7 Ways to Free Up Space on Mac in 2025 (Step-by-Step)

Learning how to free up space on Mac is something most users eventually need to do, especially as macOS updates, app caches, and downloaded files quietly pile up over the years. Whether you are getting the "Your startup disk is almost full" warning or your Mac just feels sluggish, clearing storage on Mac brings real, measurable performance improvements. This guide walks you through every practical method — from the quick wins to the deeper cleanups — so you can reclaim gigabytes today.

Table of Contents

• Why Your Mac Runs Out of Disk Space
• Quick Fix Summary
• 1. Check What Is Using Your Storage
• 2. Empty the Trash (All of It)
• 3. Remove Large and Unused Applications
• 4. Clear App Caches and Temporary Files
• 5. Delete Old iOS and iPadOS Backups
• 6. Offload Photos and Videos to iCloud
• 7. Clean Up Downloads and Desktop Clutter
• Bonus: Use macOS Built-In Storage Recommendations
• FAQ
• Conclusion

Why Your Mac Runs Out of Disk Space

Before jumping into solutions, it helps to understand exactly what eats your disk without you noticing.

• macOS system updates download full installer packages and keep older versions around even after upgrading
• App caches from browsers, photo editors, video apps, and Xcode balloon in size over time without any cleanup
• iOS/iPadOS device backups created through Finder can grow to 10–50 GB per device, especially if you back up frequently
• The Trash holds deleted files permanently until you manually empty it — gigabytes can sit there for months
• Large media files in Downloads, Desktop, or Documents folders accumulate fast when you save videos, disk images (.dmg), and ZIP archives
• iCloud Photos in "Download Originals" mode keeps full-resolution copies locally rather than optimized thumbnails
• Log files and crash reports build up quietly in system folders over months of use
• Duplicate files scattered across folders take up space nobody is using
• Virtual machine disk images (Parallels, VMware) frequently consume 30–100 GB each

Quick Fix Summary

1. Check What Is Using Your Storage

Use the Built-In Storage Overview

Before you delete anything, spend two minutes understanding exactly where your space is going. macOS has a solid built-in tool for this that most users never open.

Navigate to Apple menu > System Settings > General > Storage. The bar graph at the top breaks your disk into color-coded categories: Applications, Documents, iCloud Drive, System Data, and more. Hover over each color segment to see the size.

Tip: Click the information icon (ⓘ) next to each category to drill down and see which specific files or apps are the biggest offenders. Start with the largest categories first.

Steps:

1. Click the Apple logo () in the top-left corner of your screen
2. Select System Settings
3. Click General in the left sidebar
4. Click Storage
5. Wait 20–30 seconds for macOS to calculate disk usage
6. Review each category and note which ones are largest

For a more granular breakdown, you can also use the Terminal. Open Terminal from Applications > Utilities and run:

du -sh ~/Downloads/* | sort -rh | head -20

This lists your 20 largest items in Downloads, sorted by size — a fast way to spot big files worth deleting.

2. Empty the Trash (All of It)

Why "Deleted" Doesn't Mean "Gone"

When you delete a file on Mac, it moves to the Trash. It stays there — consuming real disk space — until you empty the Trash. Many users forget about this, and trash folders can silently hold 5–20 GB of files.

Steps:

1. Right-click the Trash icon in your Dock
2. Select Empty Trash
3. Confirm by clicking Empty Trash in the dialog

Tip: If some files won't empty because they are "in use," restart your Mac and try again. Alternatively, hold Option while clicking Empty Trash to force-empty locked files.

Check Application-Specific Trash Bins

Some apps — especially Photos and iMovie — have their own internal trash that is separate from the main system Trash. Emptying the system Trash does not clear these.

• Photos: Open Photos, go to the sidebar, and click Recently Deleted. Select all photos and click Delete
• Mail: In Mail, go to Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items
• iMovie: Open iMovie, right-click any project, and look for deleted clips in the background

3. Remove Large and Unused Applications

Find Applications by Size

Applications themselves can be small, but their associated support files, plug-ins, and caches can be enormous. Xcode, for instance, regularly balloons past 15 GB. Final Cut Pro keeps render files. Virtual machine apps store entire disk images.

