The limitations of Mac storage often create a problem that prevents the Mac from running smoothly, which results in inconvenience to every user. With that said, we take a look at the four ways to free up the storage space on the device manually, according to Apple. How to Free Up Storage Space Manually on Your Mac 1. If the About This Mac windows says a lot of space on your Mac is used up by System, Other, or Backup files, you might be able to get rid of them by simply backing up your Mac. This is often the case if you normally use Time Machine to back up your Mac, but haven’t done so in a while. When this happens, your Mac saves numerous Time Machine.

“No matter what I do, my Mac is still slow”, an average tech-consultant hears this phrase multiple times a day. Give a person even the most powerful computer, and pretty soon it will be cluttered with apps, extensions, and things that are too much for it to handle. To reverse it, one has to go back and сlean up the mess, removing memory agents one by one. Prepare for a fight — every byte of memory is at stake. So let’s put your Mac on a diet and get it more free RAM to breathe freely.

First, remove desktop clutter. Get a combination of Setapp apps that clear away unneeded desktop files.

“Your system has run out of application memory”

How do you know your Mac is low on memory? Floating “rainbow wheels” aside, you may notice your Mac now takes ages to load. You’ll also see many browser applications crashing. You’ll be also thrown warning messages as “Your system has run out of application memory”. To help it, you should first visit the Activity monitor to see memory usage on Mac.

How to check RAM usage on Mac

Go to Applications and type in Activity Monitor in the search bar. This invokes a good old Activity Monitor that should tell how much free memory you’ve got left.

A shortcut to open Activity Monitor:

Press F4 and start typing Activity Monitor in the search bar.

I’ve attached a screenshot from my Mac and as you can see my memory usage almost reached full capacity. Here’s what it all means:

App memory: taken by apps and processes
Wired memory: reserved by apps, can’t be freed up
Compressed: inactive, can be used by other apps
Swap used: memory used by macOS
Cached files: memory you can really use

Notice the colored graph under Memory Pressure. If your graph is all but red and yellow, your Mac is really gasping for fresh memory. It seems counter-intuitive, but “available memory” your Activity Monitor is not that important after all. In fact, it’s a system intended behavior to use all memory resources when available. On the contrary, the Memory Pressure graph is much more telling, so grow a habit to check this graph in the Activity Monitor every now and then.

How to check CPU usage on Mac

Open the CPU tab in Activity Monitor to keep in check CPU-heavy processes. Normally an app would be using 0-4% of CPU. If it takes abnormally more than that, go inside that particular item in the list and press the Quit button.

How to free up memory on Mac

Tip # 1. Remove Login Items to lower Mac memory usage

Login items are programs that load automatically upon Mac startup. Some of them covertly add themselves to the list and this is no good. If you’re looking to free up RAM, they are the first candidates for deletion. Don’t worry, you’re not deleting the app itself, you just stop it from auto-launching every time.

So, to remove Login Items and at the same time reduce your memory usage of your Mac, you need to:

1. Open System Preferences and select Users & Groups.
2. Click your nickname on the left.
3. Select the Login Items tab.
4. Check programs you don’t want to load as your Mac starts.
5. Press the “–” sign below.

Now, you won’t see these apps pop up the moment you turn on your Mac. Although this method doesn’t require some superpowers of yours, some special Mac optimization and memory cleaner tools may do the job faster and ensure the smooth performance of your Mac. CleanMyMac X is an excellent example of such software. Here’s how to disable Login Items with CleanMyMac X:

1. Download it for free and go to the Optimization tab.
2. Check Login Items to see the list of apps that get opened when you start your Mac.
3. Click Remove.

As you’ve already come to the Optimization module of CleanMyMac, you can also fix hung apps and heavy memory consumers there. In this way, you’ll free up the solid amount of RAM on Mac — 100% free of charge.

Tip # 2. Free up disk space if Mac is low on memory

The available space on your Mac’s drive translates into virtual memory. This comes to save you when you’ve run out of physical RAM. So now your computer relies on your hard drive space to keep your apps going.

The classic geek rule of thumb holds it that you should keep at least 20% of disk space on your startup drive. Not only this potentially reduces your future spending on iCloud storage but it also keeps your Mac speedier.

