Here's how to free up disk space on your Mac. By Whitson Gordon. June 19, 2019 facebook. Check out our list of the best external hard drives and those that work especially well with. Running out of space on your Mac isn’t fun. Even worse, you often find out that you’re running out of space at the worst times. Sure, you can randomly start uninstalling apps, but it’s better to check your disk space and figure out which is taking up space in the first place.
- How Much Disk Space Do I Have
- Check Disk Space On Macbook
- Check Disk Space For Mac Catalina
- How To Check Storage On Mac
If your Mac is running low on disk space or you’ve seen that scary “startup disk is full” message, you know it can be frustrating to free up storage. To deal with this problem, many people resort to external drives and juggle their files continuously between the disks.
While you can manually track available storage space, we’ll show you how to check disk space on a Mac using some disk analyzer apps. They offer unique visual experiences and let you take actionable steps to free up valuable disk space.
How to Check Hard Drive Space on Mac
There are multiple ways to check the storage space on your Mac. Choose Apple menu > About This Mac and click Storage for the most basic one. Hover your pointer over the colored blocks to see what kind of content is using disk space.
For more info, open Disk Utility by searching for it with Spotlight (Cmd + Space). Select your startup volume from the left panel to check the amount of used space in the volume.
Then, click the Info button in the toolbar to show more details like Purgeable space and Available space (Purgeable + Free).
For another method, right-click the Macintosh HD disk icon on the left sidebar in Finder and select Get Info. You’ll get details on Used versus Available capacity, along with the space macOS considers purgeable.
What Is “Other” in Mac Storage?
On some Macs, you’ll notice that the Other storage category takes up a lot of disk space. This includes macOS system files, user Library folders, cache folders, and more. The majority of these folders are not normally visible.
If you mess with these directories, it could result in an unstable system, loss of data, or even prevent your Mac from booting up. Find out more about macOS folders you shouldn’t touch and how to handle them if they use a lot of space.
Why You Should Use a Mac Disk Space Analyzer
Why would you use a third-party app when there are multiple built-in ways to check the disk space on your Mac? Here are some reasons:
- Finder might incorrectly interpret hard links as another copy of the file. Although hard links take no actual disk space, Finder counts them (at least) twice as distinct files, resulting in inaccurate estimation of folder sizes.
- Your Mac’s file system, APFS, uses space-efficient clones while copying a file within the same volume. Instead of duplicating the data, it updates the metadata, and the on-disk data gets shared. Finder does not understand this mechanism and wrongly estimates free and used disk space.
- The APFS snapshot feature works differently. When Time Machine creates local snapshots, the file system is aware of the changes. But neither Finder or About This Mac shows the space taken by snapshots. As a result, it may show the System category taking a lot of space.
- In APFS, every disk is a container that can hold multiple volumes and shares the same pool of free space. If your startup disk consists of at least four separate volumes, you might notice a reduction in space available to Macintosh HD.
Now that you know why we recommend you use third-party apps, let’s explore the best Mac disk space analyzers to inspect and analyze disk space.
1. GrandPerspective
GrandPerspective is a utility app that uses a treemap structure for visualizing disk space. Upon launch, it asks you to select a folder or drive you want to analyze. A view window shows the contents in colorful rectangle blocks.
Hover your mouse pointer over a block to display the file name and size at the bottom of the view window. You can move the selection from a file to one of the folders and vice-versa by changing the focus. Press Cmd + [ and Cmd + ] to move up and down in the file hierarchy.
Click a block to lock the selection. Then, you can take action directly on that item. Press Space to take a quick look and click the Reveal button to show the selected file/folder in Finder.
What Makes GrandPerspective Unique?
- You can change the sorting criteria by creation date, extension, file type, or folder and even choose a different color palette.
- Select from the list of recently scanned folders to save time. Or select Load Scan Data to create a new view with older scanned data.
- Create new filters for refining the view and perform filter tests to mix them in different ways. You can choose from audio, hard-links, images, app package contents, and more.
