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.
- Apple Hard Drive External
- Apple 2tb Hard Drive
- Apple Hard Drive Space Analyzer
- Format Apple Hard Drive
- Apple 1tb External Hard Drive
- Caches are temporary service files created by applications and system processes.
- 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.
- May 09, 2019 The Best Mac External Hard Drive and SSD Deals This Week. WD My Passport 5TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive — $117.99 (List Price $149.99) WD Elements 4TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard.
* If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.
Here's how to split your Mac hard drive into multiple partitions or volumes so that you can run more than one OS on your Mac, or divide up your Mac so different users can have their own space.
Find out how much storage is available on your Mac
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.
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.
![Apple Apple](https://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2014/03/hard_disk_space_mac_hero.jpg?itok=FvJ_X396)
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. Software to read mac files on pc. 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
Apple watch download. 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
Apple Hard Drive External
- 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.
Apple 2tb Hard Drive
Is the hard drive on your Mac constantly telling you that it is getting full? Are you running out of space to save your photos, music, videos, and other important files? Having to constantly manage your drive to make room for new items can be a time consuming and frustrating affair. But if you’re like many of us, chances are there are a lot of unnecessary files cluttering up your drive that can be removed. Here are five tips for reclaiming hard drive space on your Mac that may help you avoid running low on storage.
Clear the Downloads Folder
Whenever you download a file from the Internet it is automatically saved to the Downloads folder. Over time, that folder can accumulate a lot unnecessary stuff that can take up a great deal of storage space, including photos, videos, and application installers. From time to time, it is a good idea to clear out this folder, as it not only helps you save hard drive space, but it makes it easier to find new things that you’ve recently downloaded. By default, you’ll find a shortcut to the Downloads folder on the dock, but if you removed it from that location, the actual folder itself can also be found in your Home folder. Open it up and drag everything inside to the trash, then empty the trash to remove it forever.
Remove Unnecessary Photos and Video Files
Most text documents don’t take up much space on our hard drives, so deleting them doesn’t accomplish much. But photos and video files are a completely different story, as they can be quite large, and accumulate quickly. If you’re looking to reclaim hard drive space, it is often a good idea to review the photos and videos that you are storing on your computer to see what can be removed. Often times we have dozens – if not hundreds – of photos that are virtually duplicates of one another, or simply hold little or no value. Removing those items from our photo libraries is a good way to quickly free up storage space for use elsewhere. It is also a good idea to review the video files that are being stored in iMovie or other editing software, as removing those files will generally create more room too.
Uninstall Unused Applications
In addition to photos and video taking up a great deal of space, application software can quickly fill your drive as well. From time to time it is a good idea to review the contents of your Applications folder and see if there are any items that you can remove. For instance, Apple now ships every Mac with a copy of iWork preinstalled, but if you don’t want – or need – the software, you can remove it to help save space. You may also discover a few other programs that you had forgotten that you installed, and don’t ever use. These are also prime candidates for removal too.
Delete iPhone and iPad Apps
If you frequently plug your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch into your computer, it will sync any new applications that are found on those devices, and store a copy of it locally in iTunes. This can be useful if you quickly need to restore an app when you don’t have access to the Internet, but for the most part, those files are just taking up space. Since all of your apps are stored in the Cloud anyway, you can free up extra room on your drive by removing them. To do so, simply launch iTunes and click on the “My Apps” tab at the top of the screen. It will show you a list of all the iOS apps on your computer and allow you to select them all so that they can be easily deleted. It should be noted that iTunes only moves the files to the trash on your Mac, and to permanently remove them you’ll also need to empty the trash as well. Similarly, you can also free up hard drive space by automatically backing up your iOS devices to iCloud.
Use External Storage
One great way to free up space on your Mac’s hard drive is to use an external drive to save files that you want to keep, but don’t necessarily need access to on a regular basis. External drives are now very inexpensive, provide lots of extra storage, and are a safe and secure place to keep important documents. A network drive is also a great way to share files with other computers on your home network, and makes a great back-up solution for use with Time Machine.