What to delete to free up space:

• Large unused files, like movies
• Old downloads
• Rarely used applications
• System junk

But here’s a simpler solution to save your time — clean up your drive with CleanMyMac X— the app I’ve mentioned above. Many users recommend it as an excellent way to free up more space because it searches for large & old files, useless system files, Photo junk, mail attachments and shows everything you can safely delete. Interestingly, it finds about 74 GB of junk on an average computer.

Extra trick: How to free up RAM on Mac with CleanMyMac X

If you have downloaded CleanMyMac, you may also take advantage of its amazing feature — the ability to free up RAM in a few seconds. Try this next time you see “Your system has run out of application memory” message.

1. Go to the Maintenance tab on the left.
2. Click Free Up RAM.
3. Click Run.

As simple as that!

And you can do it even if you download a free version of the app.

Tip # 3. Clean up your Desktop

This tip always comes at the bottom of instructions and unfairly so as it is quite effective. Without even looking at your Desktop I would assume it’s cluttered with mountains of icons. Thing is, your macOS was designed in a way that it treats every Desktop icon as a little active window. The more icons, the heavier memory usage on Mac. So in order to release available memory resources, it’s recommended to keep your Desktop clean.

You don’t have to do it all by yourself. With apps like Declutter and Spotless, every desktop cleaning session will be scheduled in advance and executed automatically. Your only job is to define the rules on how your files should be organized.

Tip #4. Clear cache files

Another way to free up RAM on Mac is to clear it of cache files. Of course, it won’t save you gigabytes of space, but deleting cache regularly, you can help your Mac run faster and avoid system issues.

So, to remove cache files on your Mac, you need to:

1. Open Finder.
2. From the Go menu, select Go to Folder.
3. Type ~/Library/Caches in the field and press Go.
4. In the window that appears, you will see all your cache files.
5. Press Command+A to select all files or delete files one by one.
6. Enter your user name and password to confirm.

If you find some files still in the folder after you emptied it, maybe you have some windows open on your Mac. Just like that, you can save up some space on your Mac. Don’t forget to empty the bin afterward.

Tip # 5. Tune up Chrome’s Task Manager

Although Google Chrome is not the one to blame for massive memory usage, it can indeed affect your Mac's performance. If you use Chrome as your primary browser, you probably have many windows opened there. Chrome runs a lot of processes to ensure a fast browsing experience for you. So, it uses your RAM for storing your tabs, plugins, and extensions. Look at how many entries Google Chrome has in Activity Monitor:

The question then arises, 'Why does Chrome use so much RAM?' The thing is that each process is responsible for a separate plugin or extension of your browser. For example, when a tab unexpectedly falls, you need to refresh it to continue your work there. If one process were responsible for all tabs and extensions, you would need to restart the whole browser instead. Can you imagine how many times would you do that? That’s the proper answer to why Chrome uses so much RAM.

I’ve been using Chrome for some years only to discover (recently) that Chrome had a task manager of its own. You can use it to force quit memory-heavy processes in the browser. It’s a handy tool because it lets you see how a page weighs on CPU usage on a Mac.

1. Go to Chrome settings (dotted icon in the top right corner)
2. Click More tools -> Task Manager
   

To free up even more RAM, close the GPU process. The GPU Process, though helpful in theory to accelerate pages, eats up a considerable amount of memory. Click to end it to free up RAM on your Mac.

Tip # 6. Manage RAM usage with CleanMyMac X menu

CleanMyMac X has another useful and convenient feature for managing your Mac’s performance and memory usage. As you install CleanMyMac X and start it for the first time, it’s icon will appear in your menu bar. Click the icon to open the CleanMyMac X menu. Here you can find updates on the current condition of your Mac and perform quick tweaks to increase your Mac's speed. Whenever you feel like your Mac underperforms, open the CleanMyMac X menu to check how much RAM is available and free it up as well.

Tip # 7. Close Finder windows

Okay, suppose you’re still asking yourself, how do I clear RAM on my MacBook Pro/MacBook Air. The next trick is as magical (you’ll see for yourself) as it is time-saving. It’s no secret that each window in the Finder eats up RAM. But how many open windows are there? Some of them are collapsed or stacked in some blind spot on your screen. This Finder command merges all your windows into one. See how to do it:

Click on Finder > Window > Merge All Windows

Now you can manage Finder windows more effectively and free up memory on MacBook.

What else you can do to minimize memory usage on Mac

I’ve saved the easiest tips for the end, as long as these ones are self-explanatory.

