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.
* 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
Dec 20, 2019 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.
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.
- Nov 29, 2017 How to download older Mac OS X versions via the App Store. If you once had purchased an old version of Mac OS X from the App Store, open it and go to the Purchased tab. There you’ll find all the installers you can download. However, it doesn’t always work that way.
- Click the Storage tab in the toolbar to see how much disk space you have available. (On OS X Mountain Lion or Mavericks, click the More info button, then click Storage.).
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.
Jun 08, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
Every time you delete any file or document on the Mac hard drive it creates a free space. This free space can be utilized for storing other data. However, if this free space doesn’t get overwritten, then it can be used to retrieve the previous data that it held using a data recovery tool. Now, if you are selling the hard drive of your Mac and don’t want the person buying it to recover the documents that you deleted then you must erase free space on Mac hard drive. However, make sure that the erasure is done in a secure manner without damaging the hard disk.
Part 1: How to Erase Free Space on Hard Drives in Mac OS X
You will have to use the Disk Utility app provided by your Mac OS X to erase free space on Mac hard drive. It offers you the chance to overwrite on the free space left on your hard disk so that no one is able to retrieve the data that was previously stored on it. However, do keep in mind that this method for free space erasure is only applicable for traditional hard drive and won’t work on SSD versions that utilize flash memory.
- The initial step is to start the Disk Utility app. This app is located in the Utilities menu which can itself be found in the Applications menu. You can use the Launchpad for launching this app as well.
- If the hard drive whose free spaces you want to erase is an external hard disk then you would have to connect it to the Mac and then select it from the menu located on the left-hand side of the screen.
- Click the Erase free space button after opening the Erase tab.
- Pick the level of erasure you want and the click the Erase free space to start the overwriting process on the hard drive’s vacant spaces.
- There are three different erasure options available to you which are Fastest, Secure and Most Secure. Fastest option overwrites the free space just once while Secure and Most Secure options do that three and seven times respectively.
- Select any of the erasure options that you like and then click the Erase free space button.
Part 2: How to Secure Erase Free Space on Hard Drives in Windows
Although the Disk Utility app of Mac OS X can erase free space on Mac hard drive, there is a chance that it might not be able to do so in a secure manner. To make sure that the erasing of the free space is completed without any damage to the hard drive then using a data erasure tool is the best option. There are various such tools available on the internet but the best one among them is Stellar BitRaser for File. It has the capability to secure erase free space on hard drives and ensure that the deleted data can’t be recovered.
- Completely erases the data, ensuring that it can’t be recovered using any data recovery tool.
- Supports multiple data erase algorithms which can be used for erasing data.
- Provides a search feature for quickly search the file or document which needs to be erased from the hard drive.
- Offers the chance to erase the chat history of messaging services like Yahoo and Skype.
- Capable of erasing all traces of internet activity including the internet history maintained by popularly used browsers.
Step 1: Download Stellar BitRaser for File on your Windows PC, take out the hard drive on Mac and connect it to Windows computer.
Find Disk Space On Mac
Step 2: Click the 'Erase Unused Space' option on the left, to select your Mac hard drive.
Step 3: Selected your Mac hard drive and click 'Erase Now' button to process.
Step 4: After a while, the Mac hard drive erase complete and you can reboot the system.
While other data erasure tools take several passes to erase the free space on a hard drive, Stellar BitRaser only requires a single pass to erase it permanently. However, if you feel the need to take another pass then you can take two more passes. This will ensure beyond doubt that the free space on your Mac hard drive is erase forever.
In order for you to use Stellar BitRaser for File to erase free space on Mac hard drive, you need to take it out from your Mac first. The reason for this is that this data erasure tool isn’t compatible with Mac OS X and works only on Windows. So, you need to connect the Mac hard disk to a Windows PC before you erase the free spaces on it using Stellar BitRaser for File.
Low Disk Space On Mac
In short, deleting data on the Mac hard drive doesn’t securely erase it. It just creates free space which can be used for recovering the deleted data using a data recovery tool. So, you need to erase free space on Mac hard drive. The Disk Utility app of Mac OS X can be used for erasure of these free spaces. However, for secure erasure, you need to make use of a reliable data erasure tool like Stellar BitRaser for File. It can erase the vacant spaces on your Mac hard drive and make sure that the data that they contained previously can’t be retrieved using any professional Mac data recovery tool.
Mac Os X Disk Space App Download
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