Over time, you may find out that your Mac started to work slower than usual, needs longer time to start up, gives the rainbow cursor often, or requires more time to launch any program. All these symptoms mean you need to clean up free space for the proper work of your device. Of course, there can be many other problems with the computer that have the same symptoms. But when your Mac is getting slow, the main cause is a lack of free space on its drive. In this article, we will talk about the problem of freeing up the hard drive on your computer to make it work fast and smooth again.
When your Mac’s hard drive is full, it can lead to many issues. The computer needs some free space on the drive because it uses it to manage memory use. As a plus, some apps also use some space on the hard drive to store files temporarily. Many parts of the device’s OS and many apps use free space even without you knowing about it.
How Much Space Is Enough?
We recommend keeping as much space on your computer as you can. In general, the minimum is about 15% of the drive to stay free at all times, but the more you have, the best productivity your Mac will show. If you are worried about the lack of free space on the device, it’s better to buy an external drive or save the important data on the cloud.
You can also get a larger hard drive or archive some data on the computer to clean up some space.
So, having a minimum of 15% is a good thought but you should remember this amount guarantees your computer will start up, run basic apps, and operate properly. We cannot say this will guarantee all the apps will be running well, especially those which use videos, graphics, or audio mixing.
If your Mac uses SSD, you need a larger amount of free space to work properly. Keep in mind that the amount of space depends on how you use the SSD. We suggest leaving around 15% of your general use. Of course, all these numbers are just approximate because it also depends on the capacity of the hard drive and its type.
How to Clean Up the Disk Space?
In this detailed instruction, we’re going to give your several powerful but very simple hints on cleaning up the space of your hard drive to keep it working smoothly and fast.
Follow our effective solutions that will help your Mac to keep good productivity.
1.Remove files from the Trash folder.
When you delete files from your Mac, they do not just disappear but go to the trash folder automatically. So, they are still on the computer even if you don’t see them. Needless to say, files still take up space on the Mac, so you have to clean up the folder with deleted documents regularly.
2. Check out your apps and unused programs.
You may have installed a lot of apps on your Mac before and forgot about that. As a result, these programs are eating up disk space. You need to find the unnecessary applications on the device and delete them properly to free up some space. It is possible to analyze your apps manually or install a reliable Mac cleaner that will help to define unnecessary programs to remove on your device.
3. Remove big files and documents from your computer.
Of course, it doesn’t mean you should delete a bunch of photos from your friends’ wedding or your last vacation’s videos. If you save a lot of large documents on the Mac, think about removing these files to cloud storage. Or you can buy an external drive to save all the important documents there. This will help to free up a lot of space and make your computer work fast again.
4. Remove duplicates from your computer.
You may be surprised about how many duplicate files and photos you have on the Mac. Of course, usually, people do not pay attention to it because this problem does not bring anything bad until your hard disk is getting full. So, you can search for duplicates manually or use a Mac cleaner to remove these files and increase your device’s productivity.
5. Delete email attachments from your Mac.
When you get emails with attached documents, these files are saved on the computer automatically. Over time, the folder with email attachments is getting larger and larger and takes up a lot of space on the hard drive. We recommend removing files from this folder regularly to free up some space easily.
6. Remove documents from the folder with downloads.
When you download files on your Mac, they are saved automatically there, and it’s important to delete files regularly because, over time, they are eating up a lot of space on the hard drive. As usual, users do not care about the downloads and keep on the computer many files downloaded for many years. Just check up the folder with downloads, and you will be surprised how much free space you can free up easily and fast.
If you are searching for more data about cleaning up the hard drive of the computer, you can visit this site to get more useful hints. In general, your device needs about 10-15Gb of free space to work properly, but the more you have, the better your computer will work. You can search for files to remove manually or install a reliable program for cleaning up your space. It saves a lot of time because the program scans your computer from time to time and finds the files suggested being deleted.
