new life into their Mac.
To find out how much space is available on your Mac:
- Open the Apple menu (the Apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen).
- Click 'About this Mac'.
- Click 'Storage'.
This overview will show what categories are taking up the most space, as well as how much space is available on your Mac.
The 8 sections below address the biggest culprits of space-hogging on your Mac and how to clean them up.
Jump straight to:
1. Mac OS Storage Management
The first port of call when making space on your Mac is to see what tools your Mac offers you for such a task.
If your Mac is running macOS Sierra or later, it has great built-in tools for managing files and optimizing storage. To access these tools, click the apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen > About this Mac > Storage > Manage…
As you can see this is also how to check storage on Mac. The tool shows a breakdown of the storage space taken up on your Mac by media such as Apps, Books, Photos and others.
Let's have a look at each tool to see how it can help:
- Store in iCloud: Quickly store files (Documents, Photos and Messages) from your Mac in iCloud. When considering how to clear space on Mac, getting rid of files quickly springs to mind- However, if you need to keep the files, you can just move them to an external hard drive, or into iCloud!Enabling this option will allow your Mac to automatically save space when it’s needed.This is great as you’ll be able to access your files on any device using your Apple ID. However, if you have a large number of files, you’ll need to purchase more storage space than your allotted free amount (5GB)- obviously, depending on the amount of space you need, this can quickly become an expensive option.
- Optimize Storage: For those who download and watch lots of movies and TV, this option can save you a lot of space and a lot of time. Enabling this option will allow your Mac to automatically remove such files (which can be HUGE depending on their length and quality) once you have watched them.
- Empty Trash Automatically: Similar to the above, enabling this option allows the automatic removal of files, saving you time and space without having to keep on top of it manually. This will remove items in your Trash after 30 days of them being there. Be aware that once files have been removed from your Trash, you will not be able to retrieve them.Side note: Many points in this article will advise the removal of unwanted files from your Mac. However, these files are not completely removed from your computer until you empty the Trash (the space is not regained until they are removed from Trash). You can manually empty it by clicking the Trash Can icon in your dock, then clicking 'Empty'.
- Reduce Clutter: Find large and unused files on your Mac and delete them from your system. You’ll need to delete them manually, but it’s well worth it if you can remove files that you do not use.Navigate to files that you don't need using the 'Large Files' or 'Downloads' sorters, then hit 'Delete..'. Note that this action will bypass sending the item to Trash, so it's permanent.
If you're finding unwanted files using the 'File Browser' tab, you'll need to right-click > 'Move To Trash'.
2. Find Duplicate Files Mac
The quickest way to free up space on your Mac is to automatically remove files that you don’t need. Without realizing it, you can accumulate gigabytes worth of duplicate files and folders on your computer.
The problem is that it can take so much time to find and delete these duplicates that people do not bother to do it even if they want to.
Luckily, you can use an app like Duplicate Sweeper to do this for you.
Duplicate Sweeper: Easily scan your Mac for duplicate files and photos. You can then select and remove duplicates based on your preferences. In this way you can keep your newest version of files and remove all duplicates with a click of a button.
Graphics software for imac. In the example below, I was able to remove over 6000 files with one-click. This freed up 2.3 GB of space on my MacBook. Imagine manually going through and comparing 6000 files without Duplicate Sweeper.. it would have taken forever!
For more information about Duplicate Sweeper, or to download the free trial:
Duplicate Sweeper homepageTry Duplicate Sweeper free ▼
Receive an email with a link so you can download the free trial on your computer:
Note: We respect your privacy. We won't share your Email address with anyone else, or send you spam.
3. Unused Apps- Uninstall Programs on Mac
One of the biggest areas you should consider when looking at how to free up space on Mac is your Apps. Maybe unsurprisingly, apps on your Mac can be some of the largest files on your computer. Removing apps that you don’t use can free up a huge amount of space. Let’s list your apps by their files size:
Open Finder, then open the Applications section. Display the items as a list (using the button with 4 horizontal lines), then click the ‘Size’ header to reorder your applications by size. You can then work down the list and decide which applications you don’t use. Simply drag an application from the list into the Trash Can on your Dock to remove them.
