1. Mac Not Enough Free Disk Space
2. Check Hard Drive Space Mac

It all starts with “Disk is almost full”

1. Step 1 – Checking Available Disk Space. In order to successfully free up some disk space on your Mac, you first need to know what is actually eating up so much precious space. To do this, click on the Apple menu in the top left corner and then choose the “About This Mac” option.
2. Free Disk Space interactively scans your drives and shows them as a tree-map. It hides small files and folders and makes the rest as big as its size on disk is. If you don't see enough details click on a folder your are interested to zoom in. Right-click to get rid of junk.

Step 3: Open Utility. You will see disk utilities in the results window; double click it. In the disk utilities, select the name of your hard drive. It will present you with a detailed view of your drive. You can use it to see free disk space Mac and drive's total capacity.

If you are reading this, you are probably familiar with the “Disk is almost full” message on Mac. The lack of free space is, in fact, a global issue. According to MacPaw research, since the Great Lockdown of 2020, people are 28% more likely to clean their computers. Isn’t it because we started to consume more content? Anyway, limitless hard drives haven’t been invented yet.

Let's take the new MacBook Air 2020 edition that offers startling capacities of 256 GB. That’s roughly the storage of the previous year’s iPad! And how soon you will fill that space full, given today’s media consumption trends, is a different question. And as of the summer of 2020, iCloud storage still remains a paid option, and 50GB will cost you $0.99 per month.

So whether you have a new or older Mac, it’s critical to know how to clear system storage on Mac. Further below, I’ll show you my favorite methods of recovering disk space on Mac. They are a bit like alchemy because we’ll be turning junk into free space.

Okay, let’s go.

How to check storage on Mac

It’s good to check your storage details before we get down to deleting things. For example, this is my disk space structure:

Documents: You have too many downloads and media files on your drive
Apps: There are probably tons of hidden and forgotten apps on your Mac
System: Your OS + caches, temporary files, and app localizations that waste space

To view your storage details, click on the Apple icon > About this Mac > Storage

How the full hard drive affects your Mac?

If your drive reaches about 80% of its capacity, your Mac will get noticeably slower. Partly, this is because of the so-called fragmenting. When there is only so much space left on disk, your Mac will split every new file into pieces or fragments and fit them into available slots elsewhere on your Mac. This slows down how your Mac processes these files. Also, some amount of your RAM (virtual memory) will be taken out to compensate for the loss of disk space.

So, how do you free up space on your Mac?

Free up disk space on Mac

1. Find large files you don’t need

Potential space reclaimed: 2-5 GB

1. Go to your desktop and press Command + F
2. Choose “This Mac”
3. Select Other in the dropdown menu
4. Under the Search Attributes menu, tick File Size and File Extension

Well done!Now you can type in different file extensions and sort the results by size. I recommend starting with the .DMG files or application installers. They are just dead weight, and you can live without them. The same goes for .ZIP archives

2. Delete your system junk

Potential space reclaimed: 2-5 GB

There are tons of articles written about system junk, and some Mac users claim the system junk is pure evil and slows your Mac down. In my view, it’s only an excess burden to have on your machine — outdated files, browser caches, app localizations, and old-time machine backups.

To delete system junk manually would be a hot mess, even for an experienced user. So if you want to free up space on Mac quickly, just run CleanMyMac X once and forget it. Unlike some supposed 'Mac-Saviours,' this app is actually notarized by Apple, so you’re safe running it.

1. Run CleanMyMac X — download the app’s free edition here
2. Click the System junk tab.
   

After you run the Scan, review the files and click Clean.

What else can you delete with this tool:

• Time machine backups
• Temporary documents versions
• Outdated system logs
• App localization files

3. Remove unused apps and all their leftovers

Potential space reclaimed: up to 5 GB

Did you know there are 3 ways of deleting apps on Mac? One is dragging them straight to the Trash from Applications, the other involves Launchpad. And, finally, you can use a third-party Uninstaller tool, which also makes sense because the first two methods leave parts of old apps on your drive.

Delete apps via Launchpad

Still, I prefer deleting apps via Launchpad because it’s more fun. Open Launchpad from your Dock.Now, press the Command key and hold any app icon until they start shaking. You will see the [X] symbol above the icon — click it to delete the app.

Delete your unseen apps

That was easy, but here’s the deal. Every Mac has apps that don’t show up anywhere. They may have installed themselves as parts of other apps or be small supporting applications that programmers call “Launch agents” or “Daemons.” In total, they may eat up a whole lot of disk space.