• Replace AdBlock (very memory-demanding) with a lighter extension
• Keep fewer opened tabs in the browser
• Restart your Mac more often to free up RAM
• Close all hung-up print queues

That was my take on how to make your Mac a bit speedier to use. If you’re looking for more guidance, check simple ways to speed up your Mac.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to check application memory on Mac?

To check RAM usage on your Mac, go to Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities). In the Memory tab, you will see all the active processes that are using your Mac’s RAM. At the end of the window, there is a Memory Used graph, which indicates how much application memory is used.

How to find out whether your Mac needs more RAM?

Your Mac may be using almost all its RAM, but you don’t need more if it’s using it efficiently. Open Activity Monitor and go to the Memory tab. The Memory Pressure graph shows the current condition of your RAM: green color means your Mac’s using RAM effectively, while yellow is a sign that some application or process is using too much of application memory. The red memory pressure signals that your Mac needs more RAM.

How to quickly free up RAM on your MacBook?

To free up RAM on your Mac, firstly, you should find out what app uses so much of your memory. The memory-heavy programs are listed in Activity Monitor, Memory tab. If there is an app you aren’t using at the moment, click it and press the “X” sign to quit it. This will, in turn, free some of the application memory.

It all starts with “Disk is almost full”

If you are reading this, you are probably familiar with the “Disk is almost full” message on Mac. The lack of free space is, in fact, a global issue. According to MacPaw research, since the Great Lockdown of 2020, people are 28% more likely to clean their computers. Isn’t it because we started to consume more content? Anyway, limitless hard drives haven’t been invented yet.

Let's take the new MacBook Air 2020 edition that offers startling capacities of 256 GB. That’s roughly the storage of the previous year’s iPad! And how soon you will fill that space full, given today’s media consumption trends, is a different question. And as of the summer of 2020, iCloud storage still remains a paid option, and 50GB will cost you $0.99 per month.

So whether you have a new or older Mac, it’s critical to know how to clear system storage on Mac. Further below, I’ll show you my favorite methods of recovering disk space on Mac. They are a bit like alchemy because we’ll be turning junk into free space.

Okay, let’s go.

How to check storage on Mac

It’s good to check your storage details before we get down to deleting things. For example, this is my disk space structure:

Documents: You have too many downloads and media files on your drive
Apps: There are probably tons of hidden and forgotten apps on your Mac
System: Your OS + caches, temporary files, and app localizations that waste space

To view your storage details, click on the Apple icon > About this Mac > Storage

How the full hard drive affects your Mac?

If your drive reaches about 80% of its capacity, your Mac will get noticeably slower. Partly, this is because of the so-called fragmenting. When there is only so much space left on disk, your Mac will split every new file into pieces or fragments and fit them into available slots elsewhere on your Mac. This slows down how your Mac processes these files. Also, some amount of your RAM (virtual memory) will be taken out to compensate for the loss of disk space.

So, how do you free up space on your Mac?

Free up disk space on Mac

1. Find large files you don’t need

Potential space reclaimed: 2-5 GB

1. Go to your desktop and press Command + F
2. Choose “This Mac”
3. Select Other in the dropdown menu
4. Under the Search Attributes menu, tick File Size and File Extension

Well done!Now you can type in different file extensions and sort the results by size. I recommend starting with the .DMG files or application installers. They are just dead weight, and you can live without them. The same goes for .ZIP archives

2. Delete your system junk

Potential space reclaimed: 2-5 GB

There are tons of articles written about system junk, and some Mac users claim the system junk is pure evil and slows your Mac down. In my view, it’s only an excess burden to have on your machine — outdated files, browser caches, app localizations, and old-time machine backups.

To delete system junk manually would be a hot mess, even for an experienced user. So if you want to free up space on Mac quickly, just run CleanMyMac X once and forget it. Unlike some supposed 'Mac-Saviours,' this app is actually notarized by Apple, so you’re safe running it.

1. Run CleanMyMac X — download the app’s free edition here
2. Click the System junk tab.
   

After you run the Scan, review the files and click Clean.

What else can you delete with this tool:

• Time machine backups
• Temporary documents versions
• Outdated system logs
• App localization files

3. Remove unused apps and all their leftovers

Potential space reclaimed: up to 5 GB

Did you know there are 3 ways of deleting apps on Mac? One is dragging them straight to the Trash from Applications, the other involves Launchpad. And, finally, you can use a third-party Uninstaller tool, which also makes sense because the first two methods leave parts of old apps on your drive.

