If your Mac is running low on storage — or nagging you with "your disk is almost full" — don't panic. Most of the time you can recover plenty of space without deleting anything you actually need. Work through the steps below, then empty the Trash at the end to lock in the savings.
1. See what's using your space
Click the Apple menu in the top-left corner, then choose About This Mac → More Info. On the right side of the window, scroll down and click Storage Settings. You'll see a colorful bar showing what's taking up room — apps, photos, documents, and so on. (On newer Macs you can also find this under System Settings → General → Storage.)
2. Movies & TV shows
Open the TV app and delete any movies or TV shows you don't need in the near future — these are often the biggest space hogs. You can always re-download them later for free. When deleting, choose the option to move them to the Trash.
3. Old iPhone, iPad & Apple Watch backups
If you've ever backed up an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch to your Mac, those old backups can take up a lot of space.
- Click the magnifier icon (🔍) in the menu bar (top-right).
- Type or paste this exactly, then press Return: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
- Delete any backup folders you no longer need.
4. Unused or unsupported applications
- Click the Apple menu at the top-left of the screen.
- Choose About This Mac → More Info, then scroll down on the right and click Storage Settings.
- Click the ⓘ (info) button to the right of Applications. A list of your apps opens with column headings across the top (Name, Size, Kind). Click a heading to sort by it.
- Click the Kind heading to sort by kind, then delete anything listed as Unsupported.
- Click the Size heading to sort by size, then delete any applications you no longer use. (Ignore anything under 500 MB — those are too small to matter.)
5. Downloads folder
Open your Downloads folder (in the Finder sidebar) and delete anything you no longer need — especially files ending in .dmg or .pkg, which are application installers you've already used.
6. Apple Mail (if you use it)
Delete old emails you no longer need, and empty the Trash in Mail. To find the messages using the most space:
- In Mail, click View → Sort By → Attachments.
This groups messages with attachments together, so you can tackle the biggest space-users first.
7. Old iPhoto library
If you use the Photos app today but stopped using the old iPhoto app years ago, you may still have an iPhoto Library sitting in your Pictures folder. If all your photos are safely in the Photos app, you can delete that old iPhoto Library to reclaim a significant amount of space.
8. Empty the Trash
Nothing you deleted above actually frees up space until you empty the Trash. Right-click the Trash icon in the Dock and choose Empty Trash.
9. Check your results
To see how much space you won back, go to Apple menu → About This Mac → More Info, scroll down on the right to Storage Settings, and look at the storage bar again.