In my experience, of all app cleaners, CleanMyMac X still tops the list. My personal record — 30 GB I was able to clear up on my Mac that had been taken by unused and suspicious programs. So what can you do?

1. Download CleanMyMac X free edition here
2. Click the Uninstaller tab.

From there, you can delete apps on a massive scale - simply select the ones you don’t need. Make sure to check the Leftovers section. These are parts and pieces of your old apps that you can’t otherwise access.

4. Delete your duplicate files

I often download an app twice by clicking on it several times or double-save a track to my iTunes library, which creates quite a mess. So if your Mac has started to run out of storage, there is a way to put an end to it. At first, you can try to find duplicates manually, but it can take you way too long with little to no result.

There is a good app called Gemini 2 - the duplicate finder. It allows you to clean out many gigabytes of duplicates in a few clicks. Plus, it allows you to check what would be deleted and deselect items you want to keep.

So, if your Mac is suffering from the invasion of the duplicates, give this software a try.

5. Remove browser cache

If you are a heavy internet user (like I am), your Mac’s drive is full of the browser cache. These are the kinds of bookmarks left on your drive by every site that you visited. What’s your primary browser? Here are the solutions for Chrome and Safari.

To clear Chrome cache

While you are in Chrome,

1. Click the three-dot icon at the top right
2. Click More tools > Clear browsing data
3. Choose a time range to clear the browsing data
4. Also, clear “Cached images and files.”

To clear Safari cache

1. Click Develop in the top menu.
2. Click Empty caches

6. Use Optimized Storage

Apple has some storage management tools that come pre-installed on your macOS. To get to use them, click on the Apple logo > About this Mac > Click the Storage tab > Manage.

How to manage storage on Mac with built-in options

First, inspect the tabs in the sidebar on the left. Your largest files will most likely be stored in Documents. Go inside this category to find files you can scrap. A quick tip: You can mass-select and delete screenshots on your Desktop right from here.

Then, click Recommendations in the top left corner.
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Here Apple offers you 4 options: the first option, “Store in iCloud,” is self-explanatory. Is iCloud paid? Yes, if your storage needs exceed 5 GB which in 2020 is laughably small.The second option, “Optimize Storage,” will remove your already watched content and the old attachments in Mail. This may help you free up a couple of gigabytes. When you need to clear disk space on Mac, every little help counts.

7. Create the map of your drive

This method was shown to me by my programmer friend, who also happens to be a fan of CleanMyMac X. There is a tool in CleanMyMac called “Space Lens” that builds a map of your entire drive. You can see all your disk’s contents in the form of interactive bubbles that represent your big and small folders. It’s the most exciting way to clear space on your Mac. Wow!

Here you can spot the folders that hog the most space. You’ll also find your “Russian dolls” folders that are hidden inside other folders.

Get this app here for free.

8. Take out the Trash

This advice is the easiest of all. Nevertheless, people forget to do it all the time. We throw things down the Trash and think they are over with. But that’s just moving things from one pocket to another. To free up Trash, right-click the bin icon. Then, choose Empty Trash.

How to empty the Trash automatically on Mac

If you don’t like to empty the Trash every time, there is a scheduled option. Your Mac will auto-delete Trash every 30 days if you tell it so.

• Open Finder > Preferences (in the upper menu).
• Now choose Advanced.
• Check this box “Remove items from Trash every 30 days.”

9. Delete extra language files

Potential space recovered: 1 GB

There are 180+ languages in the world, and most of your Mac’s applications can operate in these languages. However beautiful the language diversity is, people usually use just one or two. When you need to clear space on Mac, extra localization files are another target.How to see your language files? Language files end with “lproj” extension, which stands for “language project.” Unfortunately, finding them manually is problematic. Still, if you want to recover 1 GB of free space out of thin air, get hold of CleanMyMac X. It deletes extra localizations automatically.

1. Get CleanMyMac X here — a link to a free edition
2. Click System Junk and Scan.
3. Then press Review Details.

After you click Review Details, you’ll see the tab called Language Files. As one can see, each of those files takes up about 30 MB. You can only guess how much more it will be with 180+ languages.

10. Clear your Desktop

Desktop may not seem a big deal in terms of storage space, but only because people rarely visit it. It’s a well-known fact that a messy desktop wastes tons of space — and, most importantly — slows your Mac down.

