Mac How To Clean System Storage

/PowerMyMac /How to Clear System Storage on Mac Effectively

Macbook Clean System Storage
How To Clear System Storage Mac Mojave
Mac How To Clean System Storage Space
Clean Mac Storage

Download trello app for mac. By this time, you might have been experiencing that you are a sort of running out of system storage on your Mac and you may be looking for ways on how to clear system storage on Mac. And one of the first thing that you would do is to check out your disk space for you to see what are the things that are eating up your Mac's system storage.

And once that you check on it, you will then be surprised to see a yellow bar that refers to your System which is like occupying more of your space on your Mac. And the worst case is that you actually have no idea on what are the things that are included in your system storage.

But even after adding this amount to the original system files returned by CleanMyMac X, the total size is still a bit less than what’s returned in System Information. If cleaning the System Storage is still not enough to bring your Mac available disk space to a normal level (i.e. 20% or more), see below. You should regularly clean up unneeded files from Other Storage. Having a low free disk space on Mac usually makes the system work slowly. You should be very careful when removing service files. Deleting important system service files might cause damage to your Mac. This article will explain how to find and safely remove unneeded files from.

TIPS:

System storage consists of two type of files: (a) system files that are necessary for operating the core system of the device and (b) temporary system files: system settings, backups, logs, caches and other files. To check your device’s current “System” Storage size, on your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings General iPhone or iPad. Launch CleanMyMac X. Choose System Junk in the sidebar. How to clean up system storage on Mac with CleanMyMac X: Download CleanMyMac X for free here. Run the app and go to System Junk.

That is why in this post, we are going to show you how to clear system storage on Mac and what are the things that contain your system storage on your Mac so that you will have better knowledge on what are the things that you should be removed from your Mac.

Article GuidePart 1. What Dose System Storage Mean on Mac?Part 2. How Do I Free up System Storage on My Mac Automatically?Part 3. How to Clear System Storage on Mac Manually?Part 4. In Conclusion

Part 1. What Dose System Storage Mean on Mac?

What Is System Storage on Mac?

The files that actually your system storage of your Mac contains are all of those junks that you actually do not need on your Mac. This can be your System Cache, Application Cache, System Logs, User Logs, and more.

Why is my Mac system storage so big? These files are stored on your Mac every time that you are making a download, or saving new files on your Mac. This can be your email attachments, iTunes movie, and more. Some of these files are saving large files that is why it can take up your system storage quickly.

Now you know what is system storage, but how to clear system storage on Mac so that you can free up more space to save other files you desired?

Part 2. How Do I Free up System Storage on My Mac Automatically?

There are methods to clear system storage manually we will talk about in the next part, but they surely take more time and effort as you will be needing to go through your Mac one by one.

However, there is a better way for you to free up system storage Mac. You will be able to clear your Mac’s system storage in no time.

All the methods on how to clear system storage on Mac that we have included in the next part can all be done just by one program – the iMyMac PowerMyMac. This program is considered to be a Mac system storage cleanup tool that you can use to reduce system storage on Mac.

How to clear system storage on mac high sierra

This tool will surely help you in removing all of the junks that you have on your Mac allowing you to have more space and speed up the performance of your Mac.

Using the iMyMac PowerMyMac will allow you to choose all the junks or files that you no longer need on your Mac and clean them.

It does not only give you the cleaning functionality but it will also help you to decide on which of your files would you want to remove or not. So you will be assured that none of your important files will be deleted without you knowing it. So how to get rid of system storage on Mac with PowerMyMac?

Here is how to clear system storage on Mac with PowerMyMac.

Download and Install iMyMac PowerMyMac
Launch the iMyMac Program
Select A Module
Choose the Option for Cleaning
Scan for System Junk
View the Result
Choose the Files to Delete
Cleaning Process

Let's discuss the detailed steps below:

Step 1. Download and Install iMyMac PowerMyMac

First is that you have to download the iMyMac PowerMyMac on your Mac. You can have the program downloaded from the official website at www. imymac.com. Once that you have downloaded the program, go ahead and install it on your Mac.