Delete apps via Launchpad

Still, I prefer deleting apps via Launchpad because it’s more fun. Open Launchpad from your Dock.Now, press the Command key and hold any app icon until they start shaking. You will see the [X] symbol above the icon — click it to delete the app.

Delete your unseen apps

That was easy, but here’s the deal. Every Mac has apps that don’t show up anywhere. They may have installed themselves as parts of other apps or be small supporting applications that programmers call “Launch agents” or “Daemons.” In total, they may eat up a whole lot of disk space.

In my experience, of all app cleaners, CleanMyMac X still tops the list. My personal record — 30 GB I was able to clear up on my Mac that had been taken by unused and suspicious programs. So what can you do?

1. Download CleanMyMac X free edition here
2. Click the Uninstaller tab.

From there, you can delete apps on a massive scale - simply select the ones you don’t need. Make sure to check the Leftovers section. These are parts and pieces of your old apps that you can’t otherwise access.

4. Delete your duplicate files

I often download an app twice by clicking on it several times or double-save a track to my iTunes library, which creates quite a mess. So if your Mac has started to run out of storage, there is a way to put an end to it. At first, you can try to find duplicates manually, but it can take you way too long with little to no result.

There is a good app called Gemini 2 - the duplicate finder. It allows you to clean out many gigabytes of duplicates in a few clicks. Plus, it allows you to check what would be deleted and deselect items you want to keep.

So, if your Mac is suffering from the invasion of the duplicates, give this software a try.

5. Remove browser cache

If you are a heavy internet user (like I am), your Mac’s drive is full of the browser cache. These are the kinds of bookmarks left on your drive by every site that you visited. What’s your primary browser? Here are the solutions for Chrome and Safari.

To clear Chrome cache

While you are in Chrome,

1. Click the three-dot icon at the top right
2. Click More tools > Clear browsing data
3. Choose a time range to clear the browsing data
4. Also, clear “Cached images and files.”

To clear Safari cache

1. Click Develop in the top menu.
2. Click Empty caches

6. Use Optimized Storage

Apple has some storage management tools that come pre-installed on your macOS. To get to use them, click on the Apple logo > About this Mac > Click the Storage tab > Manage.

How to manage storage on Mac with built-in options

First, inspect the tabs in the sidebar on the left. Your largest files will most likely be stored in Documents. Go inside this category to find files you can scrap. A quick tip: You can mass-select and delete screenshots on your Desktop right from here.

Then, click Recommendations in the top left corner.
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Here Apple offers you 4 options: the first option, “Store in iCloud,” is self-explanatory. Is iCloud paid? Yes, if your storage needs exceed 5 GB which in 2020 is laughably small.The second option, “Optimize Storage,” will remove your already watched content and the old attachments in Mail. This may help you free up a couple of gigabytes. When you need to clear disk space on Mac, every little help counts.

7. Create the map of your drive

This method was shown to me by my programmer friend, who also happens to be a fan of CleanMyMac X. There is a tool in CleanMyMac called “Space Lens” that builds a map of your entire drive. You can see all your disk’s contents in the form of interactive bubbles that represent your big and small folders. It’s the most exciting way to clear space on your Mac. Wow!

Here you can spot the folders that hog the most space. You’ll also find your “Russian dolls” folders that are hidden inside other folders.

Get this app here for free.

8. Take out the Trash

This advice is the easiest of all. Nevertheless, people forget to do it all the time. We throw things down the Trash and think they are over with. But that’s just moving things from one pocket to another. To free up Trash, right-click the bin icon. Then, choose Empty Trash.

How to empty the Trash automatically on Mac

If you don’t like to empty the Trash every time, there is a scheduled option. Your Mac will auto-delete Trash every 30 days if you tell it so.

• Open Finder > Preferences (in the upper menu).
• Now choose Advanced.
• Check this box “Remove items from Trash every 30 days.”

9. Delete extra language files

Potential space recovered: 1 GB

There are 180+ languages in the world, and most of your Mac’s applications can operate in these languages. However beautiful the language diversity is, people usually use just one or two. When you need to clear space on Mac, extra localization files are another target.How to see your language files? Language files end with “lproj” extension, which stands for “language project.” Unfortunately, finding them manually is problematic. Still, if you want to recover 1 GB of free space out of thin air, get hold of CleanMyMac X. It deletes extra localizations automatically.

