If you own a MacBook Air or a newer MacBook Pro, you know that storage can be top-notch thanks to Apple using solid-state storage. Sure, you can upgrade to 512GB of storage, but most of us like to save money and go with the lowest tier, thinking 128GB or even 64GB will suffice.
Almost nine out of ten, it never ends and you suddenly find yourself running out of storage space on your Mac. What are you doing?
Fear not because we are here to help. There are a number of things you can do that will free up a ton of disk space on your Mac, from emptying the digital trash to deleting hidden temporary files that are probably burning a hole in your storage.
Your mileage can obviously vary, but using these cheats freed up about 20GB of space, which is a huge percentage when we’re talking about 128GB of total storage. That’s about 16% of the total storage space freed up on my MacBook. Try these tricks for yourself and let us know how much space you’ve saved in the comments below.
Delete Old iTunes Backups and Apps
If you own an iPhone or iPad and regularly back up via iTunes on your Mac, you likely have multiple iOS device backups sitting around your Mac. You really only need the latest backup if your iPhone or iPad breaks, so why does your Mac keep historical backups? No clue, but there is a way to fix this.
You can delete old backups in iTunes by going to the top left corner and clicking then going to . There you will see a list of all the backups you have stored on your Mac. Again, you really only need the most recent backup for each of your iOS devices, so click on a backup you want to get rid of and click to get the job done.
iTunes also stores all your iOS apps you’ve ever downloaded, some of which you probably no longer use. You can delete apps you no longer use by right-clicking on them and selecting Delete, while moving the files to the Trash.
Delete Old iMovie Projects
If you use iMovie a lot, you may not be aware that all of your old iMovie project files are still stored on your Mac. Especially if you’re working with large movie files, they’re still stored in a hidden folder long after you’ve finished creating your custom video.
However, you can delete these old projects with ease. Go to your user folder, then open Movies. Both iMovie Events and iMovie Projects will have items that you can delete. The iMovies Projects folder explicitly contains iMovie projects, while the iMovie Events folder contains the raw video files. If you no longer need these files, simply delete them. Depending on how much is in these folders, you could free up a ton of storage.
Uninstall Apps You No Longer Use
Just like emptying your Mac’s trash can, getting rid of apps you no longer use is a simple and easy task that can pay off big. Some apps can easily go into multiple gigabytes, but if you don’t use them anymore, why bother installing them and taking up space?
To delete an app you no longer use, click the folder in the Finder sidebar or the Macintosh HD folder. All the apps you have installed will be presented to you. To delete an app, simply drag it to the trash and be sure to empty the trash when you’re done.
Use Disk Inventory X to Find Biggest Criminals
So your Mac is running out of storage, but what if you have no idea where all those space-taking files are? an app called Disk Inventory X It can scan your Mac and find out where the files are taking up space.
Sometimes you’ll discover that the biggest culprits are system files that you can’t delete, but most likely Disk Inventory X will point you to files you forgot on your Mac, like a few HD movies, for example. You can delete the files you don’t want from the application or you can go to that folder manually and delete the files from there.
Use CCleaner to Delete Hidden Files
Disk Inventory X is not the whole package, so CCleaner is a great app to have on hand for deleting files that are taking up more space. CCleaner has an easy-to-understand user interface that lets you get rid of hidden temporary files that are no longer used by applications on your Mac.
With CCleaner, all you have to do is mark the items you want deleted and then click to see how much space deleting those files will save you. If you’re happy with it, click it and let the app do its thing.
Use Monolingual to Delete Unused Language Files
How many languages can you speak? If you’re like most users, you probably only speak one language, if you’re good, maybe two. However, there are language files for many languages that you will never use on your Mac, and these files take up extra space.
CCleaner can delete unused language files, but we actually prefer an app called Monolingual to do a more thorough job. All you have to do is select the languages you don’t use and the app will delete them from your Mac. Doing this alone freed up a massive 2.2GB of storage.