Step 2. Launch the iMyMac Program

Go ahead and launch the program. On the main interface of the program, you will be able to see your Mac’s system status. You will see your Disk usage, Memory usage, and your RAM usage. With that, you will have an idea of what is happening on your Mac.

Step 3. Select A Module

In the same interface, you will be able to see different modules at the left side that allow you to clean up system storage on Mac. They're Master Scan, Large and Old Files, Duplicate Finder, Uninstaller, Privacy, and Toolkit.

Step 4. Choose the Option for Cleaning

From that list, go ahead and choose “Master Scan”. This is one of the options that you can use for you to be able to clear your Mac’s system storage. This is where you will be able to clear out your System Cache, Application Cache, System Logs, User Logs, and Localization.

Step 5. Scan for System Junk

After that, PowerMyMac will then ask you to scan all of the junks that you have on your Mac. You can do this by clicking on the scan button. From there, wait until the program is done with the scanning process.

Step 6. View the Result

Once that the scanning process is complete, you can now view the result.

Step 7. Choose the Files to Delete

From there, PowerMyMac will then show you all the files that it was able to scan. All you have to do from here is to mark all the files that you would want to clean.

Step 8. Cleaning Process

After choosing all the files that you would want to clean, go ahead and click on the “Clean” button. This will then start to remove all of your system junks from your Mac. PowerMyMac will then start to clean up all the files that you have selected earlier. From here, all you have to do is to wait until the program is done with the cleaning process.

So there you have the easy way on how to clear system storage on Mac with just a few clicks using PowerMyMac. You can also try the other seven options that the program has under the Cleaner module for you to be able to clean up other things like duplicate photos on your Mac. This will then boost the performance of your Mac and at the same time, you will be able to gain more of your system storage back.

Part 3. How to Clear System Storage on Mac Manually?

Method #1. Clean Up Your Mac's Cache

Caches are one of the biggest culprits as to why your Mac’s system storage is getting full. So for you to be able to delete the system storage on Mac, go ahead and clean up your Mac’s cache:

Launch Finder on your Mac.
Then go ahead and click on “Go to folder”.
From there, go ahead and type in ~/Library/Caches then remove all the files that are taking up most space.
After that, go ahead and click on “Go to folder”.
Then type in /Library/Cache and then once more, go ahead and remove all the files that are taking up most space.

Method #2. Remove Your Old iTunes Library Backups

Whenever you make a backup on your iTunes, the more backup file is stored on your Mac. And with that, these backups that you no longer use will be piled up on your Mac and this can cause your system storage to get full as well.

So, for you to remove system storage on Mac, go ahead and remove all those old iTunes Backup that you no longer need:

Macbook Clean System Storage

Go ahead and launch Finder on your Mac.
Then go ahead and click on the “Go” button located at the menu bar.
Then choose “Go to Folder”.
Then go ahead and enter the following: ~/Music/iTunes/Previous iTunes Libraries
Once done, you will be able to see all of your iTunes back-ups. The date they were made is also indicated so you can go ahead and choose your old backups and delete them.

Method #3. Take Out All Unused Applications

This method is one of the most common ways on how to clear system storage on Mac. All you have to do is to go through all of the applications that you have on your Mac and sort out which are the ones that you no longer use and uninstall them. You just have to make sure that you are removing them correctly and not just by merely dragging them over to your Trash bin.

You have to make sure that when you uninstall any application on your Mac that you no longer need, you should also find all the files or folders that are associated with that application. If not, then you are still leaving data behind and that will still eat up space on your Mac.

Method #4. Clean Up Your Photo Library

Photos are one of the most common data that we have on our Mac. And keeping them is keeping memories. However, these photos actually take up more space on your Mac’s system storage. So you have to make sure that you sort things out.

So how to clear space on Mac system? You can delete all the photos that you think you no longer need and as well as those photos that have more than one copy. You also have the option to transfer them over to another hard drive or USB drive for you to free up space on your Mac.

