6 quick ways to declutter your Mac

1 Trash massive apps

Never use iMovie? That’s over 2GB of space you can get back by deleting the app. Xcode? Anywhere up to 10GB. So open /Applications in List view and sort by size to see what you can remove to reduce clutter and free up space.

2 Delve into Downloads

If you download lots of things in Safari, the files initially get saved in ~/Downloads. If you don’t clean that folder out, it’ll be full of junk you don’t need – music you’ve since sent to iTunes, installers, menus as PDFs, and the like.

3 Prune device backups

We recommend backing up iOS If you still have the original iPhoto Library lurking around, you can back it up and delete it. devices to iCloud, and also manually to iTunes, but the latter takes up space on your Mac. You can use the Devices tab in iTunes’ preferences to remove backups, if they’re redundant (such as for devices you no longer own).

4 Remove legacy photos

When Apple replaced iPhoto with Photos, all your pictures and videos went along for the ride when you migrated your library. However, the original iPhoto library stayed put. If it’s still around, back it up, then delete it.

5 Delete macOS installers

Apple’s installers are well behaved – after you’ve installed a macOS update, they vanish. That is unless you’ve made a manual copy, in order to potentially install the OS again elsewhere. Again, offload these to external storage, then delete.

6 Don’t forget the Trash

This might sound obvious: the Trash isn’t things you’ve wiped from your Mac, but items that are awaiting deletion. Until you actually empty the Trash (≈-click it and choose Empty Trash), anything inside it takes up space on your Mac.