Apple’s MacBooks offer unparalleled performance, and it is genuinely a treat using these powerful machines. However, they still come with tiny hard drives. If you are using your Mac for professional and personal purposes, you will run out of space quicker than your imagination.
But over-burdening your system’s hard drive can give rise to several problems, such as a slow-running Mac, apps crashing or freezing, etc.
So, before the most-hated ‘Your disk is almost full error’ pops up on your screen, here’s what you can do to ease the burden from your device’s hard drive.
- Remove all the duplicate files and folders
Duplicate files and folders cluttering your system can take up a lot of space. You don’t even need these files because the original file is enough. You need to find and remove the duplicate files to ease pressure on your Mac’s hard drive.
To do this manually, open Finder > go to File > select Smart Folder > click on the + button and search for music files, documents, photos, and other files. If you sort your search by name, it should bring up the duplicates, and you can quickly delete them.
However, this process is time-consuming. You can use Gemini 2 or Duplicate File Finder Remover apps to find and delete duplicate files quickly. These apps are found in the App Store.
- Uninstall unnecessary apps
When using the Mac for a long time, it is possible to download several different applications. The apps are installed to take up space on your system. If you don’t need some of them anymore, you need to get rid of them to make space for other apps that might be useful to you.
If you wonder how to delete apps on Mac, open the Finder window and choose Applications. Then, you can drag and drop the app’s icons into the trash can. You can even go to the App Store to check out your list of installed apps and uninstall them one by one.
- Empty all the trash cans on your Mac
When you delete files from within the Finder, they are sent to the Trash on your Mac. You can restore those files if you change your mind later. However, since the files are not permanently deleted, your hard drive continues to gasp for breath. It would be best if you remembered to empty the Trash to delete the files and make space on your system permanently.
Unfortunately, Macs have several trash cans, and Trash is only one of them. The Trash on your Mac is the primary trash can, and you can delete the files here by right-clicking on the app’s icon and selecting Empty Trash.
Similarly, Mail, iMovie, and iPhoto have their trash cans. When you have deleted files from within these applications, you need to empty their trash cans to delete the files permanently.
- Don’t hold on to the vast iTunes backups of your iPad or iPhone
If you have used iTunes to back up your iPad or iPhone to your Mac, your system probably has tons of backup files that you don’t need anymore. These backup files take up a massive amount of storage space, and you need to get rid of them.
Delete the backup files manually by opening ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. The path will take you to see the backup folders, which will have random names. You need to delete the folders inside them.
Alternatively, you can use CleanMyMac to find and delete the backup files you don’t need anymore. All you need to do is check the files, see if you truly want to delete them and click the Clean button.
Before getting rid of the backup files, close iTunes.
- Get rid of the language files on your Mac
Mac apps come with language files for all the languages they support. But do you need so many language files?
Once you start using an application, you can immediately switch to your preferred language and continue your work. However, generally, you might only use a single language or maybe two to three languages. But a significant number of language files are taking up precious space on your hard drive. When you are trying to squeeze in many files on your Mac of 64GB, every extra space counts. So, uninstall the language files you don’t need and make space.
- The big attachments in Mac Mail must go!
Using the in-built macOS Mail app means huge attachments are taking up space on your hard drive. You can change the Mail settings to prevent the automatic download of mail attachments to save space in the future. For now, you can open the Mail app and select the folder you wish to remove the attachments from > click on the message and select Remove Attachments.
The bottom line
That’s how you clean your Mac and ease the burden from the hard drive. Get started!