If you’re willing to dig into your iMac’s data a little, there’s no reason to buy additional software to help you clean up your hard drive. All you really need is the willpower to announce, “I simply don’t need this particular item any longer.” (Sometimes, that’s tougher than it may seem.)
Unnecessary files and unneeded folders
Consider all the stuff that you probably don’t really need:
For the Smart Cleanup option, it scans everything on your Mac that is safe to delete. After you choose this option on the left pane of the program, please click on the “Scan” button to beginning scan useless files and after the scanning completes, continue to click on “Clean” button to free up the hard disk. #1 Customizable disk cleaner on Mac App Store The only fully optimized and customizable disk cleaner Featured on EatAppleNews, Brothersoft, and many more! “It took me 5 seconds to clean up 5GB.” “The most productive 2 minutes of my day!” Disk Cleaner does all the work for you!
- Game demos and shareware that you no longer play (or even remember)
- Movie trailers and other QuickTime video files that have long since passed into obscurity
- Temporary files that you created and promptly forgot
- Log files that chronicle application installations and errors
- GarageBand loops and iMovie video clips you’ll never use
- StuffIt and Zip archives that you downloaded and no longer covet
- iTunes music, video, and movies that no longer appeal
How hard is it to clean this stuff off your drive? Easier than you might think!
- You can quickly delete files.
- You can remove items from your iTunes Library (especially movies, which take up several gigabytes of space each). If you’ve purchased an item from the iTunes Store, don’t forget that you can download that item again in the future for free — perhaps when you’ve added an external drive to hold some of your stuff.
- You can move seldom-used files and folders to external storage (such as a USB flash drive, an external hard drive, or a DVD).
- You can uninstall applications purchased from the App Store using Launchpad. From the Launchpad display, click and hold down the icon until it wiggles. If an X button appears on the icon, you can click the X to remove the application from your iMac. Again, these applications can be reinstalled at any time.
- You can get rid of most of the space taken by any application (often the whole application) by deleting its application folder that was created during the installation process.
Always check the application’s README file and documentation for any special instructions before you manually delete any application’s folder! If you created any documents in that folder that you want to keep, don’t forget to move them before you trash the folder and its contents. In fact, some applications may come with their own uninstall utility, so checking the README file and documentation may save you unnecessary steps.
Removing an application or file from your hard drive usually takes two simple steps:
- Display the file or application folder in a Finder window.
- Delete the file or folder with one of these steps:
- Drag the icon to the Trash.
- Select the icon and press ⌘+Delete.
- Right-click the icon and choose Move to Trash from the contextual menu.
- Select the icon and click the Delete button on the Finder toolbar (if you added one).
Truly, no big whoop.
Unlike programs in the Windows world, most OS X applications don’t need a separate, silly uninstall program (although some larger Mac applications include one for convenience).
Don’t forget to actually empty the Trash, or you’ll wonder why you aren’t regaining any hard drive space. (El Capitan works hard to store the contents of the Trash until you manually delete it, just in case you want to undelete something.) To get rid of that stuff permanently and reclaim the space, do the following:
- Click the Trash icon on the Dock and hold down the button — or right-click — until the pop-up menu appears.
- Choose Empty Trash.
Associated files in other folders
Some applications install files in different locations across your hard drive. (Applications in this category include the Microsoft Office suite and Adobe Creative Suite and Creative Cloud applications like Adobe Photoshop.) How can you clear out these orphan files after you delete the application folder?
The process is a little more involved than deleting a single folder, but it’s still no big whoop. Here’s the procedure:
- Click the Search text box in a Finder window.
- Type the name of the application in the Search text box. If you want to remove Toast Titanium, you search for every file with the word Toast in its name; therefore, you find both the application and its main folder. This trick displays files created in other folders that include your search word in their names, such as project files, PDF files, and the font files that appear in the system Fonts folder.
We all do it - save photos, documents, videos, music, etc. we like on our MacBook. The hard drive is almost full, and the computer is slow when accessing files or running applications. Running your MacBook with low disk space is not only pulling down system performance, but also putting your system at risk for a crash. Here's how to clean up your Mac hard drive and reclaim the wasted space to improve the system peformance.
1. Save all of your personal document files to disc.
2. Delete any personal document files that you haven't used from your hard drive.
3. Open iTunes and then delete any music you no longer play or like.
4. Open your email client and delete any old emails and sent emails.
5. Delete any unused applications you have downloaded or put on the MacBook since you purchased it. Leave the Mac system files alone, and don't delete any applications that came with the system. Next, delete any unused icons from your desktop.
6. Open Safari, click on 'Edit,' then 'Empty Cache' to clear any saved web pages. In Internet Explorer, click 'Tools,' then 'Internet Options,' then 'Delete' under 'Browsing History.' A menu will appear, and you can then choose to delete temporary Internet files and other files.
Disk Clean For Mac
7. Empty the system trash.
8. Clear junk files, such as system logs, system caches, user logs, user caches. It is hard to locate these files if you are not expert. For common users, Mac disk cleaner is recommended highly. With the help of it, your system's junk files can be cleared out in seconds.EaseUS CleanGenius is such one.
Mac Disk Cleaner Features
1. Fast clean junk files such as system caches, system logs, user caches, user logs, trash, user download folder, etc in Mac OS X 10.7 or higher.
2. Monitor free disk space and alarm you when disk space is running low.
3. Monitor all mounted drives. It would keep an eye on every mounted drives and display them out in graphic.
Clean Up Mac Disk Space
4. Eject the mounted devices, like external storage disks, CD and DVD disks, SuperDrive, network storage, disk images.
How Do I Clean My Mac
With EaseUS CleanGenius, you can safely remove gigabytes of junk and get a clean Mac for system optimization.
Disk Cleanup For Mac Os
Editor reviewed EaseUS CleanGenius: 'You can speed up your Mac computer by performing simple maintenance. Unfortunately, there isn't a fast and effecient way to do this natively in OS X. CleanGenius is a great all-in-one Mac cleanup utility that also combines a disk space monitor and disk ejector. It cleans junk files with one-click and is the easiest way we've found to keep your Mac clean and running smoothly with the performance you expect.'