Free Software Clean Up Mac Hard Drive
OneCleaner app truly free to scan & clean could be a great app if didn't advertise as 'free'. 'free' gets you scan for duplicates and large files but no 'cleaning':-/ I prefer to pay those who don't falsely advertise. FWIW never allow free space on the drive drop below about 20% of the drive's capacity. If you get down to that point then you will need to free up space: How to Free Up Space on The Hard Drive. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
Nobody likes when their MacBook Pro starts to run slow. It can be a real pain waiting for files to load or dealing with the spinning beach ball when you are in the middle of an important project or just trying to watch a movie. Apple MacBooks are typically really fast and reliable but sometimes they can start to act up.
Cleaning up the hard drive on your MacBook Pro can help speed up performance and allow your laptop to seem new again, depending on your MacBook’s specs though. If you have an older model computer or just want to make sure yours is operating at the best of its abilities, take a look at how you can clean up the hard drive and what a difference it can make.
Note: by saying “hard drive”, we mean a hard disk drive and solid-state drive (SSD) that’s equipped inside your MacBook Pro.
Symptoms of a Cluttered Hard Drive
If you are not sure that your MacBook Pro needs a clean up, here are a few symptoms that often mean your hard drive is a mess and is due for an easy tune-up. A cluttered hard drive is pretty normal, especially if you’ve had your computer for a while so don’t worry if any of this is happening to your machine.
If your MacBook Pro is running slower than usual, i.e. programs and apps are taking a long time to load, web pages crash or don’t load, or your screen freezes often, it’s a good sign that your hard drive might need to be cleaned. It’s pretty obvious when a nice computer like a MacBook Pro starts to slow down, so if you think it’s acting slow, there’s a good chance it is.
High quantities of large and old files such as photos and music can take up a lot of room on your hard drive and over time lead to slow performance. Items left in the trash bin but not fully deleted can also take up a lot of space. Then you have system junk and junk leftover by commonly used apps that might take up a lot of space without you even knowing it. Old email attachments and old system files also add to poor performance.
How to Clean Up a MacBook Pro Hard Drive the Easy Way
There are a few different ways to go about cleaning up your MacBook Pro hard drive and the easiest way is to purchase and download software that cleans up the hard drive for you. We will look at some steps to cleaning up your hard drive manually but for convenience and if you are not too computer savvy, purchasing a program that takes care of everything is a quick and easy option.
One of the most well known and common software programs that help to clean up a MacBook Pro hard drive is CleanMyMac X. This program is really easy to use and after it is installed, you simply open the program, run the system check and it goes through an in-depth process of cleaning out old files and other junk, along with a few other important scans to clean up everything and get your computer running like new again.
These Mac hard drive cleaning programs do cost money, but the time they can save you and the ability to keep everything on your computer running quick and clean is easily worth the price. A quick scan and clean by one of these programs can have your MacBook Pro running fast again in a matter of minutes while doing it yourself can take several hours.
Other good options for MacBook Pro hard drive cleaning software are Drive Genius and CCleaner.
How to Clean Up A MacBook Pro Hard Drive the Hard Way
If you don’t want to spend the money on a MacBook Pro clean-up software program, it is possible to clean up the hard drive yourself. It takes some time and know-how to do the job right so some research and further instruction outside of this quick guide might be needed. If you are comfortable with your MacBook and know how to access back-end aspects of its operating system, you will be able to clean up your own hard drive.
Here are some easy steps to cleaning up your hard drive:
- Delete old and unused files – go through all of your system files and delete any that you no longer use or don’t know what they are. Duplicate files can also be deleted if you find any during your search.
- Clean up your cache – clearing up web caches can be an easy and effective way to improve performance but is somewhat involved so check out this link on how to go about it.
- Uninstall Any Unused Apps – Apps can take up a ton of space and memory so getting rid of any that are installed on your computer that you don’t use can speed things along in the long run.
