Optimised 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, films, email attachments and other files that you rarely use are stored in iCloud automatically. Each file stays exactly where you last saved it, and will download when you open it. Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimised versions of your photos.
- All of the apps listed above will certainly clear up some space on your Mac, and you can always start with the free ones then move up to a paid version later if you find the features useful.
- Normally, if you want to close all of the open apps on your Mac, you'd have to either quit them all one by one or restart, shut down, or log out while making sure to deselect “Reopen windows when logging back in.' The latter option is great, but it doesn't always work in Mac OS X, and what if you don't want to restart, shut down, or log out?
- Complete these simple steps to uninstall applications with App Cleaner & Uninstaller: Launch App Cleaner & Uninstaller. Select unneeded apps that you want to uninstall from your Mac. Click on the Remove button to uninstall them from your Mac completely.
* If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.
Simple procedure to delete all sensitive data from your Mac if you decide to sell it or to give it away. Oct 19, 2015 20:40 GMT. Mac App Store or the iOS Store in the future.
Find out how much storage is available on your Mac
Choose Apple menu > About This Mac and 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 only available in macOS Sierra or later.
Manage storage on your Mac
The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimising your storage. If some recommendations have already been turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.
Store in iCloud
Click the Store in iCloud button and 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 (optimised) 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 50 GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.
Optimise Storage
Click the Optimise button, then choose from these options.
- Automatically remove watched films and TV programmes. When storage space is needed, films or TV programmes that you have purchased from the iTunes Store and have already watched will be removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a film or TV programme to download it again.
- Download only recent attachments. Mail automatically downloads only the attachments that you have 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 only downloads an attachment when you open the email or attachment, or save the attachment to your Mac.
Optimising storage for films, TV programmes and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.
Empty Bin Automatically
Empty Bin Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Bin for more than 30 days.
Reduce Clutter
Reduce Clutter helps you to identify large files and files you may no longer need. Click the Review Files button and then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation or Bin.
![Clear Clear](/uploads/1/3/4/2/134249301/138759116.png)
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 re-download apps, music, films, TV programmes 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 these 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 Optimise 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 and then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimise Mac Storage settings. - In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences and then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimise 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 and then click Files. Optimise Storage selects “Automatically delete watched films and TV programmes”.
In macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar and then click Advanced. Optimise Storage selects “Automatically delete watched films and TV programmes”. - In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar and then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimise Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.
Empty Bin Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Bin Automatically selects “Remove items from the Bin after 30 days”.
Other ways that macOS automatically helps to 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 Optimised Storage features of Sierra or later, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:
- Music, films and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, films and TV programmes from your device.
- Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Bin, then emptying the Bin. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you may 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 Deleted Items 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 may 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 only frees up the space required by any data that 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 Optimise Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.
If you have been using Mac from a long time that you may know that OS X saves a ton of cache files on the hard disk.
System Cache: It's produced in a device whenever an app, browser, the system performs any task and the any built-in system services that run your Mac's OS. However, cache performs a critical function by creating a shortcut to the task that you have already performed in the system. My messages app stopped working on my mac. Basically, when you open a same task again and again, it will re-open very fast by loading the cache files.
App Cache: App cache are produced by apps and system or third party applications to save temporary information such as websites that are visited in your favorite browser to speed up the loading process. So if you consider then it can be said that cache are important and rather good to make the apps faster. However, there are also certain disadvantages of cache that could create bugs and rather have negative effects like crashing the app or even slow it down to death. And there are many apps that makes unnecessary amount of data that are totally useless and will eat up all the space in your system. These cache are supposed to be erased from the device and a user must clear them regularly to save space on Mac. So, to sustain smooth performance for your Mac device, it is necessary for the users to clear App cache regularly.
But the monotonous question is 'where to begin the excursion from?' Why not start the excursion of cache cleaning here and now. The methods below are no less than the effective solutions dictated by Mac experts. So here they are at your service.
Part #1: How Does Cache Affect Your Mac?
But, many times these useless cache files can get damaged due to malfunction, failed software updates which could cause issues and slow down the system. What's more, even if you have uninstalled the software, these cache files don't get deleted automatically and stays on the system. By the time goes, these cache files gets bigger and bigger and takes up GBs of space on the system which may cause low memory storage space. Even if they are temporary, no one is actually removing them. So over time, these cache files takes you storage space and will make it so slow that you won't be able to use the system. Cache files are both extremely necessary and utterly useless after a while, as they become a storage killer, dragging your Mac's performance to a laughable speed.
Part #2: Delete App Cache Files Manually on Mac
The manual guideline is always the first priority of every user as there are no troubles of tool downloading, etc. And this is exactly what we are going to follow up. To know the locations where you can clean the unused app data, read the steps below carefully:
Step 1. Open up 'Finder' utility and then choose 'Go'.
Step 2. Click on 'Go to Folder' from the further options shown.
Step 3. Type -/Library and hit 'Enter'.
Step 4. Click on 'Cache' folder. Doing so selects everything in the 'Caches' folder.
Step 5. Now in the Cache folder, choose the specific files or the entire lot and place the cache items to the Trash and the cleaning is done.
Cons –
- While clearing the cache, there is no specification of App cache.
- Even if the caches are deleted, App caches remain within the system completely hidden from the user sight.
Part #3: Clear Caches on Mac using CleanGeeker
Disappointments are bound to come if you are recklessly trying out the any tools and methods mentioned hitherto or elsewhere. But there is one such tool which will not fail you, the name is Tunesbro CleanGeeker. In few simple steps, CleanGeeker can clean all kinds of junk files from your Mac, though we would focus primarily on the App cache. It makes deleting cache files on Mac as easy as can be.
CleanGeeker - Delete All Apps Caches on Mac with just 1 Click
- It can clean Junk Files, App Caches, Duplicate Files, Large Sized garbage files, etc.
- Three types of scanning are available, namely App Scan; Junk Scan; Deep Scan.
- Clear browser cookies and mail attachments easily.
- More other features >>
Step 1Download and Install CleanGeeker on Your Mac
First of all, avail your system with CleanGeeker and install with necessary step instructions. On the tool's screen, click on 'Home' tab on the left and here you can clearly discern the total memory, used space, etc.
Close All Apps On Mac
Step 2Scan All App Caches on Mac
How To Clear Apps On Mac
Go now to the 'Junk Clean' section below in the same line of 'Home' option and click on it. Here you get to see all the junk files associated with your recently installed apps or previously installed apps.
Step 3Start to Delete App Caches on Your Mac OS X
Select your apps by ticking the checkboxes next to it and once done, click 'Delete' button at the bottom right corner of the screen. Zuludesk macos not installing apps mac.
How To Clear Up Memory On Mac
CleanGeeker can collect and clear associated cache items of all those apps which are not installed formerly on your Mac but their junk items remain within the system. Mere manual deletion or uninstallation of Apps sometimes don't flush out the real problem, but with this last tool you can root out once and for all from your Mac. The previous two methods can equally give you the aid you need, but the guarantee that CleanGeeker holds is dearth and unparallel. So choose wisely after all it's your Mac which matters a lot.
Sep.12, 2018 19:49 pm / Posted by Candie Kates to Mac OS X Topics