Spring cleaning
Safely remove the clutter of redundant files from your Mac
Click on Storage then Manage – the options here help you to streamline your file storage to free up space
Although macOS is very efficient in terms of using files, over time temporary data and third-party software can affect the speed of your system.
These are the most common culprits when it comes to poor system performance. You may wonder how you can fix such issues if the files and apps causing the problems are still being accessed in macOS? The answer is safe mode – a special way of starting up your Mac whereby macOS will only load software which was originally installed.
The safety of safe mode
In addition to preventing third-party apps from launching, safe mode will check your hard drive and try to repair corrupted files. It will also try to delete unnecessary system and kernel caches.
This guide assumes you are running the most recent version of macOS Sierra which has special options for configuring file storage. If you have not yet upgraded to Sierra, you can do so from the Mac App Store. To get started, shut down your Mac. When the Mac is fully powered off, press and hold down ß until you see the login window. Log in as normal. Note that if you have used FileVault to encrypt your disk, you may have to do this twice.
You will see a small, grey loading bar inching across the screen. This shows that the system is entering safe mode. If macOS needs to repair your disk or there are a large amount of cache files to clear, this can take some time, so be patient.
When the login screen appears, you will see the words ‘Safe Boot’ in the menu bar. (Safe mode and safe boot are different names for the same thing). Log in to your own account as you would normally. Safe mode only uses very basic graphics drivers, so don’t worry if you see flickering on your screen. Once you’re on the desktop, click the and choose About this Mac from the menu bar. Next, click on the Storage tab, then the Manage button. The options in this window presents several ways to save storage space.
Click the button next to Store in iCloud. You’ll see an option here to optimise your files in the Desktop and Documents folders, meaning it’ll put those folders and their contents in iCloud Drive. This makes them accessible on all devices on which you can access that storage area. This will save space on your hard drive, but will only improve performance if you have a reliable, fast internet connection. Remember that your iCloud account only comes with 5GB of free storage, and it could take a long time to upload everything.
Click Optimise Storage to remove watched films and TV shows; you can
always download movies again. You can also choose only to download recent email attachments or better yet, only download attachments when you click on them. Click on the third option, Empty Trash Automatically, to delete files that have been in the Trash for over 30 days. Remember to keeping regular Time Machine backups.
The final option, Reduce Clutter, identifies large files you may no longer need. Click Review Files to see an itemised list of files. You can hover over files either to delete them or show them in the Finder. While this is a quick and easy way to delete large amounts of data, be careful not to remove anything important. Run a Time Machine backup before removing files. Some files will have an X next to their name – click this to send them to the Trash. Other files may be part of an app, so may need to be deleted from there.
If a file or folder is taking up large amounts of space but you need it, such as your iTunes Library, you may be able to store it online or on an external drive.
Another culprit for hogging space is your Downloads folder. Items in here have been downloaded from the internet so are almost certainly replaceable. Click the Downloads tab to view and delete items.
On the subject of apps, take a look at the items in the Optimised Storage window’s sidebar that have data that’s taking up lots of space. If you back up your iOS device to the Mac, click iOS Files to see if any large backups are taking up space. You may prefer to remove these and switch to using iCloud.
Go to System Preferences and click Users and Groups on the Login Items. Click on the padlock (bottom left of the window) and enter your password to allow you to make changes. This window details which apps start when you first log in to your account. Click on an app to highlight it and click the ‘–’ button to remove unnecessary files. This doesn’t remove the application, it just won’t start up as soon as the desktop appears, which can improve system performance.