Here’s a quick trick to organize your Desktop: click anywhere in the middle of the Desktop and then choose “Use Stacks” in the window that appears. Everything there will be neatly sorted by categories like Screenshots. Now you can mass delete all the thousands of screenshots that most of us have.

If you are using macOS High Sierra or older, you can manually clear disk space on your Mac Desktop.

1. Click Finder > Desktop.
2. Under View, choose the 3-line icon.

Now you can sort all items by size and delete the largest files.

11. Compress your files

Archiving or compressing files is a nice alternative to permanent deletion. Not all file types compress similarly well, though. For example, documents and presentations can be substantially reduced in size by compression, while movies are harder to shrink.

Luckily, you don’t need a third-party solution to zip things up — your macOS has its built-in tool.

How to free up disk space on Mac using compression?

1. Open Finder and go to your Documents.
2. Command + click on a folder (or multiple folders).
3. Choose Compress.

Be aware that macOS leaves the original file untouched, so once you have the archive, the original folder can be deleted. After you’re done, you may transfer the newly-created archive onto an external drive.

Well done, you’ve just saved some space!

12. Slim down Time Machine snapshots

If you have Time Machine set up properly, it creates backups of your whole system at any given time. I’m not recommending you to delete these backups completely but to trim down their size. This doesn’t affect your user-created data.I’ll show you how to do it with a free version of CleanMyMac, the tool I mentioned in the previous section.

1. Get a free edition of CleanMyMac X
2. Click the Maintenance tab.
3. Choose 'Time Machine Snapshot Thinning.'

Here you are. After you click Run, you will successfully reduce the size of backups on your Mac.

13. Trash the old iPhone backups

Potential space reclaimed: 10-20 GB

Outdated iPhone backups may take enormous space. If you’ve ever backed up your iPhone with your computer, your Mac probably stores all your phone’s data. It makes sense to check your drive for the outdated backups before they grow out of proportion.

Here’s how to clear space on your Mac by deleting old backups:

1. Open Finder > Click Go in the Finder's menu > Go to Folder…
2. Paste in: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
3. Move the insides of the folder to the Trash, and that’s it.

If you want to remove a specific backup, here’s how to do that:

1. Connect your device to your Mac using a cable.
2. Go to Finder > Locations > Select your device.
3. Click Manage Backups.

Right-click, the name of the backup to see the “Show in Finder” command. Move the backup someplace else or delete it using the Delete option.

Note: do this only if you are 100% sure you don’t need your iPhone backups.

14. Get rid of your junk Mail

Potential space reclaimed: 50 MB

Everyone hates junk email. Apparently, Apple hates it too because they included automatic junk mail deletion to their Mail app. Junk mail doesn’t weigh much but still, deleting it is good for the hygiene of your Mac.

1. Open Mail app.
2. Click on the Mailbox tab.
3. Choose Erase Junk Mail.
4. Beware that this operation cannot be undone.

Other great tips to automatically reduce clutter

• Use Safari. Starting version 10, it automatically removes duplicate downloads.
• Back up your pictures to Photos.Google.com — it offers unlimited storage. Really.
  
• Delete extensions in your browser — you can use a free version of CleanMyMac X.
• Delete desktop apps for services that offer online analogs, like Figma.

Okay, I’ve told you my favorite ways to free up disk space on your Mac. You can bookmark this article and revisit it next time when the annoying “Your disk is almost full” message pops up. Decluttering your Mac can add a fresh spark to your digital life — so try it today.

It’s only a matter of time before you encounter the dreaded “Your disk is almost full” message. To deal with this problem, you might attempt to free up disk space on Mac or think of purchasing an external disk. While there’s nothing wrong with it, but sifting through each file manually will be time-consuming. So, to make things easy and help deal with Mac storage, we will enlist the best disk space analyzer and Mac storage manager.

These storage manager utilities, by scanning your Mac, will help find out what exactly is taking up space.

So, without any delay, let’s know more about the best disk space analyzers for Mac.

Now that you know how to check disk space on Mac manually let’s learn how to manage disk space using Mac disk usage analyzer tools.

Best OS X Disk Space Analyzer and Storage Manager Apps to Free Up Disk Space on Mac

1. Disk Analyzer Pro – Excellent macOS disk usage analyzer

Pricing: Free

Compatible OS: Mac OS X 10.8 and higher & Windows

Disk Analyzer Pro is one of the best Mac storage analyzer tools. This tool is available for free, which helps view drive consumption by file size, type, date, ownership, and attributes. Not only this, but Disk Analyzer Pro also identifies large files and folders, gives options to view the top 100 files by size and top 100 oldest files, thereby helping delete and de-clutter unwanted files from Mac.

