So you’ve had your Mac for a while, and things don’t feel as fresh and clean as they used to? Although Macs don’t require a lot of maintenance for cleaning, those temporary files, app leftovers, and system cache do accumulate. These files may slow down your machine and take up a lot of valuable space. In this article, we share quick and easy ways to clean up your MacBook. If you want to clean up your Mac manually, jump to the section linked below. Let’s get started!
Cleaner One Pro is your all-in-one disk cleaning manager. You can visualize, manage and free up your storage space in just a few clicks. Starting with a Smart Scan for your Mac, you can also take advantage of the Big Files detector, Duplicate Files and Similar Photos finder to delete all the useless junk files and free up more space.
- Clean Up Your Mac's Cache. Caches are one of the biggest culprits as to why your Mac’s system storage is getting full. So for you to know how to delete system storage on Mac, go ahead and clean up your Mac’s cache: Launch Finder on your Mac. Then go ahead and click on “Go to folder”.
- To free up disk space, it’s helpful to know exactly what is using disk space on your Mac. A hard disk analysis tool like Disk Inventory X will scan your Mac’s hard disk and display which folders and files are using up the most space. You can then delete these space hogs to free up space.
- Click on About This Mac Storage ManageUse New Storage Optimization Tool on macOS Big Sur. You’ll see a pop-up message with several options. Click on the “Optimize Storage” button. Once activated, the optimizer will automatically arrange.
- Remove extensions from Other storage. Extension files, such as plugins, installation files, screensavers and web browser extensions, can take up unnecessary disk space on your Mac. There’s also the factor that some extensions may have a negative effect on your system, noticeably slowing things down.
How to clean your Mac automatically
Here’s a simple diagram to explain the most common types of computer junk, sorted by size. Some of these, like Trash bin files, are easily reachable, while others are stored away in hidden system folders. Sadly, there’s no easy way to clear them up without special skills.
If you don’t feel like spending the next several hours cleaning your Mac manually, you can use a powerful cleaning tool CleanMyMac X to find and remove all the clutter your Mac contains. It knows which files are useless, how to find and remove them completely. CleanMyMac X has everything to finish the 3-hour task of a Mac cleanup in under 5 minutes. It will even clean up the junk you didn’t know about and give your computer a speed boost.
How to clean up system storage on Mac with CleanMyMac X:
- Download CleanMyMac X for free here.
- Run the app and go to System Junk.
- Click Scan.
- Press Clean to get rid of all junk.
Done! Now your Mac looks much better!
How to Clean Mac Hard Drive Manually
If you never performed an automatic or manual system cleaning — it means that your Mac has been collecting unnecessary files and clutter for years. You can quickly clean up your Mac with these easy steps.
1. Clean up cache
You’ve probably heard “Remove your cache” as a web browser troubleshooting tip. In fact, your Mac stores a lot of information in files called caches, allowing fast access to that data and reducing the need to get it from the original source again. Unfortunately, those files take a lot of space on your Mac, and instead of speeding things up, they slow your computer down. Therefore, if you want to give your system a boost, clean your Mac from the cache files.
There are two ways to do that: you can delete them manually or use a MacBook cleaner like CleanMyMac X to do the job for you. Of course, the second way is an easy and fast one. However, if you decide to clean up the cache manually, check out a comprehensive guide on “How to Clear Cache on a Mac.”
2. Uninstall apps you don’t use
The applications you’ve installed on your Mac take up space, of course. And over time when your Mac becomes full of different apps, it may start running slowly. How to clean MacBook? In the first place, you need to remove the apps you no longer use or need. To do this, right-click on the app you want to remove and choose Move to Bin.
You may be surprised to find out that sending an app to the Trash will not uninstall it completely because the app leftovers still remain on your Mac taking up a lot of storage. So, if you want to be a responsible Mac user, you need to uninstall applications the right way. Here’s a step-by-step guide on “How to Uninstall Apps on a Mac.”
Extra step: Trim down your login items
Login items are applications that run automatically upon startup. Nowadays, every second app tries to become as prominent as possible and get into your Login Items. First of all, you may not even know what they are (not all of them appear in the Dock). Secondly, such apps consume memory. That's enough reason to get rid of extra login items you don't need.
- Open System Preferences.