Method #5. Delete Any Old iOS Backup

Just like your iTunes backup, the old iOS backup that you have on your Mac is also one of the reasons as to why your Mac’s system storage is getting full. That is why it is a good idea that you should also remove your old iOS backup from your Mac. Let's check the steps on how to clear system storage on Mac below:

Go ahead and launch Finder on your Mac.
After that, go ahead and click on the “Go” button located at the menu bar.
From there, go ahead and choose “Go to folder”.
Then once that you are in, go ahead and type the following: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

Once that you have opened the window, go ahead and choose all the old iOS backup that you have on your Mac. Dates of the backup are already indicated so that you will be able to know which of them are the old ones.

Part 4. In Conclusion

As you can see, it is an easy thing to do on how to clear system storage on Mac. Though doing this manually will take more time and effort. But all thanks to the iMyMac PowerMyMac, you will be saving more of your time and effort as it will only need a few clicks to do the cleaning process.

Make it a habit of cleaning up your Mac every now and then so that you will not be able to experience having full storage and a slow Mac. Remember, cleaning up all the files and other things that you no longer need will sure be a great help for the performance of your Mac.

Last Tip: If you want to reduce the “system” storage size on your iPhone or iPad, just turn to the provided link to check how to free up system storage on iPhone.

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What's taking up space

Have you ever seen this pop up on your Mac?

It’s frustrating! This occurs because the memory your Mac has is full. It may be saved movies, large documents, mail attachments, or just plain cached items from apps like iMessage that are taking up space on your Mac.

Not only is the popup message annoying, diminished disk space on your Mac can prevent you from being productive. Mail attachments or other files may not save to your Mac, all because you’ve got a bunch of old stuff cluttering your memory system. It can even cause apps to quit, or fail to load.

Low disk space isn’t always an 'old Mac' problem, either. While it’s true older Macs typically have less memory available to them, even modern Macs can get cluttered. That’s why it’s important to know how to clear space on Mac hard drives.

How to check storage on Mac

Here’s how to check the storage on your Mac using Apple’s method:

From the menu bar on your Mac, click the Apple logo on the top left
Select 'About this Mac'
Select the 'Storage' option in the new window

This is a basic way to check how much storage is being occupied on your Mac. Another good tip is to check your disk usage with iStat Menus. It’s an app that allows you to monitor – in real time – how your Mac is performing. iStat Menus lives in your Mac’s menu bar, running in the background until you need it. Each of its monitoring services has a menu bar icon, including one for memory.

When you click on the iStat Menus icon, it shows you exactly what’s happening with your disk space. When your Mac is running slowly, it’s possible an app is taking up more resources than you would like. iStat Menus shows you which app is to blame.

How to optimize storage using macOS

If you’re using macOS Sierra or later, you can benefit from Apple’s Optimize Storage functionality. It allows you to store files in iCloud, renewing your access to these files whenever you need. Here’s how to use the Apple way of managing storage on Mac:

Repeat the steps above to check the available and used storage on your Mac
Click on 'Manage' to access the storage management window
Enable the 'Empty Trash Automatically' and 'Reduce Clutter' options to remove files you deleted, and large files you might no longer need.
Select 'Store in iCloud' to move your desktop file and docs, photos, and messages to iCloud. You can choose what file types to transfer.

Go to the Optimize Storage menu and choose from three options that help you use storage more cleverly. You can select to remove watched files from your Apple TV app (or iTunes if you use macOS Mojave and earlier), download only recent attachments, or not to delete attachments at all.

Move Files to the Cloud

iCloud is Apple’s preferred method for storing files and folders in the cloud. It makes your data available across devices, and is now the default service for system backups.

Apple gives you 5GB free iCloud storage, but it’s just enough for an iPhone backup and a few gigabytes of pictures. It’s almost never enough for the average user.

Activating it on your Mac will help save room in your system memory, though. It moves the actual storage of files to the cloud, and ann image of those files on your Mac. It also compresses images for optimized storage on the Mac, but keeps them available in the Photos app.

