- HOW TO FREE UP MAC HARD DRIVE SPACE MAC OS X
- HOW TO FREE UP MAC HARD DRIVE SPACE INSTALL
- HOW TO FREE UP MAC HARD DRIVE SPACE FREE
To store photos in the cloud, open the Storage Management options as described above. Once you open Photos Library, you can remove any photos you don’t wish to keep.Īlternatively, you can move them to an external hard drive or the cloud. You may be storing photos elsewhere on your Mac, so just adjust the steps accordingly. The default destination for your photos is Photos Library, located in Users > Pictures. If you have many photos, they are likely causing the bulk of your space issues.
HOW TO FREE UP MAC HARD DRIVE SPACE FREE
How to Free Up Space on Mac by Deleting Photos Select the ones you want to delete and click Delete Backup.Go to ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup to view the backups available.If you have old backups of your iPad and iPhone, you’ll want to remove them, they take up a lot of disk space. Remove Old iTunes Backups of Your iPhone and iPad Once there, select the files you don’t need and remove them. If you’re using a different browser, go to its settings to remove its cache. Close the Safari browser to complete clearing the cache.Click the Develop button in the menu bar and choose Empty Caches.Select Advanced and tick the Show Develop menu in the menu bar checkbox.Click the Safari icon to open your browser.Safari browser cache, follow these steps: Clear Browser Cacheīrowsers can also store a lot of data on your Mac, which can add up after a while. When you do delete these files, make sure to clean up the Trash folder afterward. Some of these you won’t have to pay for and will be available for trial.
HOW TO FREE UP MAC HARD DRIVE SPACE INSTALL
Repeat the process when you go to “ /Library/Caches” without using the ~.Ī handful of applications will do this for you if you install them on your device.This might be tedious if you have a lot of folders, so prioritize folders taking the most space. Go to each of the folders and delete the files inside.Type in “ ~/Library/Caches.” This will open a menu of folders, each with a cache for an application on your Mac.In Finder, go to Go, then select Go to Folder.Keep in mind that the latter two options take longer to complete, because they are performing the same overwrite task either 3 times or 7 times. Most Secure – The most secure option that also takes the longest, this writes data over the free space a total of 7 times.Ĭhoose whichever option is most appropriate for your needs, but it's generally recommended to use the "secure" or "most secure" option if you intend on transferring ownership of a hard drive, or if you suspect a hard drive that once contained important data has the chance of being stolen or misused.Secure (middle option) – A triple pass erasure, this writes zeros over the unused space three times.Fastest – The quickest option, this does a single pass write of a bunch of zeros over the unused portion of the hard drive.The three Erase Free Space options are as follows:.Select the desired level of erasure and choose "Erase Free Space" to begin the process of overwriting the free space on the hard drive.Choose the "Erase" tab, then choose the "Erase Free Space" option.Connect the hard drive if it's an external disk, and then select the hard drive from the left side menu.Launch Disk Utility, found within /Applications/Utilities/ or through Launchpad.
HOW TO FREE UP MAC HARD DRIVE SPACE MAC OS X
Erasing Free Space on Hard Drives in Mac OS X This option is not available for flash-memory based SSD models (like those bundled within the MacBook Air, Retina MacBook Pro) because those drives use the TRIM function to quickly remove and recover blocks instead, which has the side effect of automatically preventing file recovery fairly quickly – often within 10 minutes of emptying the Trash. This only works on traditional hard drives of the spinning platter variety, which is typical for MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac models, and is the case with most external hard drives used for backups. The Mac OS X Disk Utility app provides an ability to erase free space on traditional hard drives, which overwrites vacant disk space on the drive to prevent any potential recovery of deleted files (that is, files that have been removed traditionally, rather than through secure methods).