- Go to Users & Groups.
- Choose your nickname on the left.
- Choose the Login Items tab.
- Check startup programs you want to remove.
- Press the “–” sign below.
You’re done.
3. Clean out useless duplicates
Identical photos, music tracks you’ve added one time too many, saved and re-saved PDF files… all of that sits on your Mac and gobbles up storage. The storage that could be used for better purposes.
So how do you quickly weed them out? The fastest way is to use Gemini 2: The Duplicate Cleaner.
- Download and launch the app
- Click “Scan for Duplicates”, and watch as it quickly fetches them from different corners of your Mac.
- Once the scan is done, hit Review Results and check which copies you want to remove.
- Click Smart Cleanup to delete everything you’ve selected.
That's it. Now your Mac should be completely duplicate-free.
4. Empty the Trash
Even though you’ve deleted the files, they reside in your Trash bin taking up a lot of storage on your Mac. They are just waiting to be removed completely. If you want your precious hard drive space back, you need to empty the Trash.
Here’s how to clean your MacBook from the trash:
- Click and hold on the Trash can icon in the Dock.
- Click Empty and then Empty Trash.
The process is quite simple, right? There is even a more effortless way to clear Trash. CleanMyMac X scans your Mac for junk and lets you remove all trashed files. To do that, launch CleanMyMac X and press Scan. When the scan is completed, click Review Details to see what exactly CleanMyMac X has found.
I’ve already cleaned Bin a couple of weeks before, but over some time, almost a gigabyte of trashed files has accumulated. Now, I can simply click Back to Summary and then Run to clean Trash and system junk.
5. Reduce clutter
Apple has already thought about the clutter that can be generated on the Macs and provided a possible solution. Here’s how to reduce clutter on your Mac:
- Go to the Apple menu.
- Choose About This Mac and then Storage. Here you can see how much free space is left on your computer.
- Then click Manage.
Here’re some recommendations for saving space on your Mac. You can choose Review Files to examine apps, documents, and other files that are stored on your Mac.
You can choose any file in every category (Applications, Bin, Documents, etc.) and click Delete to remove it and optimize space. Look through other recommendations and make the necessary changes to use your Mac’s space more efficiently.
6. Delete large and old files
It has always been a rule of thumb among computer geeks, that you should keep a minimum of 15-20% of free space on your main hard drive. This is just a rough estimation, but the more free space you have, the faster your Mac works. A computer magazine once performed a test on this, which concluded that the difference in speed can reach as much as 35%. If you work with heavy graphics or video rendering, even more free space is recommended.
How to have more free space? Delete large and old files.
The first way is totally manual and requires you to find them one by one, while for the second way, you just need to make two clicks and CleanMyMac X will do the job for you.
How to clean up Mac with CleanMyMac X:
- Download CleanMyMac X (a link to a free edition of the app)
- Launch the program.
- Go to the Large and Old Files section on the menu.
- Click Scan.
- Review the details, select what to clean, and then click Clean.
That’s it!
7. Remove old iOS backups
Having your files backed up is a wonderful thing. But over time your Mac becomes overloaded with old backups that take gigabytes of storage on your hard drive. That’s why you should consider removing the old iOS backups you no longer need.
Each backup remains stored on your computer and is accessible via iTunes. To delete the old backups, you need to do the following:
- Choose the Apple menu and then select About This Mac.
- Go to the Storage tab and click Manage.
- Here, choose iOS Files.
- Select the backup you want to remove and click Delete.
- Confirm and you’re done!
That’s it! The backup files are gone from your Mac forever.
8. Wipe out Language files
Unused language localizations take up about1 GB of storage space. Mac applications come with language files for every language they support. It allows starting using the app in that language immediately. Cool, right? Not always. Just consider: when was the last time you used the app in Bengali or Korean? Since you don’t speak those languages, such files just waste space on your Mac. You need to remove the unnecessary language files and clean MacBook from that clutter.
How to delete the language files? Go to Finder > Applications, then right-click the app which language files you want to remove and choose Show Package Contents. Open the Resources folder and then find folders ending with “.lproj.” Every folder contains language files for one particular language. Note that for every app you should manually find and select the files to remove. But there is an automatic way to delete the language files that will save you tons of time — CleanMyMac X. Just download the application (for free) and it will do the job for you.