If you have a different cloud storage system you prefer, CloudMounter makes it easy to back your Mac’s files up to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Mega, Amazon S3, and other services. It lives in your Mac’s Finder app and menu bar, and makes moving files from your Mac to the cloud as easy as dragging and dropping them into CloudMounter, and directly into your connected cloud account.

Manage large files and archive data

You can find and delete large files on your Mac directly. Here’s how:

From the menu bar on your Mac, click the Apple logo on the top left
Select 'About this Mac'
Select the 'Storage' option in the new window
Select 'Manage'
Select 'Documents'
On the right side of the window, click the 'Size' column header to show the largest files first

We prefer using CleanMyMac X’s file system manager. Here’s how to use it:

Open CleanMyMac X on your Mac
Select the 'Large & Old Files' module on the right side of the window
Select 'Scan'

This is a smarter way of discerning which files are taking up space on your Mac – especially if you don’t need access to those files often. It shows you which types of files they are, how old they are, and lets you delete batches of files by size.

Find and delete duplicate files

When you download an app, it usually has associated files it stores on your Mac. That’s normal; duplicates of those files aren’t. Downloading an app more than once, or even updating an app, can cause it to duplicate existing files on your Mac.

You may also download files more than once. Your Mac is smart, but doesn’t bother checking to see if you already have a file before downloading it again. There’s no clean way to check for duplicates on your Mac. Apple would ask that you look for duplicated filenames in your storage, and delete one of them.

A better way is to use Gemini, an innovative cleanup app built to help you find and eliminate duplicate files on your hard drive. Even better, it can identify near-identical files as well, giving you an easy way to delete the slightly shaky versions of your vacation snaps in one convenient window.

Here’s how to detect and delete duplicate files with Gemini:

Open Gemini on your Mac
Click the ‘plus’ icon, or drag a folder to the app
Select 'Review Results' to delete files manually, or 'Smart Cleanup' to allow Gemini to delete all duplicates

Remove temporary files

Your macOS, your apps, and your browser all use a shortcut called 'caching' to run faster. But over time, those caches fill up with useless information that bogs down your computer.

Why is it important to clear the cache? The short answer is that caches litter and bloat Macs. They aren't just a byproduct of browser history — most systems and apps, such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Mail and Photos, create huge amounts of temporary files that linger in the background. These caches of data are essentially just junk files, and they can be safely deleted to free up storage space.

When it comes to cleaning a Mac, you have two options: delete files manually or get a cleaner app to help you. Clearing your cache files with CleanMyMac is the quickest, safest way we know.

Get rid of hidden trash

Another source of system-slowing junk is email and text attachments. Even if you don’t download an attachment, your desktop mail client holds onto a version so that it can show you previews and access the file more easily. 'But I deleted that email!' you say. Often that’s not enough—these downloads can hang around long after the original email is gone.

It’s possible to clean them out manually. You can use the macOS Optimize Storage feature we’ve described above. Choose what exactly you want to be removed — mail attachments, watched video, or both. Still, CleanMyMac X is a much faster option to clean up the trash on Mac. Here’s how to use CleanMyMac X to empty all trash folders on your Mac:

Open CleanMyMac X on your Mac
Select 'Trash Bins' from the left hand side
Select 'Scan' at the bottom of the window
Select 'Review Details' to see what CleanMyMac X found, or 'Empty' to delete all trash files on your Mac

Here’s a little trick for you: If you want to be sure you keep the needed files and attachments at your fingertips, use Trickster app to remember them for you. Configure your file tracking inside the app and make sure you’re never confused about what’s stored on your Mac. The important stuff is always in Trickster.

If you want a clutter-free email client, Canary Mail is your perfect choice. The app not only automatically clear away the trash, but also allows to automatically unsubscribe from tons of mailing lists — so that you stop receiving the clutter.

