Difficulties of freeing up additional space on a Mac is one of the most often issues that Mac users encounter during the years of using their computer. It’s important to have at least 15% of free disk space to maintain a properly functioning and efficient Mac.
If you have less than 15% of free disk space on your Mac, it can become one of the main reasons for the computer to slow down. And a slow Mac is a result that isn’t wanted because so many users appreciate Macs because of their speed, longevity, and many other benefits.
Properly managing storage on your Mac and making sure it has enough free disk space is very important. Therefore today, we want to share a list of tips that will help free up space on your Mac and increase its performance.
Tip #1: Clean Your Desktop
Cleaning your desktop should become a healthy habit of yours if you want to own a Mac that has enough free disk space and runs impeccably. Removing unnecessary items from your desktop will also help free up your RAM because to display each thumbnail on your screen, Mac is using additional memory resources, which makes your computer perform less efficiently.
Tip #2: Clean The Downloads Folder
The Downloads folder is the default place your Mac stores all of the files downloaded from the internet. Therefore, the longer you have been using your Mac, the bigger the chance that you will have quite a few files you don’t really need.
For example, the Downloads folder is the place that has data like installation files and all kinds of PDFs you download from the internet, read, and usually don’t use again. You might use an installation file again if something goes wrong when trying to install it the first time. Make sure you go through this folder and get rid of all unnecessary files.
Tip #3: Remove Duplicate Files
If you have an older Mac, then duplicate files are an issue that you probably have already encountered. A lot of users tend to move around their media files like photos, videos, and audio files. As a result, it often results in the accidental creation of duplicate files.
To get rid of duplicate photos, go to the Finder and go to Pictures. Here, you will be able to see the Photo Library and the iPhoto Library. Importing pictures from one library to another will help locate the duplicate files.
Tip #4: Review Your Apps
Apps can easily take up a lot of space on your Mac, and more to it, apps are the kind of thing that many people like to download, try out, and then forget about them.
Unfortunately, this is often the issue that slows down a Mac the most because apps can take up a lot of space, and even a simple application can take more than 1GB of drive space just because of its high-quality graphics. You can find, view, and remove apps by going to the Finder and then clicking Applications.
Tip #5: Always Empty Your Trash Bin
Even after you do a proper cleanup and delete all of the unwanted files from your Mac and get rid of duplicates, you still need to empty your Trash.
Otherwise, if you only clean your computer but never empty the Trash, all of your efforts to keep your Mac clean and fast will be useless because all of the deleted items will still be sitting in the Trash and taking up valuable disk space.
Tip #6: Remove Temporary Files
Computers create and store cache files. The purpose of these temporary files is to help macOS function faster and increase Mac’s performance levels. Although once there are too many cache files on your computer, the disk space that they are consuming is too valuable to be consumed with temporary files you may or may not ever need.
To start cleaning the cache files, go to Finder’s Go, then Go to Folders and enter “~/Users/User/Library/Application Support/.” After doing so, you can visit different application folders and choose which files to delete.
Tip #7: Use External Storage Devices
If deleting duplicate files and emptying your Trash still leaves you with a large number of media files, you may consider investing in one or a few external storage devices depending on their capacity.
External storage devices are great for keeping those kinds of files that you don’t use every day, like old memories, videos, photos from old photoshoots, and similar files.
Tip #8: Use a Cloud Storage
If you don’t have enough free space after transferring large media files to external storage devices, it is probably because you still keep large files that you use every day on your computer.
A good solution for freeing up more hard drive space and still having fast access to all the files you need is a cloud storage service. Options like DropBox have an application that you can easily access as a folder. More to it, clouds will give you the ability to share files with your team or friends easier.