Steps to find and delete large apps:

1. Open Finder
2. Click Applications in the left sidebar
3. Switch to List view (press Command + 2)
4. Click the Size column header to sort by size (largest first)
5. Identify apps you no longer use

To fully uninstall an app with its support files:

1. Open a new Finder window
2. Press Command + Shift + G to open the "Go to Folder" dialog
3. Type ~/Library/Application Support/ and press Return
4. Look for a folder matching the app's name and delete it
5. Also check ~/Library/Caches/ for matching cache folders

Tip: Dragging an app to Trash removes the main binary but leaves behind support files, preferences, and caches in ~/Library. For a thorough removal, check those folders manually.

For Xcode specifically, the derived data and simulator files can be the real space-killers:

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData
rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices

Run each line separately in Terminal. This can free 10–30 GB if you use Xcode.

4. Clear App Caches and Temporary Files

What Are Cache Files?

Caches are temporary files apps create to speed up future operations. Browsers save website data, thumbnails, and scripts. Video editors cache rendered previews. Music apps cache album art. These are safe to delete — apps rebuild what they need when they relaunch.

Steps to clear user-level caches:

1. Open Finder
2. From the menu bar, click Go > Go to Folder (or press Command + Shift + G)
3. Type ~/Library/Caches and press Return
4. You will see folders named after each application
5. Select the folders for apps you use (browsers, video apps, creative tools) and move them to Trash
6. Empty the Trash afterward

Tip: Do not delete the entire ~/Library/Caches folder all at once. Select individual app cache folders for apps you know and delete those. Some system caches are rebuilt quickly, but selectively targeting large folders is safer.

Clear Safari Cache Specifically

Safari's cache can grow to several gigabytes on its own.

1. Open Safari
2. Click Safari in the menu bar, then Settings (or press Command + ,)
3. Click the Advanced tab
4. Check Show Develop menu in menu bar
5. Click Develop in the menu bar
6. Select Empty Caches

To also clear browsing history and website data:

1. Go to Safari > Clear History
2. Choose All History from the dropdown
3. Click Clear History

Clear Chrome Cache

1. Open Google Chrome
2. Press Command + Shift + Delete
3. Set time range to All time
4. Check Cached images and files and Cookies and other site data
5. Click Clear data

5. Delete Old iOS and iPadOS Backups

How Backups Eat Disk Space

When you back up an iPhone or iPad to your Mac using Finder, macOS stores a complete snapshot of the device — apps, photos, settings — in a local backup file. These backups range from 5 GB to 50+ GB depending on device model and storage. Old backups from previous devices or outdated backup dates stack up fast.

Steps to delete device backups:

1. Connect your iPhone or iPad, or just open Finder
2. From the menu bar, click Finder > Settings (or press Command + ,)
3. Click the Devices tab in Finder preferences
4. Alternatively, connect your device in Finder and click Manage Backups
5. Select any backup you no longer need
6. Click Delete Backup and confirm

Tip: Before deleting a backup, make sure you have a recent iCloud backup enabled for your device. Go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup on your iPhone and verify the last backup date.

You can also navigate to the backup folder directly to check sizes:

du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup/*/

This shows the size of each individual device backup so you can decide which ones to remove.

6. Offload Photos and Videos to iCloud

The Optimize Mac Storage Option

If you use iCloud Photos, macOS can store only compressed previews locally while keeping full-resolution originals in iCloud. This single setting can reclaim dozens of gigabytes on Macs with smaller SSDs.

Steps to enable Optimize Mac Storage:

1. Open the Photos app
2. Click Photos in the menu bar, then Settings (or press Command + ,)
3. Click the iCloud tab
4. Select Optimize Mac Storage
5. macOS will begin replacing local originals with smaller previews automatically

Tip: This process takes time — sometimes hours or days — depending on your library size. Your Mac needs to remain on, connected to Wi-Fi, and plugged in for the optimization to proceed. You can still view and access all your photos; they just load from iCloud when clicked.

Move Large Video Files to External Storage

For video files not in Photos, manually moving them to an external drive is the most straightforward approach.