Empty downloads and trash bin

Your Mac’s ‘download’ folder is where most apps, like Safari or Chrome, dump files. It’s also the default folder for email downloads. And it can get really full.

Many of us simply download a file, access it, then forget about it once we’re done with it. The downloads folder can get chock full of files we no longer need, or want. It’s smart to comb through it ever so often and delete files you don’t want, or move them to cloud storage containers using CloudMounter.

Some downloads are hidden, taking up even more space. And the further back you go the more useless these documents are. Do you really need to keep a text file labelled 'Christmas shopping list 2015' or 'Dream holiday Summer 2016?' Probably not. Free up some much-needed space on your Mac and delete as many of these old download files as possible, and remember to come back and tidy it up every few months.

CleanMyMac can help for sure. But also, consider switching your email client to Unibox, which automatically reduces excessive downloads.

AppleInsider described Unibox as 'the best client we tried,' and Macworld said it is 'A welcome, fresh new approach to email on the Mac.' Unibox groups emails by sender and includes an attachment list, so you can quickly find what you need, then delete those documents out of the Downloads folder.

Uninstall unused apps

Have you ever downloaded an app, then stopped using it? We all have! Those apps occupy memory on your Mac – sometimes a lot of space, too.

CleanMyMac X has a handy 'Uninstaller' module which makes it easy to identify and remove all unwanted apps from your Mac. It even deletes associated files, so all traces of an unused app are taken away.

Get rid of old backups

Something else that comes as a surprise to most Mac users is just how many backups your system carries at any given time. Copying and pasting, and the duplicate feature make it too easy to replicate your work in different folders.

At the same time, you’ve probably got dozens of cached backups of files and documents that are invisible but taking up more space than you’d want. Like Time Machine backups. Every time you use Apple’s built-in backup utility, it creates local snapshots that are stored locally on your Mac. This may result in up to 100 GB Time Machine clutter on your hard drive.

CleanMyMac will find old backups for you and remove them in a click. In its 'Maintenance' module, you can select 'Time Machine Snapshot Thinning' to automatically remove older Time Machine backups you no longer need.

How To Clear System Storage Mac Mojave

But also, switch your backup client to Get Backup Pro to backup only those units you want (for Mac). If you need to quickly transfer files or folders to another server, use a backup sync app ChronoSync Express.

Mac How To Clean System Storage Space

If you want to quickly backup your iOS device on Mac — for instance, before hard resetting or factory resetting iPhone — you can use AnyTrans. You can even schedule instant backups to never worry about losing data when syncing your iOS device with Mac.

Get rid of desktop clutter

Clean Mac Storage

Organizing your Mac desktop doesn’t directly help your memory woes, but it can help you find files faster and avoid multiple downloads of the same file.

Apple’s chosen method is called Stacks. A simple right-click on your desktop brings up a menu; selecting 'Use Stacks' puts your files into folders by type. Images, screenshots, and other files will be held in expandable folders, decluttering your desktop for good. Future downloads will all fall into those categories, too.

You may prefer Spotless, an app that affords you far more control over how your desktop is organized. You can set rules for organization, and tuck files into other folders on your Mac by dragging and dropping into one location. Spotless takes care of the hard work for you!

You deserve a faster Mac

By eliminating both hard disk and desktop clutter, you’ll improve your Mac’s performance as well as your own workflow. Plus, Setapp’s decluttering, disk cleanup, and analysis apps help you complete what would be a tedious chore in just a few clicks. There’s no telling how much time and effort you’ll save by giving yourself (and your Mac) a break.

There are plenty of great ways to manage your Mac’s memory without rushing out to buy a new computer. We’ve shown you the best ways here!

All the apps we mentioned in this article are available for free during a seven day trial of Setapp, the world’s best suite of productivity apps for the Mac. In addition to ClanMyMac X, Spotless, Gemini, CloudMounter, Get Backup Pro, and ChronoSync Express, you’ll have unlimited access to Setapp’s full catalog of nearly 200 Mac apps. When your free trial is over, Setapp is only $9.99 per month. Give it a try today!

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