- Check Disk Space Windows 10
- How To Check Startup Disk Space On Macbook Pro
- Disk Space On Mac
- Mac Check Disk Space
Remove documents from Other Storage space. You might not think that pure text documents take.
Optimized Storage in macOS Sierra and later* can save space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand. When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically. Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it. Files that you've used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.
- What is the Startup Disk? By default, the startup disk is what's known as the Macintosh HD. It is the partition in Mac's hard disk where the Mac OS itself is installed. It is also where most of your files and apps are probably stored. Essentially, the startup disk is where the Mac OS will boot from, so it needs enough space in order to do.
- Choose Apple menu System Preferences, then click Startup Disk. Click the lock and enter your administrator password. Select your startup disk, then restart your Mac. If you see a message that your security settings do not allow this Mac to use an external startup disk, check the External Boot setting in Startup Security Utility.
- A newer software version is available: CleanMyMac X. Download CleanMyMac X free edition here A step-by-step guide to make the 'Startup.
- In addition, Safe Mode includes an automatic disk check and repair which might resolve boot problems and allow you to start up your computer successfully. Verbose Mode — Verbose Mode is a text-only environment which displays status messages as the startup process progresses.
* If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.
Find out how much storage is available on your Mac
Choose Apple menu > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.
Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below. This button is available only in macOS Sierra or later.
Manage storage on your Mac
The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.
Store in iCloud
Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:
- Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
- Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
- Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.
Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.
Optimize Storage
Click the Optimize button, then choose from these options.
- Automatically remove watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from the iTunes Store and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.
- Download only recent attachments. Mail automatically downloads only the attachments that you recently received. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.
- Don't automatically download attachments. Mail downloads an attachment only when you open the email or attachment, or save the attachment to your Mac.
Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.
Empty Trash Automatically
Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.
Reduce Clutter
Reduce Clutter helps you to identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.
You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.
Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.
Where to find the settings for each feature
The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.
- If you're using macOS Catalina, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. Then click Options next to iCloud Drive: Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders setting. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
In macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings. - In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
- In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
- If you're using macOS Catalina, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects 'Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.'
In macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects 'Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.' - In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.
Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects 'Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.'
Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space
With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:
- Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
- Reminds you to delete used app installers
- Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
- Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed
How to free up storage space manually
Even without using the Optimized Storage features of Sierra or later, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:
- Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
- Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
- Move files to an external storage device.
- Compress files.
- Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.
Learn more
- The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
- When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
- If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.
Sometimes, you need to know how much storage space in on your Mac. Apple doesn't make this info readily available because not many of us need to know about Mac storage often enough. It's really easy to check, though – and there are even some alternatives that give you better options for managing your on-board memory!
People need to check their storage space for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's just good device management; sometimes your computer is running slowly, and storage is the first culprit you think of. Ideally, about ten percent of the storage space on your Mac should be free at all times so your computer can run smoothly.
Depending on which model you have, this can be tricky to accomplish routinely. Maybe you need to delete some older apps you're not using, or the app isn't supported anymore. Maybe you're just holding onto old documents you no longer need.
Whatever your use-case, here's how to check disk space on Mac.
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How To Check Storage on Mac
It's actually really simple to check your device's memory! Here's how:
- On the menu bar, click the Apple logo in the top left
- Select ‘About this Mac'
- Select ‘Storage'
This is the easiest method for how to see storage on Mac – but you can go deeper! If you need a closer look at your Mac's memory use, there are a few ways to go about it.
From the Storage screen, you can select ‘Manage,' which takes you to a new window. Applications, Documents, Photos, and other sections can be found on the left of this window, and a detailed view of those files on the right.
You can also use Finder! To do so, Open Finder, go to the View menu item in the menu bar, and select ‘Show toolbar.' You'll see a new bar at the bottom of the Finder window showing the number if items for the section you have selected on the left-hand pane and the total amount of storage your Mac has available.
Check out how to use time machine
Disk Utility is another resource. Open Disk Utility, and it will launch into a view of the volume(s) on your Mac, which also shows how much space is used, and how much is free. (Keep in mind Disk Utility is meant for power users who want to manage their storage, and is a bit of overkill for most users.)
How To Manage Storage in macOS
There are also easy ways to manage the files or applications taking up room on your Mac.