- Remove Old Mail Attachments – We all get thousands of emails a year and a lot of these come with images and attachments. If you double click on these, they are saved to your computer. Go through and get rid of these old attachments to help your hard drive.
- Empty Mac Trash – Once a file is placed in the trash can, it still needs to be permanently deleted. If you have put lots of files in the trash but have not yet deleted, they can take up a bunch of space.
Final Thoughts
Cleaning up the hard drive on your MacBook Pro can be an involved process. Purchasing a software cleanup program can be an easy option but if you want to do it yourself, start with the information above and check out this guide and this link for more tips and a walk-through on how to get your hard drive back up to speed.
What is your favorite Mac cleanup software? Have you ever cleaned up your hard drive manually? Let us know any other tips and tricks, if so!
Junk files are often invisible, but the amount of storage space they take is enormous. Therefore, to help Mac users manage storage space and recover wasted space, the company added optimization tools in macOS Sierra and higher versions.
To use it and to know about available storage space on macOS Sierra and later versions, follow the steps:
- Click the Apple menu > About This Mac > Storage.
- Here you will be able to see a segment bar specifying how much storage space is taken by which category.
- To optimize data, click Manage and head to the Storage Management window.
- You will get recommendations that will help optimize Mac.
But clearing the hard drive on Mac manually can be tricky. Hence, to simplify the task and to automate Mac cleaning to free up storage space, here’s a tip.
Additional Tip
Try Smart Mac Care for free and get rid of junk files, temporary files, cache, cookies, browser history, app cache, and much more. This powerful Mac optimization app is fantastic. What’s more, it helps secure your Mac from malicious threats like malware, spyware, virus, and other similar infections.
So, you are facing a problem with your Mac and things don’t feel ok? Although Macs don’t require regular optimization, junk files, malware infections, duplicate files, app leftovers, and other similar things do slow down the performance. Hence, to boost Mac’s performance and to free up space on Mac hard drive, we share simple and easy ways.
How to Free Up Space on Mac Hard Drive
First thing first, to reclaim storage space on Mac, we need to know what’s taking up unnecessary space. For this, we can use the in-built method discussed above or can use a smart way.
Usually junk files, large and old files, duplicates, app caches, etc. that you can’t quickly locate take up a lot of space. Sadly, clearing them manually isn’t easy; it takes several hours. So, if you are short on time and are looking for a quick way? Use Smart Mac Care.
This powerful tool uses advanced algorithms and cutting-edge technology to detect useless files and removes all clutter from Mac. In addition to this, Smart Mac Care knows how to find unnecessary files and remove them without leaving leftovers. It can do the job of hours in a couple of minutes. Moreover, it locates and cleans junk files from Mac’s hard drive that you don’t even know exists, thus resulting in a speed boost.
How to Clean Mac Hard Drive Using Smart Mac Care?
- Download Smart Mac Care for free by clicking the Download Now button below:
- Once installed, run the app & clean system junk and other unwanted files that take up storage space on Mac.
- To begin scanning click Start Scan and let the scan finish.
- When the scanning is done, you will see several junk files detected, privacy traces, infections found (if any), and more.
- To clean only Junk Files, click Clean Now under it. However, if you want to clean all detected traces, click Fix All Items.
That’s all. You have successfully cleaned Mac’s hard drive.
Now, we know how to use Smart Mac Care to free up space on a Mac hard drive. Let’s learn about the modules in detail.
Home Screen
Scan results are divided into two sections:
- Security
- Optimization and Tuneup
Under Security, you see scan results of Malware Scan and Web Protection. If an action is required simply click Clean Now under each section. Moreover, you can also perform Deep Scan by selecting the box under Malware Scan.
Under Optimization & Tuneup, you get information about Junk Files, Privacy (Cache, cookies, browser history, and others). You can fix detected threats individually by clicking Clean Now or can simply click Fix All Items to remove all identified unwanted traces.