Remember that you’ll need to empty your Trash Can to completely remove the applications from your Mac.
4. Clean up media and downloads
The quality of media like photo and video is constantly improving. Unfortunately, this usually means that the corresponding files are bigger than they used to be.
For this reason, your saved media could be a great place to free up some of that precious storage on your Mac.
Open Finder and look through your Pictures, Movies and Music folders. If there is media there that you don't want, select it and move it to Trash to get rid of later. If you prefer to delete this media from the associated apps like Photos and iMovie, see how to empty their trash.
It is also recommended to check your Downloads file for unwanted files too.
This folder can receive copious amounts of files downloaded from multiple sources. Many of these files you may have only needed to read or use once.
You can get to your Downloads folder by opening a Finder window and clicking the 'Downloads' header.
Again, select whatever files you don't need, then right-click > Move to Trash/Bin.
Extra: Zipped / Archived files
If you receive a zipped file (with the .zip extension), opening it will unzip the file or folder and create the files in a non-zipped form.
This will create files that you can use, but it will not remove the (now unneeded) zip file. If you've already unzipped, you can delete the .zip file.
On the flip side, you can use file archiving to compress files or folders that you don't use regularly.
Say you have a folder of documents that you only need to save for safekeeping; right-click the folder in Finder and click 'Compress [file/folder name]'. This will compress the files and create a .zip file.
Don't forget to delete the original, uncompressed folder in order to save the space!
5. Delete iTunes backups
Depending on the number of files, photos, messages etc that you have stored on your iPhone, iPod or iPad, it’s backup on your Mac can be huge.
Keeping backups of your devices is a good idea. If something was to happen to your device, your data can be restored to it (or another device) using your backup. However, these backup files can be massive, and you may never need them! For this reason, consider backing up your devices to iCloud instead – freeing up space on your Mac.
To set your device to backup to iCloud, go to Settings > (your name) > iCloud > iCloud Backup.
To initiate a backup, connect your device to a power source and also to a Wi-Fi network. Lastly, ensure that your device screen is locked and that you have enough free space in iCloud to store the backup.
To initiate a backup, connect your device to a power source and also to a Wi-Fi network. Lastly, ensure that your device screen is locked and that you have enough free space in iCloud to store the backup.
How to delete backups on Mac - You can also delete the backups which you already have stored on your Mac. To do this, open iTunes and go to iTunes > Preferences > Devices. If you don’t need the backups in the list, select and delete them!
Macbook 4 1 keyboard replacement. Find out: where are iTunes backups stored?
Alternatively, if you don’t want to use iCloud for backing up your data, or if you only need certain data from your backups, you could use iBackup Extractor. This handy tool allows you to access and browse your backups, and extract any important photos, messages etc. that you need. You can save this data to your computer, then delete the backup from iTunes as seen above!
6. How to Delete Temporary Files on Mac
Some of the most common questions asked are 'how to clear cache on mac' and 'how to delete cookies on mac'. Well, let's answer those for you!
Temporary and cache are files that are stored locally in order to speed up processes. For example, images from a website that you visited can be cached, so that when you visit the page again, you don’t have to wait to download the images again, they are simply pulled in from the cache. That’s great for processes that you use regularly, but without care, your temporary and cached files can build up and eat away at your Mac’s performance.
Let’s see how to clear cache on mac – Open Finder > Go > hold ‘option’ and click ‘Library’ > Caches. Select and delete any cache files and folders that you don’t need to save space!
7. Taking out the Trash
Deleting files on your Mac usually only moves them to your Trash Can (or Bin).
This is great, because if you 'delete' something by accident, you can restore it to its original location - no harm done.
However, if you are culling files on your Mac to make space, you may wonder why you are not gaining storage after clicking delete.
To permanently delete files from the Mac, you'll need to empty your Trash Can. To do this, simply click the Trash Can (or Bin) icon in your Dock.
Here, you can review or restore files in your Trash/Bin.
To permanently delete all the files in your bin, click Empty. You'll be asked if you're sure, and to confirm the permanent deletion of the files.
Deleting files from Photos, iMovie and Mail apps..