9. Delete old DMGs
Disk images (DMGs) often take up valuable space on your Mac. Here’s how to perform a Mac cleanup and get rid of those files:
- Open Finder and type “.dmg” in the search bar.
- Then delete all files that have .dmg extensions. Don’t forget to remove them from Trash as well.
CleanMyMac X allows you to locate and delete DMGs quicker. With its System Junk module you can remove unused disk image with a single click of a button:
Just press Clean and it’s done!
10. Sort your Downloads folder
Do you also download things and never get rid of them? Then, your Downloads folder probably needs a good old sort out. If you’re too scared to face that enormous pile of files, here’s a quick trick: sort all your downloaded items by date added. Then, scroll till the end of the folder, and you’ll see the dusty files that have been there for a while. Command-click to highlight multiple files and send them to the Trash.
11. Tidy up your desktop
Many people use Desktop as their primary destination for files. But this could be tricky because your OS treats every file on a desktop as an active window. When items on your desktop are too many, Finder gets substantially slower. This leads us to the most compelling advice in this article — cleaning up desktop does miracles!
Rather than just leaving every file on your desktop, organize them into folders. The latest macOS does that automatically thanks to the Stacks feature: right-click your Desktop and choose Use Stacks. Now all your files are grouped and you can delete them with a click. You can also use Google Drive, Dropbox, or any external storage device to save your files and keep your desktop tidy.
12. Clean your Mac’s keyboard
Our last but not least advice is to wipe your Mac’s keyboard. As you use your keyboard daily, it quickly gets dirty. Moreover, all those crumbs may live under the keys forever!
If you were wondering how to clean Mac’s keyboard, there are no special rules here. You can try blowing the dust and other particles out of your keyboard once in a while. Disinfecting wipes and alcohol-based sprays may also prove useful. Just choose the piece of fabric and wipe the keys gently to make them clean and shiny!
All in all, be careful with your system files. Don’t delete things you’re not sure about. If you are not completely confident that you can manage the task by yourself, better use a dedicated utility like CleanMyMac X to get a fresh and clean Mac in just two clicks. Here's the video describing quick tips to clean up your Mac:
Happy cleaning!
Summary
How to clear storage on Mac? Delete trash from trash bin folder; delete useless apps from Mac; store a large number of videos and photos to an external hard drive to get more space on Mac; erase app cache on Mac regularly, but if you want to free up space on Macbook in one step, use EelPhone Mac Master.
“I bought one Macbook two years ago, the Mac runs so slowly now, I deleted all trash on trash bin folder, and uninstall some apps from Mac at the same time also, but the hard drive is still almost full, how to free up space on Mac hard drive thoroughly?”
free up space on Macbook is easy, and we can free up space on Macbook air in different ways, or we can also use the tool to free up space on Mac with one click.
Tip 1: How to Free Space on Mac With One Click
How To Clean Up My Mac
Different from all tips below, EelPhone Mac Master will make space on Mac with one click, and according to your needs to clear up storage on Mac.First of all, download EelPhone Mac Master on Mac, and then launch it after the installation. From the left side of the master, different type to free up storage on Mac.
Clean Up Junk
It's useless if we only remove app from Mac home page, and even we remove apps from Mac settings, junk files are still on Mac, EelPhone Mac Master will clean up junk files on Mac deeply to clear space on Macbook.
Step 1: The Mac will scan all junk files on Mac, from the scanning result, select the junk files that you want to erase.
Step 2: Once junk files were selected, click on Clean button on the upper right corner.
Note: The Full Disk Access permission only required for MacOS 10.14 and later versions. So if your Macos is 10.14 or later, go to Mac's System Preferences through Apple menu, on the home page of System Preferences, click on Security & Privacy, switch to Privacy menu, scroll down to the Full Disk Access from the left side, tap on it, then at the right side, click on +icon to locate and add EelPhone Mac Master form the app list. Don't forget to add EelPhone Mac Master to Full Disk Access list to allow the Mac cleaner to scan full disk on Mac.
Delete Large File
Large file on Mac occupy large space on Mac, use EelPhone Mac Master to scan out the large file on Mac, check the scanning result, and select the useless large file to clean from Mac.
