For many of us, the memory that comes with our Mac when we buy it seems endless. We wonder how we’ll ever fill that space and what anyone could possibly need with hundreds of gigs of storage. However, a few months down the line of downloads, music storage, video edits, photos and more and we’re wondering where all the storage went!
There are several ways to sift through the files on your Mac’s hard drive to identify ones that you no longer need that will make space on your drive. Here are a few tips starting from the most basic to more advanced to help you make room on your Mac’s hard drive and make your Mac run more quickly and effectively.
Even if you’ve only been using Mac for a while, you may already know that in order to remove files from your Trash can, you must manually empty the trash. This means that even if you have been deleting files for a while, unless you have emptied your trash can, they will still be sitting in there and using vital drive space. To empty the trash, simply right click on the Trash icon and click “Empty trash” or find this same command in your Finder menu.
In addition to the Trash on your Mac, you may be surprised to learn that some applications also have their own “trash” systems in addition to this one. This means that files that you have meant to delete may still be stored in an application’s folder. For example, iPhoto has its own Trash folder. To view the items in your iPhoto trash, find the Trash icon at the bottom of your iPhoto left-hand menu.
Follow these steps to empty the iPhoto trash:
- View the items in the trash by selecting the trash icon in iPhoto.
- Select the trash icon.
- Choose “empty trash” and you will be prompted to delete these photos in your trash can.
- Select okay and these photos will be removed.
Here’s another way to speed up your Mac. Do you have plenty of files and folders on your Desktop? These are a huge drag on your system and actually make your Mac run more slowly than it should. Store all documents and files in your system folders and not on the desktop and you’ll notice your system will run much more quickly.
Finally, did you know that anything and everything you download (including those restaurant menu PDFs that seem to pop up all the time) is stored in your downloads folder? Though each file may be small in size, there could be hundreds or thousands in there that are taking up valuable memory and space on your Mac.
Follow these simple tips and your Mac will be running quicker than ever!
