How to free up space on your Mac?Return Home Clubic

La Rédaction Clubic May 24, 2021 at 12:09 p.m.Sponsored byMacPaw1 Sponsored by MacPaw

Freeing up space on your Mac can be a tedious task, looking for large files scattered all over your hard drive. Let's see how to make cleaning easier with CleanMyMac X which offers several features for this purpose.

What to do when your Mac is running out of space? While the majority of Apple computers sold are MacBooks often equipped with 128 or 256 GB SSDs, the question can arise quite quickly. From downloads to installations of applications that can themselves take their ease, we sometimes tend to accumulate files, until we see the dreaded error messages appear. Cleaning up your disk can be a tedious task, but tools like CleanMyMac X make it easier, of course respecting the usual precautions: cleaning is good, doing it securely and making the right choices. , it's better ! Explanations.

When space is low: identify the culprits

Before starting the cleaning, it is easy to identify the main suspects when the available space indicators turn red. This may make sense, but starting there can already give an idea of ​​where it is possible to free up MBs, or even GBs. It should also be remembered that macOS includes a function for viewing the space occupied by your various folders via the Storage section of the About This Mac menu.

The Downloads folder

Downloads are an obvious source to go for when you want to free up space. We download a file here, a trial version there, we decompress an archive that is sometimes duplicated… it can go quite quickly. Take a look in your Downloads folder, it is not impossible that it already exceeds the GB by dint of accumulation.

Applications

Among the “forgotten” applications, applications can figure prominently. This task manager that we installed “to test”, this application that we have not used for weeks or even months… Remember to clean up there, you can find dusty treasures there.

There are not only forgotten applications, there are also the essential ones, those that we use on a daily basis, and which can grow in size with local download caches that can grow without the we notice it.

Photo, music, video libraries…

Finally, in your photo library, in your MP3 collection, in folders filled with videos, there may be a lot of content hidden that could reside on an external hard drive or in the cloud. When there are no duplicates that further complicate cleaning.

Recover space with CleanMyMac X

CleanMyMac X offers a set of features to make maintaining your Mac easier. Among them, several allow you to recover space on your hard drive or SSD.

Telescope: to infinity and beyond your files

To find out where the folders are that take up the most space on your disk, an interesting solution is to visualize them graphically. The Telescope feature of CleanMyMac X gives you an overview of your disk, where your folders take the form of concentric circles of larger or smaller size.

The largest folder in each level is always highlighted with its name and the amount of disk space it takes up, including folders. To view details of the other circles, hover over them and the size is displayed. When you click on a circle, an animation then increases the zoom level and so on until you get to the files in detail.

If this visual representation confuses you, the left panel always shows a more classic folder tree, with a quick path. It is also in this view that you will be able to check the folder(s) you wish to delete. We can never say enough that you must of course know what you are erasing from your disk.

Other files: the hunt for bulky items

In addition to Telescope, another module in the Files section of CleanMyMac X will allow you to clear things up: Other Files. Here, the files are sorted by category (music, video, documents, archives…), by size (Huge, medium, small…) or by age, according to the last access date.

This view is useful for easily finding large files that you haven't touched in weeks or even months. In the Other Files module, immediate deletion is not the only option: you can also opt for secure deletion (via a permanent destruction algorithm), trashing or moving to a folder of your choice, by example on an external disk.

Cleanup: cache files, attachments, trash…

The Cleanup section of CleanMyMac X scans multiple locations on your Mac for potentially bulky files. System will look for cache folders, translation files, histories, or unused disk images. When you start the scan, a total in GB is displayed, with the option to clean up the space. Only do this if you are absolutely sure you want to delete everything.

The most interesting is to display the details which allow to display the files to be deleted possibly by category. For each of them, you can again tick all or explore the detail. If you are unsure of the contents of a file, you can right-click on it to display it in the Finder or launch the preview with the “Glance” function.

You can then repeat the cleaning operation on two other sections: Mail attachments and trash cans. For the first, CleanMyMac X scans the contents of your mailbox looking for attachments, but also images included in mail such as signatures and company logos. Finally, the Trash section is plural because it searches for files in the system trash, but also in that of the Photos application.

Uninstalling applications

As mentioned above, applications are a major source of disk space clutter. If you are the type to download and install dozens of applications and forget to delete them when they are not used, a look at the Uninstalling CleanMyMac X section will help you clean up.

CleanMyMac X scans your disk for applications on it. The software doesn't just detect binaries that reside in your Applications folder, however. For each software installed, it will also list the system folders related to it. When you install an application on Mac, you copy a "bundle" which contains the application's executable as well as its resources. But most often, this application will also place content in system folders like Application Support which is located in your user library and / or in the "general" library of macOS. If you just delete the binary by putting it in the trash, you are not deleting these folders which can be very large.

Applications are sorted by category: those installed via the Mac App Store, others, downloaded via third-party sources or from the publisher's website, and possibly applications installed via Setapp if you use CleanMyMac X as part of of this subscription service. You can also view them by publisher.

In detail, sorting the applications by their size will allow you to view the largest ones. If these are applications that you use frequently, obviously you will not be able to do much: some applications like Photoshop, Logic Pro or Premiere need a lot of space. But you might find an InDesign you needed to edit a client's file, an expired trial version of Ableton Live, or other apps that haven't been used for weeks or even months cluttering up your disk. A good way to do this is to go through the Unused filter, which lists applications that you have rarely opened, or through the Residuals section, which lists system folders that are no longer linked to any currently installed application.

Maintenance: some purging operations

In the Maintenance section, two tools can finally help save some space. The first allows you to immediately free the purgeable space. Since macOS Sierra, some of your Mac's data can reside in your iCloud space when space runs out. This space is periodically purged by macOS, but you can force the purge immediately.

The second useful feature is cleaning up TimeMachine snapshots. There, it is a question of freeing up space on an external disk, since it is necessarily on another volume that you make your backups.

However, if your TimeMachine disk is starting to run out, you can use this feature to reduce the size of backups.

CleanMyMac X has the merit of being a cleaning software that is both easy to use even for a beginner Mac user, complete in its functionalities and efficient in what it needs. do. We regret all the same the absence of search for duplicates, a visually a little heavy interface and an antimalware function which will have to prove itself against dedicated tools like Malwarebytes.

CleanMyMac X has the merit of being a cleaning software that is both easy to use even for a beginner Mac user, complete in its features and efficient in what it does. We regret all the same the absence of search for duplicates, a visually a little heavy interface and an antimalware function which will have to prove itself against dedicated tools like Malwarebytes.