- The app lets you rescan a folder with different settings. Afterward, open those results in a separate window to compare with the last results.
Download:GrandPerspective (Free)
2. OmniDiskSweeper
OmniDiskSweeper is another disk space analyzer for Mac. Upon launch, select a drive from the list and click Sweep Selected Drive. A new window opens with folders and files displayed in a column view. Once the scanning process completes, click on a folder and navigate to any file that takes up significant disk space.
The app uses different colors to group files by size and to show the status of an item. File sizes marked in green are the smallest files. As the size gets larger, this changes to dark green, dark purple, and light purple for huge files. Double-click on an item to open it in Finder.
What Does OmniDiskSweeper Offer?
- It lets you sweep external and disk drives located on your network. If you share a folder located on a PC, the app can even scan that folder.
- The bottom window provides you detailed information of a file, its size, and packages it belongs to in the file system. You should focus on files that are not part of packages.
Download:OmniDiskSweeper (Free)
3. Disk Inventory X
Disk Inventory X is a utility app that gives you an overview of the space taken by different file types. Open the File menu and select any drive or a folder you would like to analyze. Once the scanning process finishes, the app creates a graphical treemap for visualizing storage space.
The left panel helps you sort the file list based on the colors associated with a particular file type, size, number of files, and file format. Click on any element in the graph to help you identify and locate the biggest files.
Unique Features of Disk Inventory X:
- Any selection you make in the treemap graph gets synchronized with the finder-like view. This helps you find the major culprits, no matter where they are on the disk.
- The app sorts file types in descending order. Each file type has a color used in the treemap graph and throughout all open folders.
- You can view package contents, zoom into folders, and hide free space to analyze disk space in different ways.
Download:Disk Inventory X (Free)
4. DaisyDisk
DaisyDisk is a beautifully designed disk analyzer that uses a sunburst map to show you a disk overview. Upon launch, it displays all mounted volumes with different color styles. Green means that at least half of your disk is empty, while red denotes that it’s time to take action.
Click the Scan button, and within a few seconds, you’ll see the map with a brief overview on the sidebar. Place your mouse over any segment to see its contents on the sidebar. When you want to navigate to the parent folder, click in the center of the disk map.
Key Features of DaisyDisk
- The sunburst map helps you separate the huge files from smaller ones. Drill down and find out which items are consuming the most disk space.
- If you scan the disk as an administrator, it can reveal more data about files hidden on other volumes, space taken by local snapshots, and details on purgeable space.
- You can preview any file from the sidebar, send them to a collector panel, then delete them at your convenience.
Download:DaisyDisk ($9.99, free trial available)
5. NCDU
NCDU is a command line disk analyzer with a ncurses interface. It’s based on the du command, but it’s much faster and easy to use on your Mac and remote servers. To get started, you’ll need to install the app through Homebrew. To do this, see how to install Mac apps using Homebrew.
Once installed, open Terminal and type in ncdu / to start scanning your drive. Use the arrow keys to navigate across items. Then, press i to view the details of the selected item.
Unique Features of NCDU
- You can use different options to enhance the disk-related information. Navigate to the NCDU man page for more details.
- It’s easy to export all the information to an output file. You can then use file comparison apps to better analyze your disk usage.
Download:NCDU (Free)
![Check disk space on macbook air Check disk space on macbook air](/uploads/1/1/9/7/119773673/768400476.jpg)
Stay on Top of Your Mac’s Free Space
Getting accurate details about free and used space on your Macis tricky. While there are many built-in techniques, most of them are unreliable for detailed use. Use Disk Utility and these apps to inspect and analyze your storage space in detail.
For more help, make sure to check our big list of tips for creating free space on your Mac.
Read the full article: The 5 Best Free Apps to Check Disk Space Storage on Mac
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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.
How Much Disk Space Do I Have
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. 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.
![Space Space](/uploads/1/1/9/7/119773673/940325200.png)
‘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. 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.
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.
Check Disk Space On Macbook
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.
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.
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Check Disk Space For Mac Catalina
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