Are you running out of storage space on your Mac system? Even though Apple has doubled the storage on its newest machines, you might still want more space for your files and pictures. Instead of buying a new MacBook, here’s how you can clean the one you have.
Uninstall all the Unused Applications
There are different ways of deleting unused and irrelevant applications on macOS. Navigate to Finder and select Applications. Then, you must go through the list of apps on your device and grab the useless apps to drag them to the Trash. It would be best if you emptied the Trash to delete the apps from your system truly.
It would be best if you opened Launchpad. Then, click and hold an app icon until it starts to shake. You’ll notice the X symbol next to the application and must click on it. Alternatively, you can delete the apps you don’t need anymore via Launchpad.
However, you solve surface-level issues when you remove apps via Launchpad or throw them into the Trash. These apps tend to leave behind residual files that must be removed. Therefore, you need to find those files and delete them. One of the best ways of automating this process is using a Mac cleaner app that will help to remove these residual files so that your disk space is free.
Delete Other Volumes
While checking disk usage on your system, you must have encountered a tab called Other Volumes. The files under this tab take up a lot of storage space and must be removed immediately. You can find out how much space is being occupied by these files by going to the Apple menu and clicking About This Mac. Then, click Storage and Wait for a while. Your system will calculate and show you a colored distribution of how much space is being taken up by these files. Learn how to delete Other Volumes and free space by clicking https://setapp.com/how-to/delete-other-volumes-in-container.
Remove the Duplicate Files from your System
The disk space may be cluttered with duplicates when you have been using your system for a long time. You might repeatedly be downloading the same email attachments or applications. You might be editing photos and making several copies of the same picture. Therefore, duplicate files will inevitably take up space on your computer. If your system’s disk space is reaching its limit, you must find and remove the duplicate files. You can manually find and remove the duplicates to clear about 30% of the storage space.
Schedule the Trash to get Emptied Automatically
You have to turn on the Empty Trash Automatically option. Generally, you would have to empty the Trash manually. But you can automate the process so that files stored in the Trash for more than thirty days are deleted permanently. You can enable this option by going to the Apple menu and selecting About This Mac. Then, head to the Storage tab and click Manage.
Remove Unused Language Files
Mac systems come loaded with more than 180 languages. These linguistic treasures are found in localization files that take up about 1.5GB of hard drive space. The chances are that you don’t use most of these languages, and they’re uselessly taking up space. You can fix this by going to the Applications folder, right-clicking an application and selecting Show Package Contents. Then, open the Contents folder and head to the Resources folder. You need to go through the Resources folder and remove all the subfolders that end with .lproj. The final step is emptying the Trash.
Don’t Forget to Clear the Browser Cache
Are you a heavy Internet user? If so, your Mac system’s drive is probably full of temporary files, such as the browser cache. Storing caches helps the Internet browser load previously visited pages quickly. But these files can take up a lot of space and reduce the storage space available for storing important files. Your system might even slow down. You can clear several hundred megabytes of space by clearing the cache files.
You can clear Google Chrome’s cache by opening the browser and clicking the three-dot icon at the top right. Then, click on More Tools and select Clear Browsing Data. You have to select a time range to clear the browsing data and even ensure to clear Cached images and files.
If you are using Safari, you can clear cache files by going to Safari, clicking Preferences and selecting Advanced. You must tick the box next to the Show Developer menu and click Develop. Then, click Empty caches.
The Bottom Line
These are some proven tactics to clear browser cache and clear space. You can use these when your system’s hard drive space finds breathing difficult.