Overall, it is a great tool that helps free up disk space on Mac and recover disk space in no time.

Features:

• Shows a complete list of folders and subfolders on drive sorted by file size
• Displays folder properties like name, path, and size
• For easy sorting groups data into categories
• Provides built-in File Explorer
• Customizable scan settings

2. DaisyDisk – state-of-the-art disk space analyzer for Mac

Pricing: $9.99 Free Trial Available

Compatible OS: macOS 10.10 and higher

DaisyDisk is a stylish Mac check disk space tool that scans the disk and shows all files and folders in an interactive visual map. You can preview the contents of the file and delete it if you don’t need it anymore.

Moreover, all the changes made to the Mac are updated in real-time; this helps keep a check on the amount of disk space recovered.

Overall, DaisyDisk is an excellent Mac disk analyzer that helps recover storage space occupied by unwanted files. Using its free version, you can sweep hard disk drives and use the space intelligently.

Features:

• Fast and safe disk space analyzer
• Cost-effective storage manager
• Helps recover hidden and purgeable space
• Visualizes hard disk usage & helps free up space
• Scan multiple disk and folders at the same time

3. GrandPerspective – Easy to Use Mac Disk Usage Analyzer

Pricing: $2.99 (AppStore) Free when downloaded from Sourceforge

Compatible OS: macOS 10.10 and higher

GrandPerspective is a nifty tool to check the storage on Mac. Using it, you can manage your disk, spot files & folders taking up storage space, and free up disk space on Mac. For visualization, it uses a treemap, and each file is shown as a rectangle with an area proportional to the file’s size.

In general, it is a good option for novice users that helps free up space and manage data. Upon launch, the disk space manager asks the user to select a folder or disk that needs to be scanned. Once done to view the scan results hover the mouse pointer over the block; this will display the file name and size at the bottom of the window.

Features:

• Shows files and folders in the Finder
• Give the option to search the file by name.
• Multiple view support
• Uses treemap for disk usage visualization
• Analyses cloud storage

4. Disk Inventory X – Professional Mac Disk Space Analyzer

Pricing: Free

Compatible OS: macOS 10.3 and later

Disk Inventory X is another free disk analyzer tool for Mac. The app via treemap shows an overview of all disks in a machine. The size of each file is specified, and more specific data about each file is also available. The data is presented in an organized list that helps analyze the entire disk. To use this storage organizer utility, open the File menu > select the drive/folder to scan. Once the scanning is done, you will see a graphical treemap with information about storage space. Using this information, you can look for the largest files and delete the unwanted ones.

Features:

• Easy to use
• User friendly
• Treemaps to present detailed information
• Selection made in the treemap graph gets synced with a finder-like view.
• Allows zooming into folders

Also Read: Top 10 MacBooster Alternatives For Optimizing Your Mac

5. OmniDiskSweeper – Mac Check Disk Space Utility

Pricing: Free

Compatible OS: 10.5 and higher

OmniDiskSweeper is also a free disk space utility for finding and deleting big files on Mac. Upon launch, select the drive > click Sweep Selected Drive > once done click on a folder, and head to any file that takes significant space. This functionality makes OmniDiskSweeper a great tool to free up disk space.

Also, based on the macOS you are using, the application offers different download versions.

Features

• Small yet effective app
• Fastest and effective storage space recovery tool
• Provided detailed information about each scanned file
• Scans shared folders
• Let’s sweep external & disk drivers located on the network.

6. Disk Cartography – Clever Disk Space Analyzer for Mac

Pricing: Free

Compatible OS: macOS 10.8.5 and higher, later 64-bit processor

When you are dealing with low storage space on Mac, Disk Cartography proves to be a beneficial macOS disk space analyzer. The application helps identify large files and folders that take up a large chunk of disk space. Moreover, the application scans the content of individual directories, USB sticks, external disks, etc. Once the scanning is done, the application shows a tree view representation of the analyzed folders, displaying the largest files and directories.

To sum up, Disk Cartography is an excellent Mac Disk Space analyzer.

