Out Of Space Download For Mac

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Optimized Storage helps you save storage space space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:

  • When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically.
  • Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it.
  • Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.

Keeping your desktop clean and organized doesn’t only look good. In fact, keeping your desktop cluttered and full of icons would only lead to more memory usage. Mac considers each icon as an active window, so this puts an unnecessary burden on your computer. Free up Your Mac's Disk Space. How to reduce memory usage Mac? Comment by Phil Mac - Electro Swing, Swing & Bass. Hello Cambridge! Users who like Phil Mac - Out Of Space (Recorded at Strawberry Fair 6/6/2015) Users who reposted Phil Mac - Out Of Space (Recorded at Strawberry Fair 6/6/2015) Playlists containing Phil Mac - Out Of Space (Recorded at Strawberry Fair 6/6/2015). That means that only 10GB of my 250GB SSD are 'empty', which makes the disk space warning freak out, even though only 62GB of the 230GB on the data volume are occupied. My guess is that Apple didn't yet update the storage tab in 'About this Mac' to recognise the new FS layout.

If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.

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Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.

Manage storage on your Mac

The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.

Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:

  • Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
  • Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
  • Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.

Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.

Optimize Storage

Click the Optimize button to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.

Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.

Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Trash Automatically

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.

You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.

Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.


Where to find the settings for each feature

The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.

  • If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
  • If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
  • In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
  • In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
  • If you're using macOS Catalina or later, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”

Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

Mac Spaces Manager

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

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  • Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
  • Reminds you to delete used app installers
  • Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
  • Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

How to free up storage space manually

Even without using the Optimized Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

  • Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
  • Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
  • Move files to an external storage device.
  • Compress files.
  • Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.

Learn more

  • The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
  • When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
  • If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.

The transition from hard drives to solid state storage on both portable and desktop Macs has meant a significant reduction in storage space for most of us. That in turn has meant that many of us now have at least one external hard drive, SSD, or USB stick on which to store files. But those drives too quickly fill up and so it’s useful to know how to clean up an external hard drive.

How you go about cleaning up depends on what you use the external drive for, so here’s our guide on how to format an external hard drive on Mac.

How to format an external hard drive on Mac

Let's figure out how to format the following types of volumes:

  • USB drive or flash stick
  • External hard drive
  • Internal hard drive

How to format a hard drive for Mac using Disk Utility

If your Mac runs a newer operating system, like macOS Mojave or macOS Catalina, you need to launch the built-in Disk Utility tool. But before that, you'll have to decide: are you erasing just a volume on your drive or your mainstartupdrive? The latter contains your macOS and if you erase it without a prior backup, you'll be in trouble.
Okay. Suppose, you'd like to format a hard drive that is your startup drive. Then, you'll need to start your Mac in a Recovery Mode.

  • Shut down your Mac and turn it back on.
  • Upon the startup, press and hold Command (⌘) and R keys.
  • Release the keys when Apple logo appears.

You are now in macOS Utilities. To format a hard drive for Mac, choose Disk Utility in the list and click Continue.

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But if you only need to format a volume (or a partition), you can access Disk Utility without entering a Recovery Mode.
Open the Launchpad in the Dock.
Type in 'Disk Utility' in the search field.
Here it is, Disk Utility where you can easily format external hard drive for Mac or any connected drive.

Select the drive you would like to format and click 'Erase' at the top of the pane. The same works for any type of drive be it a USB stick or external storage. Please, be extra careful and pay attention to what is actually selected.

How to clear space on a Time Machine hard drive

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If you use an external hard drive for Time Machine and find that it’s running out of space, you may need to delete older backups. Time Machine will normally warn you when free space is low and offer to delete backups automatically.

If it doesn’t, you can do it yourself from within Time Machine, using Terminal, or by again using an app like CleanMyMac X which has a module designed specifically for slimming down old Time Machine backups. Follow our guide on how to thin Time Machine snapshots.

Tip:
To slim down your Time Machine backups, click on the Maintenance tab in CleanMyMac X.


How to reformat an external hard drive safely

If you're looking to format or reformat an external hard drive on your Mac, there are a couple of safety precautions.

1. Make sure you've got a backup option

Your Mac's hard drive may contain a number of partitions, including a separate partition for the macOS itself. If you accidentally format a part that contains your operating system, you'll have problems. But if that's what you aimed to do, proceed with caution. To prepare the backup, plug in an external drive with enough free space on it. Then, run Time Machine from your Launchpad.

2. Pick an appropriate file format

Disk Utility will make you choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended. Here are a few more considerations:

  • APFS is a preferred format for newer macOS versions.
  • If you like to roll back to High Sierra, then choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
  • If your external drive will be used with older Mac that runs High Sierra or older system, again, choose Mac OS Extended.

If you want to securely erase the volume, select Security Options and choose them. If your Mac is a new one with an SSD drive, the Security Options may not be available.

3. What if you can't reformat an external hard drive on your Mac?

In some cases Disk Utility will not show your external drive. You can try one of the following:

  • Use a different cable
  • Shut down your Mac and unplug all peripherals.
  • Try to format Mac external hard drive again.

Free up space on all your drives at once

Dragging files to the Trash is a very slow way to free up space on a hard drive. However, you can speed it up by identifying those files that will free up the most space the fastest — in other words, the files taking up the most space. By deleting them, perhaps after archiving them on another drive you don’t use on a day-to-day basis — you’ll quickly free up lots of space.

You can identify the largest files on a drive manually by setting the Finder to list view and sorting files by size (click on the top of the Size column). However, you need to do that for every folder on the drive. Old files are another good candidate for deleting, or at least moving somewhere else. If you haven’t opened a file in six months or more, the chances are you won’t need it very often. You can use the same method to identify old files by sorting on Date Modified. Again, you’ll have to do it for every folder, so it could be time consuming. A much quicker way to identify and delete large and old files from your external hard drive or USB flash drive is to use a dedicated app like CleanMyMac X.

Below are two ways of removing files from your drives: the easy way and the manual one. Choose the one you like!

Remove files with CleanMyMac X

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CleanMyMac has a utility designed specifically to identify files that are occupying lots of space and those that haven’t been opened for a while.

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  1. Download CleanMyMac X and launch the app.
  2. Choose Large & Old files tab.
  3. Choose the disk and press Scan.
  4. You can go through files one at a time or click on the categories to the left of the list to filter them.
  5. When you find a file you want to delete, check the circle next to it.
  6. Click Remove.

There are lots of options for freeing up space on an external hard drive, depending on what you use it for. If it’s a Time Machine backup or iTunes Library, you should do it from within those applications. Otherwise, one of the quickest ways to do it is to use CleanMyMac X to remove large and old files. That way you can reclaim the maximum amount of space for the minimum effort.

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Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

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