The Optimized Storage features of your Mac help you save storage 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.
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- Remove unwanted third-party apps from your Mac using “Uninstaller” feature of this utility. Before clean-up, the free Mac cleaner tool shows unwanted app information including its size, location, date and time. You can select the apps and remove them to speed up your Mac in a few clicks.
- OnyX is a free multifunctional utility that can verify your Mac’s startup disk, run a variety of system scripts for cleaning tasks manually and rebuilding your Mac. The developer offers specific OnyX versions for every major version of macOS. When a new version of macOS comes out, you have to revisit the OnyX site and grab the latest release.
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.
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 to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.
Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving 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 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 or later, 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. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
- If you're using 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 or later, 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 you're using 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 described in this article, 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, Other, 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.
Your mac’s cleanup utility that is built in might not do the thorough function that you want it to do. There are many hidden files and junk stored on your computer that needs a proper cleanup utility in order to get rid of them. Clearing out the junk from your mac might be a task if you do not have a reliable mac cleanup utility.
You can choose to do a manual clean but you ,might not be able to reach places that you have junk files hidden away and long forgotten. There is a number of mac cleaning software that not only acts as a handy cleaner but is also great for regular maintenance to prevent your mac from becoming slow and unbearable to use. Here are a few tips on how to use the best cleaning utility for your mac computer.
Why Do I need a mac cleanup utility?
There are a number of things that indicates that your mac needs a cleanup. If you notice that your machine is operating g slower than normal that is definitely something to get corrected. Your mac might also b taking too long to boot up or maybe there are some apps that are causing it to freeze up. Mac computers are now for their fast speed and their ability to process information at a very fast pace. To optimize performance when a computers are performing slower than expected, reliable software known for cleaning and mac maintenance is recommended.
Best Mac Cleaning Software -Mac has a built in cleanup facility that automatically monitors and run scripts but this is not always sufficient to keep it performing at its optimum levels. As a great backup, software programs such as Onyx mac is now one of the most highly recommended mac cleaning software. Onyx is easy to use, does a thorough clean and best of all is free to use. You can easily download and install the software with a few easy steps. There are many other cleanup software such as MacKeeper, iBoostUp and CCleaner. These are all designed to clean your mac and do repair where necessary.
How does mac cleanup utility Work?
Mac Os Cleaner
Ice Clean Mac
Mac Cleanup Utility works in a variety of ways to ensure that your mac gets back to its original fast processing speed.
There are cleanup utility software that handles the overall issues on your mac while other are specific and does mainly the tasks that they are tailored to do. Monolingual for example handles removing multiple language files that exists on your mac. There is normally no need for more than the necessary few language files that are used regularly and rather than have them take up space, the ions not in use c=are removed by the software thus making more space. There are major software programs that focus on removing duplicate material which is one of the major causes of a slow moving mac.
The type of mac cleanup utility that you need might take some amount of research and what you want it to achieve. Onyx, like many cleanup software, allows you to do a thorough disk cleanup, scan and detect and repair problems that exists and also run regular maintenance checks to ensure that everything is in order. Preventative measures are always a great way to allow your mac to have the space it needs to perform well. Allow items to be properly monitored and removed where necessary to prevent a mac that lags on its performance.
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