Freeing up disk space on a full hard drive can be difficult, especially when it’s full of small files. However, there are some excellent tools for macOS that let you find the files taking up the most space and delete the ones you don’t need. My library is taking up space on my MacBook Air mainly because I use Apple Music and the library takes up space if I use it on my MacBook. Some files are stored on the mac. When I went to my iTunes Music folder in Finder I found what was taking up all the space. It was a movie I purchased on my MacBook Air. One movie was taking up 7GB of data. Other data taking up to much space on mac, can't figure out what this other data is. IPhone photos phantom storage (13 photos take up 13 gb).
- What Is Taking Up Space On My Mac Hard Drive
- What Is Taking Up Space On My Mac
- What Is Taking Up Space On My Macbook
- To find out how much space is available on your Mac: Open the Apple menu (the Apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen). Click 'About this Mac'. Click 'Storage'. This overview will show what categories are taking up the most space, as well as how much space is available on your Mac.
- But in the macOS storage manager, it appears as if the 37GB is locally (taking up storage space) - second screenshot (macos shows that the files that are taking up more space locally are the files that are on my OneDrive and are not locally on the macbook pro). Locally I have close to 0MB of documents.
When your device’s hard drive begins to fill up, you’ll start wondering what’s taking up all the available space, and that’s when “Storage sense” will come in handy.
On Windows 10, many people know Storage sense as a feature to free up hard drive space. While this is true, it’s also a tool that you can use to analyze the content of a drive and figure out how space is being utilized to know where to start cleaning up files that you can’t remove using Storage sense.
In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to use Storage sense to understand how your PC storage is being utilized on Windows 10.
Find out what files are taking up space on Windows 10
To see the files taking up space on the hard drive on Windows 10 version 1903, 1909, 2004 or later, use these steps:
- Open Settings on Windows 10.
- Click on System.
- Make zip file mac. Click on Storage.
- Under the “Local Disk (C:)” section, you’ll be able to see what’s taking up space on the main hard drive.
- Click the Show more categories option to view the storage usage from other file types.
- (Optional) Under the “More stora settings” section, click the View storage usage on other drives option.
- If you have multiple hard drives, select the one that you want to see its storage usage.
- See storage usage for the other drive.
Once you complete the steps, you’ll understand what files are taking up most of the space on your computer.
Find out what files are taking up space on Windows 10 version 1809 or earlier
To see how the hard drive space is being used on your computer on Windows 10 version 1809 or earlier releases, use these steps:
- Open Settings.
- Click on System.
- Click on Storage.
- Under the “Local storage” section, click the drive to see usage.
While on “Storage usage,” you can see what’s taking up space on the hard drive. You can click each item to get more details and take additional actions.
For example, if you notice that apps are taking most of the space, you can click the item to access “Apps & games,” where you can see and uninstall those items that are wasting space and you don’t need.
In the case that temporary files are the items consuming most of your storage, then you can use this guide to quickly free up space.
Storage usage offers an overview of virtually everything that’s stored on the hard drive, including system files, apps, games, temporary files, and those files stored in the Documents, OneDrive, Pictures, Music, Videos, and files from other people if you’re sharing your device with other users.
Alternatively, you can also use third-party tools, such as WinDirStat, to see what files are filling out the hard drive, so you can take action accordingly.
Every Mac user will experience the message “Your startup disk is almost full” at one time or another. Understanding what “startup disk is full” actually means is the first important step before you can fix this issue.
What if my Mac’s Startup Disk is full?
The answer to this question is easy. When your startup disk is full you will experience lower performance on your Mac. Your hard drive should never get more than 85 percent full, especially when it is a startup disk.
Why is my Startup Disk full?
First, we need to take a closer look to see where all of your space has gone:
Note: If you are running an older version of OS X you may have to first click “More Info…” and then “Storage.” |
Via download mac. Take a look at your hard drive:
You can see the current amount of storage that is used and how much is available on your hard drive.
What can you do when your startup disk is full?
So, now that we know how full your startup disk is, we need to talk about how to fix it. Let’s take a closer look at your disk space to see exactly what is causing your startup disk to be so full.
There is a fantastic tool available that is highly recommended called Disk Map in Cleaner One Pro. This tool lets you specify a folder to scan and displays the results in the form of a pie chart. You can easily find out exactly what is taking up disk space and gain control of every single folder on your Mac.
