How to Clear Disk Space on Mac – Efficiently

Sometimes, out of mere curiosity (or because you noticed that ALL of your disk space happened to disappear in some strange way), you wonder:

Where the heck did all my storage space go? It turns out it’s not just your favorite ‘Breaking Bad’ or ‘Friends’ TV episodes. And it’s not the trash bin that you always forget to empty. (But you’d better not to!)

All things considered, there are many more huge files whose existence you’ve never even suspected. We provided short descriptions for most of them. Below, you’ll also find quick helping tips to sweep them all out of your iron friend.

How Much Space Do You Have?

On your Mac, you can see how much storage space is taken up by different file categories and how much space is left over for other files. This storage information is automatically updated when you take any actions that impact it.

• macOS Ventura or later: Choose Apple menu 🍏=> System Settings, click 'General' in the sidebar, then click 'Storage' on the right.
• Earlier versions of macOS: Choose Apple menu 🍏 => About This Mac, then click 'Storage'.

Optimize Existing Storage

Before deleting anything, you can optimize existing files and free up space using built-in MacOS tools. The following built-in methods are available. Please read the details on your Mac about how they work.

• Store in iCloud
• Optimize Storage
• Automatically Empty Bin

Six Ways to Free up Some Memory on Mac

Let’s get right into it:

Remove Temporary files

On Mac OS, temporary files are usually cleared out on their own (unlike Windows), but I'm guessing not all of them get removed. I've educated myself a bit on navigating Mac system storage space and made quite a discovery.  

After taking a closer look at my old MacBook Air, I discovered that .tmp files take up a whopping 36,7 GB. Honestly, I’m not a techie and maybe not a very profound Mac user, but holy cow! 36, 7 GB?!

While you can't manually remove the files, the best you can do is reboot your computer. Yeah, it’s that simple. If this doesn’t work, try rebooting it in safe mode, holding the ‘Shift’ button when it’s starting.

It will help if you rarely shutdown you Mac completely and mostly using sleep or hibernation options.

Remove Old Cache Files

These files are stored on your computer to provide a better user experience. Because of cache files, you can access the information you’ve already accessed much faster.

But they take up too much of your HDD very frequently, so you need to clear the cache occasionally.

To remove cache files on your Mac, do the following:

1. Open 'Finder'.
2. Select ‘Go’ > ‘Go to Folder’.
3. Type in ‘~/Library/Caches’.
4. Delete those files (we suggest deleting the insides of the folders rather than the folders themselves). Repeat the operation one more time, but type ‘/Library/Caches’ this time (without the ‘~’ sign).

Then head to your trash bin and make sure you cleaned it. After this restart your Mac.

Delete Unwanted Software Without Leftovers

Software tends to take up a lot of storage space. Deleting unused apps can free up a lot of space if you are sure you'll never need them or just want to free space for more important stuff. You can delete those apps from LaunchPad.

To analyze exactly what is eating up your space and delete apps without leftover files, we suggest using the CleanAppsNow app. It's developed by the Softorino team specifically to help optimize storage space on Mac and serve as a reliable and more efficient uninstaller tool.

Delete Old Mail Attachments and Browser Cache

It turns out that if you’re using Apple’s Mail app, all the message archives and mail attachments are stored on your computer. And they can take up floppily jillion of space. Of course, it depends on how much mail you get, but the chance is – they do eat a lot of your storage.

So perhaps there is no need to keep them all on your machine. Go to the Mail app, and you can easily delete all the unnecessary emails there.

Delete Browser Cache on Mac

Browser especially the ones you actively use can store a TON of data. We'll quickly navigate you through process of cleaning cache in most popular browsers. 

To clear Safari cache

1. Open Safari menu in the top left hand corner next to the Apple symbol.
2. Click on 'Settings' => 'Privacy'.
3. Pick 'Manage Website Data' => 'Remove All'.

This way you'll remove all cached data. Alternatively you can pick by hand what websites to clean.

To clear Chrome cache

1. Open Chrome and click the three-dot icon at the top right.
2. Navigate to 'Settings' => 'Privacy and security' => 'Clear Browsing Data'.
3. Choose a time range to clear the browsing data.
4. Also, check 'Cached images and files' and click 'Delete Data'.

To clear Firefox cache

1. Open Firefox, and click the three-line icon at the top right.
2. Go to 'Settings' => 'Privacy & Security'.
3. Scroll down to 'Cookies and Site Data' => 'Clear Data'.
4. Make sure 'Temporary cached files and pages' is marked and click 'Clear'.

To clear Opera cache

1. Open Opera, and click the three-line icon at the top right.
2. Scroll down the menu and click 'Go to full browser settings'.
3. Enter 'Cache' into the search menu, then click the 'Delete browsing data' option that appears.
4. Make sure 'Cached images and files' is marked and click 'Delete data'.

Delete Redundant iPhone Backups

All the backups of your iOS devices are stored in Mac after you sync your device to it. Sometimes, they are completely useless. For example, if you upgraded to a newer device, you probably don’t need a backup for the older one. Or if you regularly create new ones, older backups are redundant.

To carefully remove strictly unwanted backups we recommend doing it the following way:

1. Connect your device to your Mac using a cable.
2. Go to 'Finder' => 'Locations' => Select your device.
3. Click 'Manage Backups'.

OR if you sure that you want to delete all of them follow these steps:

1. Open 'Finder' => Click Go in the Finder’s menu => Go to Folder.
2. Type in or paste ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup and press the Return key.
3. Move the insides of the folder to the Trash/Bin, and that’s it.

That's It

Hopefully with these methods you freed up some precious storage space on your Mac. Keep following Apple's best practices and other tips to keep your Mac in top-notch condition.