#Mac os x clean disk space install
#Mac os x clean disk space update
#Mac os x clean disk space manual
#Mac os x clean disk space upgrade
#Mac os x clean disk space software

One you’ve installed an app, you no longer need the installer, and you can delete it – assuming you can always download the installer again if you need to reinstall the app. DMG files, as those are all likely previously used installer files from old versions of Flash, assorted plug-ins or even some quirky Windows installer files you managed to download. This allows for exceptionally fast housecleaning, because you can quickly and easily see what’s duplicated, what’s junk and what’s worth keeping.Īnother easy thing to delete are. Best of all: tap the Down arrow, and QuickView will automatically show you the next file down the list. QuickView allows you to see the file without taking the time to launch any apps or having to open each document. Here’s a useful Finder tip: When you’re looking at your Downloads window, or any window for that matter, single-click on a file to select it, then tap the space bar. End result: space hog! Take some time to go through your Downloads folder and weed out all those duplicate files. Many of our customers aren’t sure how the Downloads folder works, so ultimately they just re-download a file when they want to see it again. Those files are all the exact same file, only I downloaded it fifteen times. One thing you may notice in your Downloads folder is a recurrence of similarly named and dated files like you see above with the Statement_201406.pdf sequence, with a hyphen and number appended to the end of each file name. Next up, move all the files you want to keep to their appropriate folders (Documents, Photos, Videos, etc.), and you’ll have a clean Downloads folder for the next time you do your storage capacity maintenance. That said, if you’re unsure if you need a something personal for later use, just keep it. Note that these are all files you downloaded, so it’s safe to assume you can delete anything in the folder without disrupting your Mac’s stability. Look at the larger files first for potential deletion, as deleting those will yield the most space recovered. If you click at the top of the Size column, the Downloads folder will sort by file size, with the largest items at the top.

#Mac os x clean disk space manual

Cleaning out this folder is a manual process, and could take some time to wade through if you have hundreds of files in there, but there are a few quick things you can do to reclaim space without having to open each individual file to see what it is. On many (if not most) of the Macs we work on, we find that the Downloads folder has become a dumping ground of old installer files, duplicate photo collections, and multiple copies of documents that were re-downloaded from the web or mail applications. Here’s a potential sprawling mess of a folder that a surprising number of users are oblivious to: your Downloads folder.

#Mac os x clean disk space update

That being the case, it’s worth running Monolingual again after a system update or after a big batch of app updates if you’re hard pressed for storage space.

#Mac os x clean disk space software

Something else to keep in mind is that the deleted languages get reinstalled every time you update your system software or individual apps. While that’s not all that much space in the world of 3TB drives, if you’re living with a 128GB MacBook Air, each GB counts. Monolingual’s initial run can reclaim as much as 2 gigs of data if you have a bunch of apps installed.

All you do is select the languages you want to delete making sure to keep English (or any languages that you use) and then click Remove. Solution: delete those extraneous languages using the free app Monolingual ( download link). Those extra languages, many of which you’ve never even heard of, are all unnecessary and take up space on your hard drive.

#Mac os x clean disk space install

This is an easy one: chances are you’re only using your Mac in one language, maybe two – you’d be surprised to learn that OS X and individual apps install a bunch more languages than that. As with all our guides, and Mac ownership in general, it’s best to make sure you have a complete backup before you start deleting things, to insulate yourself from any accidental deletions. It’s time to recover some space on your drive with a few relatively simple maintenance activities. So here we are yet again with our storage filling up. iPhone 4K videos can easily be multiple gigabytes in size, and we’re all storing more photos than we were seven years ago. Of course, as SSD capacity has increased, so has the amount of data many of us are storing.

#Mac os x clean disk space upgrade

Now most people can afford the storage they need in Apple’s base models, and those with the means and the need can go as far as dropping an extra $2,200 to upgrade their 16″ MacBook Pro to a previously unimaginable 8TB of storage.

In is nascent years, abundant flash storage was prohibitively expensive. Since this post was first written in 2013, solid-state storage has become ubiquitous in all of Apple’s laptops and a relatively affordable option in their iMacs. This post was originally written in 2013, it’s updated here to reflect new apps, new settings and services.