If your Mac’s startup disk is full and you get a warning message from your Mac system, then this is a serious indication that you have to make space on your Mac startup disk. The solution is to free up disk space. To make more space on your startup disk you have several options. You can:
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You would probably delete files and applications from your Mac or even install an internal secondary hard drive. But a better solution is to install an optimization application that manages the startup disk space.
The following sections describe how to handle various issues that affect your Mac’s storage space.
1. Clear Cache Files
Cache files are files that help your Mac run programs more efficiently. However, over time, these cache files start to take up a lot of unnecessary space on your hard disk. Periodically removing them can help free up space, but don’t worry, your Mac will recreate new ones as necessary after you restart your Mac.
Make presentation on mac. Deleting cache files manually is generally safe for your Mac, but unless you know which files can be safely deleted, it might be better not to manually delete items in this folder without knowing what they are.
Cleaner One Pro is a utility that safely cleans up these kinds of files (and pretty much everything else on this list). Cleaner One Pro safely cleans up system caches with just a few clicks.
2. Remove Unwanted Applications
Removing old, unused applications is a great way to get some extra space on your startup disk. Go through your applications folder and get rid of all the apps you rarely use. But make sure you remove them correctly, don’t just drag them to the Trash. If you do, you’ll leave behind lots of leftover files that may not be obvious to you. And that’s exactly the problem you’re trying to resolve.
There is another way you can use Cleaner One Pro to completely remove any application. Just launch Cleaner One Pro, click Uninstaller, select your application, and then click Uninstall. You won’t have to search all over for unnecessary files that are left behind when moving an application to Trash. It’s very easy and saves you lots of time. It will also detect leftover files of apps when you manually remove them.
3. Clean Up your Photo Library
Photos, photos, photos! Talk about taking up a lot of space! First and foremost, select only what you can get rid of, like image copies and maybe some photos that were mistakenly taken. You know, ones of the ground or something?
Once you’ve cleaned up your own picture files, it’s time to get rid of the files your system created. Here’s how to locate the cache:
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You should now see a lot more folders in your Finder window. The photos cache can be found in these folders. It is not recommended to delete files unless you know which files are safe to remove and which files should not be removed. Deleting the wrong file can compromise the performance of Photos, which is why we highly suggest that you use Cleaner One Pro to clear the cache. It only removes files that are safe to delete, never a critical file or important image.
You may also have many duplicate photos on your Mac. Cleaner One Procan scan for and detect duplicate photos on your Mac not only photos that are exactly same, but also those that are highly similar. You can get a preview of these duplicate files and decide which ones to remove or keep.
4. Clean up your Downloads, Movies, and Music folders
Take a closer look at these three folders. You’d be surprised at how many downloads can accumulate when you aren’t paying attention. Clean out anything you don’t need and organize the rest. It will take a load off your mind knowing that there is no unnecessary files there.
Cleaner One Pro offers a simple way to identify Big Files on your Mac. In just one click, it scans your folder and lists the biggest files on your Mac. With this tool, you can easily track them down. No more threats to your SSD storage!
5. Empty the Trash (No, we’re not joking…)
Seriously. It may sound incredibly basic, but it could free up a surprising amount of space. It’s easy to forget. What you may not know is that when you delete something, your Mac doesn’t remove it from the hard disk— it just moves it to the Trash. Plus, you’ve probably deleted way more than you realize, and all that could be sitting in the Trash, wasting space. So, you can get rid of all that junk by emptying the Trash. Here’s how:
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And, the easiest step is done.
Full Startup Disk is no problem with Cleaner One Pro
This is an incredible utility when it comes to cleaning your startup disk, which means that your Mac can run faster and avoid that awful “startup disk full” error. It scans your entire Mac and helps you find gigabytes of junk. Most of it, you wouldn’t even recognize! Download Cleaner One Pro now to save yourself tons of time and trouble cleaning manually.
What Is Taking Up Space On My Mac Hard Drive
If you have been around the Mac lately and you know the hassle when the startup disk is full, then Cleaner One Pro can help make space on your startup disk right away. It is probably the handiest Mac cleaner you will ever find for your Mac.
What Is Taking Up Space On My Mac
Get ready to say goodbye to the “Your startup disk is almost full” message today!