Generally, you'll be able to use the steps above to permanently delete files. However, some apps have their own way to manage 'deleted' files.
As such, you'll need to empty trash cans in individual apps to ensure that files are fully deleted.
An example of this can be seen in the Photos app:
Click the 'Recently Deleted' header to access the trash in the Photos app.
After 'deleting' photos from the app, the files can remain in this section for up to 40 days before being automatically deleted.
If you are sure you'd like to permanently delete these photos, click 'Delete All' to remove them from your hard drive.
You can use similar steps to empty trash for other apps like iMovie and Mail.
Free Cleaner For Mac
8. Move files into external storage
The majority of the methods above cover how to delete unwanted files to gain space. But what you if want to keep your files?
If you need more space on your Mac, but deleting your files is not an option, you may want to consider investing in external storage.
You can purchase external storage drives pretty cheap nowadays.
The way this works is that you connect your external drive with your Mac via USB cable. The drive then pops up as a Location on your Mac:
You can then drag files from your Mac onto your external drive, or cut/paste them into specific folders on your drive.
Takeaways
These are the most effective steps to make the most of the available space on your Mac in our experience.
There's a lot of information above, but this is not an exhaustive list of everything you can do to clear space on your Mac. We hope that you now have the tools that you need to breathe new life into your Mac or MacBook.
Happy spring cleaning!
Publisher: Wide Angle Software
True, Macs do not suffer from all the problems typical of Windows PCs, but they are not perfect and, consequently, they are not without problems. In a nutshell, yes, even Macs can become slow, they can show error messages and they can even crash .. especially because of too much data stored on disk (voluntarily or not).
Precisely for this reason, resorting to the use of free software to clean Mac can be particularly useful in certain circumstances and if you are here and you are reading this guide, it is obviously because you have recently begun to encounter problems using your branded computer Apple and you would like to know some useful cleaning softwares to use to do a bit of 'healthy' cleaning. Given the situation, I suggest you take a few minutes of free time and concentrate on reading this tutorial.
Overview of 5 Mac Cleaner Apps
Apps | Easy of Use | Compatibility | Price | Total Ranking |
---|---|---|---|---|
Umate Mac Cleaner | Very easy | macOS 10.14-10.9 | -1 Year: $29.95 -Lifetime: $49.95 (Has Free Trial) | |
CCleaner | Medium | macOS 10.13-10.10 | -Edition: $199 -Professional: $249 (Has Free Trial) | |
Yasu | Medium | macOS 10.12-10.9 | -Personal: $7.99 -Family plan: $19.99 (Has Free Trial) | |
AppCleaner | Easy | macOS 10.13-10.9 | Free | |
Onyx | Complex | macOS 10.13-10.8 | Free |
The above form is an overview of the 5 Mac Cleaner apps we discussed here. We will recommend them in turn based on their total ranking. If you are interested in a particular app, just click on its name in the form to jump to the appropriate introduction directly.
In the following lines, you will find all those that in my humble opinion represents the best Mac cleanup tool. They all have free versions with easy to use functions and still accessible without any type of problem (with due care) even by less experienced users. So tell me, are you ready? Yes? Fantastic! We, therefore, banish the talk and proceed.
1. Umate Mac Cleaner (Recommended)
This is, without a doubt, the best free mac cleaning software available in 2019. This software boasts of several astonishing features that aid with efficiently cleaning up disk space on Mac. Now I will introduce you to the various features of the software.
What can Umate Mac Cleaner do:
- Clean up Junk: Using the quick clean and deep clean mode, this feature detect and clean up unnecessary junk files on your Mac
- Erase Private Data: It can permanently remove traces of any personal data you want to delete thereby protecting your privacy.
- Speed Up Your Mac: This presents you with three options to make your Mac run faster: Disable the start-up items, deactivate the heavy consumers and remove the launch agents.
- Manage Apps And Extension: It can uninstall unused applications and remove unnecessary extensions on your Mac to release more space on your Mac.
Pros:
- Easy of use: User-friendly interface make it very easy to use.
- The easiest 1-click removal: With the aid of a single click multiple files can be permanently removed in a flash.