Features:

• 3 display modes: by disk Space, Percent or File Count
• Real-time scanning results
• Automatic and manual filters to sort by file/folder type, size, or name
• Color-coded folder names to identify the largest folders
• Visual maps of disk, folder, and sub-folder sizes

Also Read:11 Best App Uninstaller For Mac to Remove Unwanted Apps

7. Disk Space Analyzer – Powerful Mac Storage Analyzer

Pricing: $ 9.99 Free trial available

Compatible OS: macOS 10.10 and above

Another powerful storage checker for Mac that helps free up disk space and organize data. This utility allows you to find the largest file on Mac. This means if you encounter Startup Disk is almost full, you can quickly free up disk space using this disk cleaner utility. The application scans different hard drives and even hidden system files that take up the most space on your disk.

To recover space, you need to select the disk and scan the system for the bulkiest files. Nonetheless, Disk Space Analyzer also scans cloud storage folders.

Features:

• Fast Scanning
• Display list of 25 biggest files and folders
• Finds even hidden files on Mac
• A drop-down list to show files
• Scans external disk

8. WhatSize – Disk space checker and manager

Pricing: $29.99

Compatible OS: macOS 10.12 and higher

WhatSize is a disk space manager for Mac that helps check disk usage and find the largest files occupying unnecessary space on the hard disk. Using this simple shareware tool, you can view all the files stored on Mac and free up disk space.

Moreover, this intelligent tool suggests ways to reclaim storage space and remove duplicates that clutter Mac and consume unnecessary space.

Features:

• Chart display to visualize disk usage
• Help find space wasters
• Finds duplicates
• Quickly measures the size of storage devices.
• To stay up to date uses the latest macOS technologies to stay.

9. Disk Drill

Pricing: starts at $89.00

Compatible OS: macOS 10.12 and higher

Disk Drill for Mac is an excellent disk space analyzer that allows you to see hard drive usage and locate items that can be deleted or moved to another drive to free up space on Mac.

The scan results are presented intuitively; this helps manage data efficiently.

Besides, Disk Drill allows the user to select different views, according to file types. Also, you can use this tool to recover deleted files.

This means it is a comprehensive disk space analyzer and data recovery tool for Mac users.

Features:

• Helps detect and delete duplicates
• Does not scan system files
• Three display modes for better disk management
• Thoroughly scans your Mac.
• Help recover deleted files too.

Also Read: How To Clean Your Mac For Smooth Performance – Step By Step Guide

10. NCDU

Pricing: Free

Compatible OS: macOS 10.10 and higher

Unlike the other OS X disk space analyzer apps discussed above, this one is different. Ncdu is a command-line check disk space usage analyzer that uses the Ncurses interface. Designed to find space-hogging files on remote servers, this tool also works well on desktop systems. Is based on du command and is much faster.

Once installed, launch Terminal and type ncdu/ to start scanning. To navigate through the items, use arrow keys.

Features

• Fast, simple, and easy to use
• Different options to enhance disk-related information
• Lets you export information on an output file
• Allows using file comparison apps
• DU command-based storage analyzer utility

Bonus Tip:

If you are not comfortable installing and using third-party apps, try using the Mac search function within the Finder. This will help locate large files. To use it, you just need to set a file size to look for, and you are all set.

The finder search function will easily locate large files for you.

Conclusion

This is it; you can use any of the utilities explained above to analyze the disk. Which one is the best? The answer depends on the skills you possess. Of course, all of them will help free up disk space on Mac. But if you are looking for an easy to use solution Disk Analyzer Pro is the best storage analyzer for Mac.

In addition to this, if you know of any other great disk space analyzer for Mac, do let us know in the comments section.

FAQs: Best Disk Space Analyzers for mac

1. How do I analyze disk space on a Mac?

To analyze disk space on Mac, you can use Disk Analyzer Pro offered by Systweak. Once installed, launch the app, select the drive to scan. Upon scan completion, analyze the results, and remove the largest & oldest files that are no longer required and take unnecessary space. This will help free up space and optimize Mac in no time.

2. How do I find the largest files on my Mac?

To find the largest files on Mac, you can either use Finder and search for files using File Size criteria. Or can use Disk Analyzer Pro. The app offers a unique feature to enlist the top 100 largest files.

3. How much free disk space should a Mac have?

As a rule, Mac should have a minimum of 6-10 GB free space. This much free space is required to install updates and let Mac function smoothly.

4. How do I find out what’s taking up my disk space?

Mac Not Enough Free Disk Space

To find out the apps taking up most storage space, you can use disk space storage analyzer tools or use the Storage manager. But using a storage manager will not be beneficial as you will have to sift through each file manually. Hence, we recommend using Disk Analyzer Pro.

Check Hard Drive Space Mac

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