In Finder, select the category from the left side pane, then the application or file you want to delete. Right-click on that file or app, select ‘delete,' and it'll be removed. From the System Information menu, simply select the file or app you want to get rid of, and select the ‘delete' button on the bottom right of the window.
But these two methods often doesn't solve the issue! One clever way to better manage the storage on your Mac is to use cloud storage options like iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive. Apple's iCloud is woven into your AppleID, and using it is a very straightforward approach; it's automatically added to the storage options for your Mac!
But iCloud is not the only solution for cloud storage on Mac. If you have something else, CloudMounter is the easiest and best way to manage all your cloud storage containers. It lives in your menu bar for easy access, and shows all your cloud storage options in Finder. It helps your Mac treat cloud storage as a local disk, making access and managing files really simple!
Best of all, CloudMounter uses 256-bit encryption, so your documents are always safe.
If all the menus and file size jargon of Apple's Finder and System Information options is confusing, we've got a great solution for you. iStat Menus is a handy app that also lives in the Menu Bar, and gives a graphical overview of CPU and GPU use in real-time, network connections, and memory use. Instead of dipping and diving through Apple's hierarchal menus, you can just click on iStat Menus to get the same information in a much better interface!
iStat Menus also allows you to keep the data surfaced directly on your menu bar. Instead of clicking the icon, you can choose to have things like CPU or memory usage as icons so the information is always available in real-time. Awesome!
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Probably the best (and definitely the most powerful) option for managing your Mac's memory is CleanMyMacX. Like iStat Menus, it has a drop-down window from the menu bar showing details like CPU or memory use, as well as which apps may be kicking your Mac into overdrive.
CleanMyMacX really shines when you open it up. Free mp4 video compression software. The app scans your system and identifies unused files, random system junk, mail attachments – and also manages your trash bins. It scans for malware, checks for privacy leaks, optimizes your system for speedy performance, and does routine maintenance.
That's a lot, but we're not done! An option within CleanMyMacX named ‘Space Lens' is a lot like Apple's Finder, only better looking and much easier to use. Here you'll see all your applications and files divided into sections, and broken into sub-menus. You can also manually delete apps or files.
‘Large & Old Files' is a feature in CleanMyMacX which – you guessed it – finds large files and files you haven't touched in a long time. The goal is to help you identify which files might be worth deleting, or at least shuffling off to cloud storage. It even tells you how long its been since you used a file!
But let's be honest: most of the space on your Mac is probably taken up by apps. Hp creative studio software download. And chances are, you don't want or need most of those apps anyway. This is where CleanMyMacX shines bright! Under the ‘Applications' menu, you can update and manage apps and extensions with ease.
How To Check Startup Disk Space On Macbook Pro
The ‘Uninstaller' option is a lot like the ‘Large & Old Files' option, just for apps. It shows you which apps are old, which may be abandoned (32-bit apps are no longer supported on Mac!), and which are just plain unused. It even shows you how large the apps are, letting you do the quick math on which will free up the most space when deleted.
To get rid of apps or files, simply select them from the CleanMyMacX menu, and select the ‘Uninstall' or ‘Delete' option at the bottom of the window. It's that easy!
Keep your Mac in top shape
Checking and managing the storage on your Mac is simple. While viewing your Mac's storage is easy to do without having a separate app, there are good reasons to have something beyond Apple's own options to manage your Mac's memory.
Apps often have files and folders embedded deep in your Mac's memory, which don't always go away when you simply delete the app from Apple's menus. Sure, you got rid of the main offender, but many apps (like those from Adobe) have nuisance files that linger long after you delete the app.
Similarly, moving an app to the trash bin doesn't actually delete it. The ‘Trash' app is little more than a place you put apps you don't want; it doesn't delete them. You have to manage your trash bin separately, which can balloon out of control.
Disk Space On Mac
CleanMyMacX is a great bet for handling it all. It's smarter at deleting files, folders, and apps, and gives you a much better view of what may be occupying your Mac's storage. It also removes associated files for apps you delete.
There's no silver-bullet solution, though! We also like CloudMounter for those with multiple cloud storage solutions, and iStat Menus is really sharp at surfacing the right data when you need it. Best of all, all three options are available for free as part of a seven day free trial for Setapp, along with dozens of other great apps.
Mac Check Disk Space
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