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You can free up quite a bit of space on your Macbook hard drive by deleting files, uninstalling applications that you no longer use. However, that's just a temporary solution. Some other useful ways to tidy up your Macbook hard drive to free up space include removing unused language files, duplicate files, large attachments, and deleting temporary files.
Guide to tidying up your Macbook hard drive
Check out the article below by Mytour to learn in detail the steps to clean up your Macbook hard drive.
How to clean up your Macbook hard drive
Method 1: Use Macbook cleaning software
If you don't want to spend time searching and cleaning everything on your Macbook hard drive manually, you may consider cleaning up your Macbook system, optimizing MacOS with CleanMyMac 3. This software will help you remove temporary files, clean up other language files, uninstall applications, delete leftover files from uninstalled applications, find and delete large attachments stored in Mail, ...
Download CleanMyMac 3 to your Macbook and install it here: Download CleanMyMac 3
- Note:
- Before running any cleanup tool, make sure you have backed up all important data
Method 2: Find and delete duplicate files
Essentially, CleanMyMac 3 comes with all the features to clean up your Macbook, except for the feature of finding duplicate files as in Gemini 2. If you want to search for and clean up duplicate files, you can choose Gemini 2.
Duplicate files are also one of the culprits occupying a lot of disk space. Fortunately, you can use software, applications to find and remove duplicate files and clean up your Macbook hard drive like Gemini 2.
Although there are many applications on the App Store to find and remove different duplicate files, Gemini 2 is the most effective application for finding and removing duplicate files on Macbook.
Download Gemini 2 to your Macbook and install it here: Download Gemini 2
Method 3: Clean up the trash bin
Trash on Macbook is similar to Recycle Bin on Windows. Instead of deleting files in Finder, these files will be sent to Trash so users can restore files in case they change their mind. To completely clean up the files and free up space, you will have to empty the trash. However, Macbook has multiple trash cans so you will have to clean up some main trash cans.
To clean up the main trash of the user account, press Ctrl + click or right-click on the Trash icon located at the bottom right corner of the Dock, select Empty Trash. This action will delete all files that you have moved from Finder to the trash.
iPhoto, iMovie, and Mail all have their own trash cans. If you delete multimedia files in these applications, you also need to clean up the trash to free up space. For example, if you use iPhoto to manage photos and you delete photos in iPhoto, then you also need to clean up the iPhoto trash to delete photo files from the hard drive and free up space. To do this, simply press Ctrl + click or right-click on the Trash option in the specific application and select Empty Trash.
Method 4: Uninstall unused applications
The applications you install on your Macbook will take up a lot of free space on the hard drive. So if you no longer use these applications, you may consider uninstalling them to clean up your Macbook hard drive and free up space.
Simply open a Finder window, select Applications on the sidebar, then drag and drop the application icon into the trash can on the Dock.
To find out which applications are the culprits occupying a lot of disk space, open a Finder window, then click Applications. Next, click the Show items in a list icon on the toolbar and then click Size to sort the applications by size.
Method 5: Clean up temporary files
The Mac hard drive may store temporary files that you don't need. These files also take up a significant amount of free space on the hard drive. Although Mac OS X can automatically delete temporary files, Mytour recommends using specialized applications to clean up temporary files and tidy up the Macbook hard drive. Deleting temporary files on Macbook may not necessarily speed up the Macbook, but it will free up hard drive space.
There are many specialized tools, applications to clean up temporary files on Macbook, among which CCleaner for Mac must be mentioned. CCleaner for Mac will search for and delete junk files on Macbook professionally, freeing up space to make room for other applications.
Download CCleaner for Mac to your computer and install it here: Download CCleaner for Mac
One thing to note is that deleting browser cache memory may not necessarily be a good idea. Browser cache memory contains files of web pages you have visited to load pages faster. If you delete the cache memory, your web browser will have to rebuild the cache memory when you browse the web, and the page loading time will be slower.
Method 6: Check the hard drive to identify the culprits occupying a lot of free space
To clean up the Macbook hard drive and free up space, you need to identify the culprits occupying a lot of free space on the hard drive. Disk analysis tools like Disk Inventory X will scan the Macbook hard drive and display the folders and files that occupy the most free space on your Macbook. Then you can delete those files, folders to clean up the Macbook hard drive and free up space.
Download Disk Inventory X to your computer and install it here: Download Disk Inventory X
If they are important files, folders, you can store these files on an external hard drive like USB, ... instead of storing them on the Macbook.
Note: Files in /Users/name are important system files, so do not delete any files in this directory.
Method 7: Delete language files
Macbook applications may contain various language files. You can switch to the Macbook system language and start using applications in that language. However, on Macbook, you only need to use one language, so you may consider deleting language files to clean up the Macbook hard drive and free up space.
To delete language files on Macbook, you can use Monolingual. Deleting language files does not speed up Macbook but it frees up space on the Macbook hard drive.
Download Monolingual to your Macbook and install it here: Download Monolingual for Mac
Method 8: Clean up attachments in Mail Macbook
If you are using the Mail application integrated into macOS, you may be creating opportunities for email attachments to occupy free space on the hard drive. These attachments sometimes can be several GB in size. Therefore, the solution is to clean up attachments in Mail Macbook to tidy up the Macbook hard drive and free up space.
You can also change Mail settings to not automatically download attachments, to save free space on the Macbook hard drive. If you are using Gmail, you can set limits on the number of emails synchronized via IMAP by default.
Method 9: Utilize Storage Tools in macOS Sierra
The latest macOS Sierra version integrates new tools to help users clean up junk files on Macbook. Simply access the menu, select About This Mac, and switch to the Storage tab.
Here you can view new settings and activate those that suit you.
- Store in iCloud: This new feature allows you to store data in Desktop, Documents, Photos, and videos on iCloud, and Apple will automatically free up local space if needed. If you have slow Internet connection, you should not activate this feature.
- Optimize Storage: Essentially, this feature will delete reality TV shows and movies you've purchased on iTunes but no longer watch. These movies, reality TV shows are stored in HD format so the file sizes are huge. Of course, after deleting these movie files, if you want, you can re-download them anytime.
- Empty Trash Automatically: This feature is quite simple, if activated Apple will automatically delete old items from the trash after 30 days.
So the article on Mytour just guided you on how to clean up the Macbook hard drive to free up space on the hard drive, making room for other applications.
In addition to the methods above, you can remove files that you no longer use, such as .dmg files that you downloaded when installing applications. These files will become useless after you install the application, access the Downloads folder in Finder to find and delete files that are no longer useful to clean up the Macbook hard drive and free up space.