- Efficiently free up disk space: Release about 40% disk space for your Mac.
- Competitive price: The price is more affordable for most users compared to other competitors.
Cons
- This software does not support the removal of malware on your Mac in the current version.
2. CCleaner
CCleaner has been available for some time now for Mac users, offering them a solution to free their Mac from all the superfluous data and web browsing traces. We can say that it is one of the free mac cleaner 2019.
Using it is very simple, just start it, but the checkmark next to the items and the names of the programs you want to 'clean up' in the left sidebar and start cleaning the system. Everything happens in a few seconds and in a completely safe way.
What can CCleaner do:
- Browser cleaning: Erases web browser search history, cookies, caches, temporary files and log files,etc.
- Real-time monitoring: Allows you to set up Active system monitoring.
- Scheduled cleaning: schedule the app to clean your Mac at specific times.
Pros:
- Small size: After installation It takes little space (about 6MB) on your hard drive.
- It doesn’t slow down system funtions.
- Deep and permanent cleaning: It erases unwanted data completely without any trace.
- Malware safe: It can take care of malware by optimizing start-up processes.
Cons:
- The Free version offers a limited function.
- There has been cases of malware infections when using the software.
- Fee for premium is too expensive.
Free Macbook Cleaner App
3. Yasu
Yasu is a free Mac cleaner that boast of a small range of features that can prove challenging for people new to macOS. These features are used to manage disk space on Mac by deleting system cache, repairing permissions, deleting junk files and many more. More often than normal it is used to bring up the speed of Mac.
What can Yasu do:
- Cleans hard drive, virtual memory files, browsing history, cookies and user cache.
- Reset the launch services database.
- Wipes system clutter.
Pros:
![Cleaner Cleaner](https://i.udemycdn.com/course/480x270/1441524_6255.jpg)
- It is user friendly and can be customized.
- Small installation size and fast performance.
- Cleans junks from every corner of your Mac.
Cons
- Few cleaning features: It is better used for maintaining disk space on Mac than cleaning up space.
4. AppCleaner
This is another software we can add to the category of free mac cleanup software. AppCleaner is a small free application that allows you to completely uninstall applications, widgets, and plugins from your Mac by simply selecting them or dragging their icon to the main software window.
Uninstalling programs on Mac is a real breeze, just go to the Applications folder and drag the program icon to be deleted into the trash. Sometimes, however, this procedure is not enough and there is a risk of leaving many traces of instruments on the Mac that are no longer present in the system. This is why the use of AppCleaner can be very convenient.
What can Appcleaner do:
- Uninstall unused apps on your Mac.
- Remove unneeded widgets.
- Remove plugins.
Pros:
- Simple and very easy to use for non-professionals.
- By using this software, the traces of applications from the Mac will be deleted, not just their main files.
- Allows you to preview of files before removal.
Cons:
- Sometimes (In 0.5% cases) not all files are removed.
- No adequate support available.
- Does not support multiple deletion with one click.
5. Onyx
Onyx is without a doubt one of the best free Mac cleaner apps. It is very easy to use but due to its many potentialities, it can cause damage to the system if it is used by poorly skilled hands. Among the main functions of the software, there are those to delete all temporary files and Web browsing tracks, the hard disk status test and the modification of numerous system parameters.
Each version of OS X and macOS has a dedicated edition of Onyx, so be careful which one you download and which one you use.
What can Onyx do:
- Remove redundant files and folders.
- Maintenance and rebuild of Mac database.
- Delete caches, Info and logs.
Pros:
- Provides your Mac with the necessary tools needed for proper database building and running of system scripts.
- It removes cache, erase trash and even manage fonts.
- Offers a wide range of additional applications.
- Provides a warning when user is about to attempt advance actions.
- Difficult to use.
- Different versions are required for various MacOS.
Conclusion
There are lots of free Macbook cleaners on the market currently but not all of them can be trusted to safely manage disk space on Mac. This guide discussed the top 5 free Mac cleaners available for download. Of all the five software I mentioned the Umate Mac Cleaner is the one I recommend since it is the most powerful and trustworthy. It boasts of many special features that help to effectively optimize space on Mac.