Ideally, you should always keep at least 10% of your Mac’s memory free. Otherwise, the device will start to run slow and won’t allow you to install new apps or download large files.
When the computer runs out of memory, find out what clogs up its disk space and erase the unnecessary contents or relocate them to new storage. Below, you’ll find useful tips on how to do it plus smart recommendations regarding the best cleaning methods.
Use the Finder
The Finder offers at least two options to find out how much free disk space there is left. The first means is to select the storage device in the Finder and press the spacebar.
The link to the storage device is located in the left column of the Finder, in the Devices section. Otherwise, move to the Preferences section in the Finder, press the “General” button there, allow the device to display the items on the desktop — and then, press the spacebar.
After that, you’ll see a preview that will tell you how much free space is still available. To close the preview, choose among the following variants:
- Push Command-W
- Push the spacebar once again
- In the left upper corner, push the X icon
This method comes in handy when you want to make sure that you ran out of disk space. But it won’t give you any advice on which exactly items you should erase.
The second way to check the volume of free memory through the Finder is to use the status bar. Open the View menu in the Finder window and proceed to the Show Status Bar section. There, you’ll be able to see the number of items in the current folder. If this folder belongs to your hard drive, you’ll get to know how much free space you have left and decide whether you need to delete certain items or not.
Proceed to About This Mac
The About This Mac section will tell you what sort of files occupies the most space in your device’s memory. If you use Yosemite or a later version of macOS, proceed to the About This Mac section in the Apple Menu. In the toolbar, press the Storage tab, and it will show you a colorful graph.
Launch the Disk Utility App
On the top right corner, click on the magnifying glass and insert the “Disk Utility” search request in the search field. As soon as you notice the name of this app highlighted in the list, push Enter. You can also find the same item through the Utilities section in Applications.
Open the Disk Utility and hand-pick the name of your hard drive from the inventory. You’ll get to know the full capacity of your Mac’s disk, the amount of free space, the amount of occupied space, plus some other meaningful details.
What to Do Next
After you got a notion of how much (or how little) disk space you have, you need to decide on which content you would like to get rid of. You can either erase the excessive items for good or to move them to an external storage.
If you prefer to keep your photos, videos, and documents literally at arm’s length, relocate them to an external hard drive.
Modern devices can store terabytes of information, and you’ll be the only person who has access to it. The other possible solution is to upload your content to cloud storage. But in addition to the useful data that is dear for you, any Mac contains lots of junk files that need to be erased.
How to Erase Junk Files
Erasing junk files manually might be a challenging task. It takes time, effort, and a lot of attention to browse through each folder separately and hand-pick the items that you are ready to dispose of.
After you detect which files, apps, and documents you don’t need anymore, it won’t be enough simply to send them to the trash bin — like this, you’ll relocate them to another folder, but they will still be eating up your Mac’s space.
To free some memory, you’ll need to empty the trash bin. In the case of software, you should delete its boot files as well, otherwise, some apps might reinstall themselves on your device.
Why It Is Better to Use Specialized Cleaning Software
Programs like Mac cleaner will clean your device’s storage with much greater speed and accuracy than you could do it yourself.
They scan all the disk space of your computer and efficiently detect all types of junk content, including unnecessary browser extensions, incomplete app installations, and file duplicates.
To launch the process, you just need to push the corresponding button. After the cleaning is over, you won’t need to empty the trash bin manually — the program will do it for you.
In addition to cleaning your disk space, such apps have many other useful functions, such as antivirus, enhancing your Mac’s productivity and preventing identity thefts.
Conclusion
If you regularly clean your Mac’s memory, you’ll always have enough free space for new apps and large files. You can get rid of unwanted items either manually or with the help of specialized software.
Cleaning software will free your disk space more quickly and efficiently, and it won’t accidentally erase any useful data.
Make sure you always keep at least 10% of your Mac’s storage free so that the device could work at its full capacity.
