MAC OTHER FILES TAKING UP STORAGE HOW TO
MAC OTHER FILES TAKING UP STORAGE FREE

How to check your storage space on your Mac Though your Other storage might have been spread out across categories in macOS Sierra and higher, you can still follow the below steps to manually clean up your Mac and get rid of unnecessary files. Purgeable files also include caches and temporary files that used to fit into the Other category, which will also be deleted as your hard drive starts to fill up. The Purgeable files are what Optimized Storage will move to iCloud and delete from your hard drive only if your hard drive starts to get full.

Older documents are stored in iCloud, while a shortcut icon is kept on your Mac (files are automatically re-downloaded to your Mac as soon as you open them). When you move your Documents into iCloud (part of the Store in iCloud component) and your hard drive gets low on storage, only recently opened files are kept on your Mac. This is part of Apple's Optimized Storage service. If you need any file from the Downloads folder but don’t want to store it on your Mac, you can move it to an external HDD or SSD or upload it to online storage options.If you check your system storage graph in macOS, you'll probably discover a category called Purgeable.

Select the unneeded file that you want to remove and right-click on it.

To make your search for efficient, you can categorize files by type.

Launch Finder and choose G from the top.

Cleaning out your Downloads folder is a good way to get some extra space on your Mac. Most likely, you have made copies of these documents somewhere else. Other-types files include installer packages.

Review the files and delete the unnecessary ones.īy default, all downloaded files are saved in the Downloads folder.

Now you should search for different types of documents (pages, CVS, DMG, and PDF) to find large ones.

Choose File extension and File Size from the list.

You’ll see the Search Attributes window.

Choose Other in the first dropdown menu.

So you should check them regularly to see if you can remove anything. But large documents can pile up if you forget about them and occupy a significant percentage of Other storage space. Many Mac users don’t care about getting rid of old unnecessary text documents because they don’t think such documents take up any major space. You can also follow these steps to clear other folders, such as ~/Library/Logs and /Library/Caches.

Choose files in the Cache folder that you want to remove and drag them to the Trash bin.

Create a backup of the Cache folder to your desktop.

Then type the command ~/Library/Caches into the text field and click Go.

You should delete unnecessary cache files only from old apps because cache files from current apps store your preferences. Get Rid of Cache FilesĬache files (browser, system, and user) are created to make your Mac experience better and ensure faster access to apps.

MAC OTHER FILES TAKING UP STORAGE FREE

It’s possible remove files in Other storage manually in the same way as any normal file, but you can also use a free or paid cleaning app that will make the process faster and help you avoid mistakes. And if you are not sure what a particular file does, it’s better to leave it alone. We recommend creating a complete system backup to avoid running into problems. You need to be very careful while deleting Other files. Enter ~/Library in the text field and press Go.You can navigate to the Library folder if you follow these steps: This way, important files in this category are protected from being deleted accidentally, which could cause problems with apps or system operations. Most files in Other storage are located in the Library folder that is hidden by default.

Mac other files taking up storage