How to Clean Your Mac's Hard Disk Drive?
- Best Free Hard Drive Cleaner For Mac
- Free Drive Cleaner For Mac Pro
- Free Drive Cleaner For Mac Computer
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SSD (Solid State Drives) is fast, stable, and offers great performance. Unfortunately, compared to HDDs (Hard Disk Drives), the capacity-to-cost ratio is not good. There are, however, methods to free up hard drives to obtain additional capacity for computer systems, including the macOS.
Certain data and files are important, and you will not want to delete or move them. However, some files are redundant and can be removed without consequences. If you know which files you can safely delete, you can free up this space. Although the Windows operating system is known for inefficient clutter, the macOS also produces unnecessary files that take valuable disk space. In this article, we describe some methods on how to clean macOS disk space.
Video showing How to Obtain Free Space on Your Mac's Drive
Table of Contents:
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Inspect the drive to ensure that the system is running out of free space
Some issues relating to lack of storage might be difficult to determine and can even be a result of fake error logs. So, first, ensure that the system is, in fact, running out of free space. There are two methods to check available space on a hard drive:
1. Access the Apple menu and select About this Mac. Choose the Storage tab.
2. More detailed information can be found within the Disk Utility feature, which is located in the Applications folder under Utilities. Once Disk Utility is launched, select the drive connected to the Mac.
Begin by cleaning Trash
Once you are sure that the drive is actually full, the next step is to simply clean the computer (as if you were cleaning your home: you empty the trash). Open the Finder menu and choose Empty Trash. Bear in mind that some applications, such as Mail, iMovie, iPhoto, and others, have their own Trash. To clean those apps, follow the steps below:
1. Click Mailbox and choose Erase Deleted Items.
2. Select In All Account and Mailbox.
3. Finally click Erase Junk.
Alternatively, to avoid permanently losing your files, choose to archive your emails by following the steps below.
iPhoto
1. Click on iPhoto from the menu at the top of the screen.
2. Choose Empty iPhoto Trash.
iMovie
1. Click on File from the menu on top of your screen.
2. Select Move to Trash or File.
3. Then choose Move Rejected Clipsto Trash.
Clear unnecessary Downloads
The Downloads folder stores all files downloaded from the Internet. Often, these are forgotten after use and continue to use storage space. This is an excellent area to address when looking to free up space on your drive. Delete all redundant Download files.
1. Open Finder.
2. In the sidebar, choose the Downloads folder. Disk image (.dmg) files commonly occupy the most unused storage space.
Remove unused applications
Unused apps in isolation might not take up a great deal of space, but the amount of hard drive storage used by them collectively can be significant. Furthermore, removing apps on Macs is simple, especially those installed through App Store.
1. To delete them, open Launchpad.
2. Click and hold the program's icon you wish to remove.
3. When the icon starts to animate, click the Delete (x) button.
4. To delete any other app, drag the icon to Trash and then empty Trash.
Make space without losing any data
The best way to gain extra space on the Mac is to move non-executable files such as photos, movies, documents, and any large files, to add external storage, for example, an external drive, USB drive, DVD/CD drive, or cloud storage.
Compress large items
Another method to obtain some free space is to compress files. Compressed files remain on the computer but occupy less space. On the other hand, this can be less efficient than deleting or moving files to external storage. To find the largest files on the drive, follow the steps below:
1. Open Finder from the sidebar.
2. Select the Device (the label you provided) and type criteria into the search field.
3. When your search location appears (for example, This Mac), click the Add (+) button.
4. Click the first drop-down menu, and choose Other.
5. Find the logical size option, enable it, and then click OK.
6. Choose the 'is greater than' condition and type the amount (i.e., 50 Mb).
7. To compress items, right-click or hold Control and left-click it, and then select the Compress 'name' option.
If you are using an earlier version of macOS:
1. Click Go from the Finder menu and select Home.
2. Choose File, click Find and open the Find menu.
3. Find the File size option.
4. Choose the 'is greater than' condition and type the amount (i.e., 50 Mb).
5. To compress items, right-click or hold Control and left-click it, and then select the Compress 'name' option.
6. To archive, your emails, open the Mail application and select a folder you wish to archive (e.g., Inbox).
7. Drag it to the desktop. The mbox folder will appear on your desktop.
8. Right-click it or use the Control and left-click combination, and select Compress 'Inbox.mbox'.
9. Now you can delete your messages from Mail.
Delete unnecessary temporary files, system caches, and logs
System stores several System logs and temporary files - deleting them will increase the available space on your drive. To clean the system from this type of file, we recommendCombo Cleaneror other third-party applications.