Step 1: Switch to the second feather on the left side of the Mac master, then the master will scan all large files on Mac over 50 GB on Mac by clicking on Scan button.
Step 2: From the scanning result, select the useless large files, then click on Delete button on the right upper side.
Note: But we should be careful before deleting large files on Mac, don't delete system files! If you aren't sure if the large files are useful or not, you can turn to another type on the left side to free up space in Mac.
Delete Duplicate Files
We always re-install app on Mac but are you sure that you have deleted previous app files on Mac, or you have duplicate files of the same app on Mac? Use the Mac master to detect all duplicate files on Mac to clear hard drive space Mac.
Step 1: Switch to the third feather on the left side of the Mac master, then select the location of the scanning, click on Scan button to start to scan duplicate files on the Mac.
Step 2: The scanning result will present the original file and the duplicates at the same time. Select the duplicates files from the result, and then click on Delete button to remove useless duplicate files from Mac.
Erase Private Data
Cache data, mail attachment, online traces, chat history..large number of private data on Mac, we can also use Mac master to erase private data to free up space on Mac.
Step 1: Switch to the fourth feather on the left side of the master, and then click on the Scan button to start scan out all private data on Mac.
Step 2: From the scanning result, select the privacy data to delete from Mac.
Like privacy data on chrome, keep it if you are the Mac owner, otherwise you will take more time to enter personal account and information.
Manage Apps & Extensions
We installed so many apps on Mac, but some of them are used one time a year, why not uninstall it to get more space on your Mac, when need, re-install it again, it's easy also.
Step 1: Switch to the last feather of the Mac master, and Uninstall APPS or Remove Extension, select one to scan.
Step 2: Whichever you selected, the Mac master will scan apps or extensions from the scanning result, select the items to remove.
Clean Up Free Space Mac Os
All feathers above will free up space on Mac, it's better to clear hard drive space Mac from time to time, so many apps useless for you will be attached to one app you want to download, app cache will increase over time, so if we want to free up space on Mac, use EelPhone Mac Master regularly. Or use the free tips below to clear up space on Mac.Tip 2: How to Free Up Storage on Mac-Uninstall Useless Apps
From the Finder on Mac, we can locate app save folder and then erase app from Mac permanently, but the attached cache and data can be moved but still stored on Mac.
Go to Finder, from the home page of Finder, on the left side, find out Applications, tap on it, all apps on Mac will appear on the right side.
Select the app you want to erase, then right-click on it, tap on Move to Trash.
Return to the Trash icon on the home page of Mac, right-click on it and click on Empty Trash to remove app from trash folder.
Tip 3: How to Clear Space on Macbook by Erasing Cache Data on Mac
Cache is one large part of Mac, internet browsing history, chat history data including messages/videos/photos/audios, email account attachment, personal account data like gmail account on chrome, and we can also locate cache data on Mac, and then we can delete cache data form Mac to free up storage on Mac.
Close up all apps on Mac you have opened, and then run Finder, from the top of Finder, click on Go menu to locate Library.
From library, we can find cache folder from the top, log in cache folder, all cache data of Mac are in the folder, select useless cache data, then right-click, tap on Move to Trash, don't forget to go to Trash folder on Home page to Empty Trash.
Don't erase useful data on cache, check it carefully before erasing cache data from Mac Finder.
Tip 4: How to Create Space on Mac by Moving Data to External Hard Drive
If you don't want to erase cache data or uninstall apps from Mac, to clear space on Mac, if you have stored so many videos and photos on Mac, considering to move videos and photos to external hard drive or USB storage to backup large videos and photos.
Bought one external hard drive with large capacity, then insert the hard drive to Mac.
Find out all videos and photos on Mac you want to backup, Ctrl+C to copy videos and photos on Mac, then go to the hard drive, create a folder to save videos and photos from Mac, Ctrl+V to paste copied videos and photos to external hard drive.
It's a nice method to clear disk space Mac, no need of erasing any data from Mac, just change the room for videos and photos on Mac.
From all tips above, select the preferable way to free up space on Mac, the quickest method is EelPhone Mac Master, the free methods are also available, clear up space on Mac from time to time to make Mac run faster.
Alex Scott
Clean Out Mac Files
This article was updated on 29 December, 2020