1. Get CleanMyMac X here — a link to a free edition
2. Click System Junk and Scan.
3. Then press Review Details.

After you click Review Details, you’ll see the tab called Language Files. As one can see, each of those files takes up about 30 MB. You can only guess how much more it will be with 180+ languages.

10. Clear your Desktop

Desktop may not seem a big deal in terms of storage space, but only because people rarely visit it. It’s a well-known fact that a messy desktop wastes tons of space — and, most importantly — slows your Mac down.

Here’s a quick trick to organize your Desktop: click anywhere in the middle of the Desktop and then choose “Use Stacks” in the window that appears. Everything there will be neatly sorted by categories like Screenshots. Now you can mass delete all the thousands of screenshots that most of us have.

If you are using macOS High Sierra or older, you can manually clear disk space on your Mac Desktop.

1. Click Finder > Desktop.
2. Under View, choose the 3-line icon.

Now you can sort all items by size and delete the largest files.

11. Compress your files

Archiving or compressing files is a nice alternative to permanent deletion. Not all file types compress similarly well, though. For example, documents and presentations can be substantially reduced in size by compression, while movies are harder to shrink.

Luckily, you don’t need a third-party solution to zip things up — your macOS has its built-in tool.

How to free up disk space on Mac using compression?

1. Open Finder and go to your Documents.
2. Command + click on a folder (or multiple folders).
3. Choose Compress.

Be aware that macOS leaves the original file untouched, so once you have the archive, the original folder can be deleted. After you’re done, you may transfer the newly-created archive onto an external drive.

Well done, you’ve just saved some space!

12. Slim down Time Machine snapshots

If you have Time Machine set up properly, it creates backups of your whole system at any given time. I’m not recommending you to delete these backups completely but to trim down their size. This doesn’t affect your user-created data.I’ll show you how to do it with a free version of CleanMyMac, the tool I mentioned in the previous section.

1. Get a free edition of CleanMyMac X
2. Click the Maintenance tab.
3. Choose 'Time Machine Snapshot Thinning.'

Other Storage Taking Up Space On Macbook

Here you are. After you click Run, you will successfully reduce the size of backups on your Mac.

13. Trash the old iPhone backups

Potential space reclaimed: 10-20 GB

Outdated iPhone backups may take enormous space. If you’ve ever backed up your iPhone with your computer, your Mac probably stores all your phone’s data. It makes sense to check your drive for the outdated backups before they grow out of proportion.

Here’s how to clear space on your Mac by deleting old backups:

1. Open Finder > Click Go in the Finder's menu > Go to Folder…
2. Paste in: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
3. Move the insides of the folder to the Trash, and that’s it.

If you want to remove a specific backup, here’s how to do that:

How To Free Up Space On My Mac Laptop

1. Connect your device to your Mac using a cable.
2. Go to Finder > Locations > Select your device.
3. Click Manage Backups.

Right-click, the name of the backup to see the “Show in Finder” command. Move the backup someplace else or delete it using the Delete option.

Note: do this only if you are 100% sure you don’t need your iPhone backups.

14. Get rid of your junk Mail

Potential space reclaimed: 50 MB

Free Up Space On My Mac

Everyone hates junk email. Apparently, Apple hates it too because they included automatic junk mail deletion to their Mail app. Junk mail doesn’t weigh much but still, deleting it is good for the hygiene of your Mac.

How To Free Up Space On My Mac For Big Sur

1. Open Mail app.
2. Click on the Mailbox tab.
3. Choose Erase Junk Mail.
4. Beware that this operation cannot be undone.

Other great tips to automatically reduce clutter

• Use Safari. Starting version 10, it automatically removes duplicate downloads.
• Back up your pictures to Photos.Google.com — it offers unlimited storage. Really.
  
• Delete extensions in your browser — you can use a free version of CleanMyMac X.
• Delete desktop apps for services that offer online analogs, like Figma.

Free Up Space On My Macbook Air

Okay, I’ve told you my favorite ways to free up disk space on your Mac. You can bookmark this article and revisit it next time when the annoying “Your disk is almost full” message pops up. Decluttering your Mac can add a fresh spark to your digital life — so try it today.