Further, you can even rescan your Mac by clicking the Rescan Now button. See the last scan performed to date, the total number of items cleaned, and the Database Version.
Search Tab
Get a brief report of all the infections detected. You can click each one of them to unhide and see what’s detected. This will help you decide what action you want to perform.
Once satisfied with scan results, click Fix All Items.
Web Protection
Under this section, Smart Mac Care tells whether your browsers are protected or not, and if not, then what could be done. If you want to protect them, click Enable Extension, and protect your installed web browsers from unknown threats.
Here, I faced a problem. Although Chrome was still installed, it was showing not installed. Check the screenshot below:
However, the problem was resolved after re-launching the application.
Clean Up Mac Hard Drive
Advanced Features
In the left sidebar, you get to see advanced features offered by Smart Mac Care. Using them, you can clear hard disk space, thereby recovering valuable storage space.
Note: Before using this section, you will need to grant access permission. To help grant permission, Smart Mac Care shows a step by step tutorial, like the one shown below. Click Next Step to move to the next slide.
Uninstaller
This will help completely uninstall applications from Mac without leaving any traces. You can select the apps that you wish to uninstall to see how much space you will be able to recover and click Clean Now to remove selected from Mac.
Why an Uninstaller?
Indeed, by moving apps to the Bin, you can uninstall them but what about the app leftovers? When you select an app > to right-click and select Delete. This removes the app but not the corresponding files. And if you like to test the application before purchasing then these leftover files increase in number and slow down the Mac. Therefore, the best way to get rid of such files is to use an App Uninstaller.
There are several Mac app uninstallers available, but why invest in an additional product when you are getting it with Smart Mac Care. Right?
Hope this answers why the uninstaller module in Smart Mc Care.
Login Items
Many times, we don’t know the reason behind the slow Mac startup. This module resolves the mystery and lists down all the apps and login items that launch at boot time, thereby slowing down the startup process. Using it, you can remove these unwanted apps and can improve Mac startup time.
Note: Removing them doesn’t mean you are uninstalling an app. It only means you are disabling the app from launching at startup.
Duplicate Finder
Duplicates occupy unnecessary storage space on Mac. With the help of the Duplicate Finder module, you can quickly identify duplicates and get rid of them. This will help clear Mac hard drive and recover valuable storage space that can be used for other important data.
Disk Usage
Explore the largest and oldest files, Archives, photos, music, videos, and other files stored on Mac that have forgotten about. This will help you decide whether you want those files or not.
Failed Downloads
As the name explains, this module helps know about the corrupt and incomplete downloads that take up unnecessary space on the hard disk. With the help of Failed Downloads, you can easily remove these files and free up space on Mac hard drive.
Flash Cache
Flash videos take up space as they store cache data; therefore, to recover hard disk space, it is best to remove Flash Cache. Not only this, it even speeds by browser’s speed.
System
Details about any kind of obsolete data from iTunes, iOS updates, backups, downloads, etc. are listed here. You can erase them quickly to make space.
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Memory Optimizer
The last module under Advanced features that help optimize memory and boost Mac’s performance. Using it, you can recover space occupied by unnecessary app cache and other files. Hit the ‘Optimize Now’ button to free up space on the Mac hard drive.
That’s all using Smart Mac Care you can not only save your time but can also save money. How?
Unlike other Mac optimizers, this Mac cleaning utility knows what all areas need to be scanned to free up storage space and clear the hard drive on Mac. Alongside scanning and cleaning junk files, temporary files, cache, etc. It even removes spyware, malware, uninstalls apps, allows disabling startup items, and more. All this helps boost Mac performance and speed up Mac.
Goodbye “Your startup disk is almost full” message.
So, now that we’ve covered everything that will help clear Mac hard disks we hope you will be able to fix the storage issue on Mac. Not only this, you now can help others know what junk files, cache files, how to clear them, and free up storage space are.
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