DAISyDISK

Alan almost finds it fun to manage storage with this utility

There are several ways you can get a breakdown of what’s using up your Mac’s storage in order to work out what to archive or trash. Opening the Finder’s Inspector window gives a cumulative total for what’s selected, but it can be slow to run calculations. Alternatively, there’s GrandPerspective, a free tool we talked about in MF292. DaisyDisk (£7.99) is our favourite, though.

In order to show disk usage right down to your Mac’s deepest folders, DaisyDisk first has to scan a drive’s file system. Previously this could take minutes, but the recently-released version 4 relieves this frustration – itself a minor barrier to getting on with work when you’re running very low on space. It’s orders of magnitude faster, scanning our almost full 512GB SSD in seconds.

DaisyDisk’s pretty representation of how your storage has been used is also practical. Its innermost ring represents the current folder, and outer ones are its subfolders. The size of each subfolder is shown in a key on the right, and each segment’s relative size gives clues as to where to start looking for space hogs. As you browse a drive, items can be added to the Collector. These decisions can be rescinded, and if you press Delete, you get a brief chance to cancel it.

DaisyDisk quickly proves its worth on today’s Macs with flash storage, where limited capacity can frequently run out.