1. Identify large video files using Finder sorted by size, or run in Terminal:

find ~/Movies -name "*.mov" -o -name "*.mp4" | xargs du -sh | sort -rh | head -10

2. Connect an external drive
3. Drag the files from your Mac to the external drive in Finder
4. Verify they copied correctly, then delete originals from your Mac
5. Empty the Trash

7. Clean Up Downloads and Desktop Clutter

The Downloads Folder: A Graveyard of Gigabytes

Most users use the Downloads folder as a permanent home for files that were only ever needed once. Installers (.dmg, .pkg), ZIP archives, PDFs, and video files accumulate there for years. Sorting by size takes under a minute and often reveals hundreds of megabytes of instant savings.

Steps:

1. Open Finder
2. Click Downloads in the sidebar
3. Press Command + 2 to switch to List view
4. Click the Size column to sort by largest first
5. Select files you no longer need
6. Press Command + Delete to move them to Trash
7. Empty the Trash when done

Common large files to look for and delete:

• .dmg disk images (app installers you already installed)
• .zip and .tar.gz archives (compressed files you already extracted)
• Large PDFs or slide decks from old projects
• Video files downloaded from the web

Tip: Press Command + A to select everything in Downloads, then hold Command and click to deselect items you want to keep. Then move the rest to Trash.

Clear the Desktop

Files on your Mac's Desktop are stored in ~/Desktop/ and consume disk space just like any other folder. Beyond that, macOS renders a live thumbnail for every file on the Desktop, which can slow things down when the Desktop is cluttered.

Move files you need to keep into organized folders inside Documents, and delete anything you no longer use.

Bonus: Use macOS Built-In Storage Recommendations

macOS has a built-in Storage Management panel with automated recommendations worth reviewing.

1. Click Apple menu > System Settings > General > Storage
2. You will see several recommendation buttons including:
   • Store in iCloud — offload Desktop and Documents to iCloud Drive
   • Optimize Storage — remove watched Apple TV content automatically
   • Reduce Clutter — review large files sorted by size in one view
3. Click Review Files under "Reduce Clutter" for a categorized view of large files, downloads, and unsupported apps

The "Reduce Clutter" review is particularly useful — it groups large files by category so you can quickly scan for things worth removing without navigating multiple folders manually.

FAQ

How do I free up space on Mac without deleting important files?

The safest ways to free up disk space without touching personal files are: emptying your Trash, clearing app caches in ~/Library/Caches, deleting old iOS device backups, and enabling "Optimize Mac Storage" in iCloud Photos settings. These steps together can reclaim 10–30 GB without touching any documents, photos, or music you care about.

What is taking up all my space on Mac?

Open Apple menu > System Settings > General > Storage to see a breakdown by category. The most common culprits are System Data (caches, logs, Time Machine local snapshots), Applications (especially Xcode), iCloud Drive, and the Photos library. Hover over each bar segment to see exact sizes, then click the info icon to drill into specific file types.

How do I clear disk space on Mac fast?

The fastest wins are: (1) Empty the Trash, (2) delete .dmg and .zip files from Downloads, (3) clear browser caches, (4) delete old iOS backups in Finder. In most cases, these four steps alone recover 5–20 GB in under 15 minutes without any risk of data loss.

Is it safe to delete files in the Library/Caches folder?

Yes, deleting folders inside ~/Library/Caches is generally safe. These are temporary files apps create to run faster, and they rebuild them as needed. Avoid deleting ~/Library itself or folders inside ~/Library/Application Support unless you know what the app is, as those can contain saved app data (not just caches).

How much free space should a Mac have?

As a general rule, keep at least 15–20% of your total disk capacity free. macOS uses free space for virtual memory swap files, Time Machine local snapshots, and background operations. On a 256 GB Mac, aim to keep at least 40–50 GB free. On a 512 GB Mac, keep 80–100 GB free for comfortable performance headroom.

Conclusion

Knowing how to free up space on Mac gives you direct control over your system's performance and longevity. Start with the quick wins — emptying Trash, clearing browser caches, and deleting old device backups — then work through the deeper cleanups like offloading photos to iCloud and hunting down large files in Downloads. You do not need any paid software for any of these steps; macOS gives you everything you need in System Settings, Finder, and Terminal. Work through this list once a quarter and your Mac will stay fast and roomy without much ongoing effort.