Clear the browser cache storage
Browsers store website data such as cookies and cache information. Cleaning these hidden files might free up storage space. To clean up Safari, simply click Safari on the menu at the top of the screen and select Clear History. Browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox can be cleaned similarly.
Cleaning up anything seems a very laborious task.
I remember how my mother used to bellow at me to clean my room.
But...
...I always had some lame excuse to keep this task at bay.
But unlike then, now it’s totally opposite with me.
Now that I use MacBook, I’m in constant scour for good cleaners for my device.
Keeping the computers and phones clean are not only important to free up space, but it also keeps them safe from Malware and viruses.
Read: Do You Need Virus Protection For Mac?
5 FREE Mac Cleaning Software
Being an Apple products aficionado, and to keep them in good condition, I’ve been using many cleaning apps for my iPhone and MacBook.
I’m listing some of the free Mac Cleaning Softwares and applications for you guys out there who have clogged up PCs and need some memory.
#1: AppCleaner
One of the easiest to use Cleaner of all is AppCleaner.
What you have to do in this application is to just to drag and drop the app that you want to uninstall.
AppCleaner waves its magic wand in two ways.
You can either drop the files manually into the app’s window
or...
...just use the smart delete feature of the app and it will automatically find the files or the data of the deleted files from the trash.
#2: Dr. Cleaner
If you want to speed up and optimize your Mac with just a click then this great app named Dr. Cleaner is just for you.
It cleans your Mac’s disk and frees up a lot of space thus enhancing its performance.
It not only deletes the unwanted files but also eradicates the cache files that are building over a period.
This app is a boon for the amateur Mac users and what else can one ask for but a free app and here you’re served with one.
#3: CCleaner
Want to give your Mac a new kick?
Then you should give a chance to CCleaner.
It’s an effective and simple to use app that makes the Macs fast without touching the privacy of your files.
In fact, it is designed to make the device more secure.
It has three elements - Cleaner, Tools and Options.
These elements remove the junk files, uninstall the programs and fixes or deletes the cookies respectively.
Its paid version has lots of other features
but...
if you just want the basics, then you should go for the free one.
#4: MacClean 3
Why do you let your pretty Mac get cluttered with junk?
MacClean 3 cleans and frees your Mac’s hard drive with zero effort.
It works on the rule of three - Select, Scan and Clean.
It deletes all types of junk, for instance, Internet Junk, System junk, Development Junk etc.
It provides 10 different tools to clean your Mac’s unwanted things totally.
#5: Magican
If you think that buying a Mac frees you from every responsibility of making efforts in maintaining it, then you’re wrong my friend.
Just because the device seems to be working fine doesn’t mean that it don’t need any repair or maintenance.
An optimizer tool, Magican cleans the hard drive of the device from every unnecessary caches and data.
It keeps a check on the status of the system by showing CPU usage and Disk info.
It goes deeply into the stats, which is according to me an efficient feature.
Best Paid Solutions
Now that we’ve discussed the things for freeloaders let me also tell you about the applications, which are paid
but...
...are favorite of Pro Mac users and in which people don’t hesitate while spending, or let me say investing.
#1: CleanMyMac 3
This is my personal favorite and I’d like my readers to give this app a chance.
CleanMyMac 3 cleans gigabytes from the system in a matter of seconds.
Best Free Hard Drive Cleaner For Mac
It has been a very successful app since much time and now can also be supported by OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
There are many features on the app that helps you to clean the whole system in one click or choosing options from cleaning photo, iTunes, trash or other junk.
It is available for $39.95 per Mac license and in my view the cost is worth this beauty.
You can read the detailed review of CleanMyMac 3 here.
#2: Gemini 2
Free Drive Cleaner For Mac Pro
Gemini 2, that doesn’t actually clean the device but deletes the duplicate or much similar looking files is already a favorite of many users.
Based on an exclusive algorithm, it scans and removes the files that are alike and unnecessary.
It just requires a simple process - Drag and Drop.
Available at $19.95, this app is definitely one of its kinds.
You can read the detailed review of Gemini 2 here.
Final Words
I’m sure you also want your device to be absolutely cleaned and work without any lagging.
Free Drive Cleaner For Mac Computer
So, go in the world of these awesome Mac Cleaner apps and get awestruck by their features.