Get disk space available for application on Mac. Ask Question Asked 6 years, 5 months ago. I need to check this for a Mac Standalone build! Hard drives have a way of filling up—especially laptop drives. Although desktop Macs come with up to 750GB of hard-drive space, some Mac laptops still ship with hard drives as small as 60GB. Top tip: CleanMyMac 3 can perform almost all the tips in this post freeing up a great deal of disk space painlessly – Clean My Mac 3 is available as a FREE download here. Before you go After spending over 20 years working with Macs, both old and new, theres a tool I think would be useful to every Mac owner who is experiencing performance issues.
So, your Mac is running out of storage. You try to figure out what's taking up your disk space by clicking the Apple logo on the top-left of the screen, selecting About This Mac, and hitting the Storage tab.
The Get-Disk cmdlet gets one or more Disk objects visible to the operating system, or optionally a filtered list. Examples Example 1: Get all disks PS C: Get-Disk. This example gets all disks visible to the operating system. Example 2: Get a disk by disk number PS C: Get-Disk -Number 6. This example gets disk 6. Example 3: Get all USB disks.
To your surprise, you see a yellow bar representing 'System' that seems to occupy way more space than you think it should. In the example above, it only shows 207 GB, but take a look at this Apple discussion — some Mac users report that System Storage takes an astonishing 250 GB.
Worse yet, you have no idea what's included in 'System' storage, because clicking the 'Manage' button brings you to this System Information window… and the 'System' row is greyed out.
Why does my Mac system require so much space?
How to insert table of contents in word 2016 mac. What does it contain?
Is it safe to remove some of those system files?
How do I regain more storage space?
Questions like these may easily get to your head. Although my Mac now has a good amount of disk space available, I'm always wary of files that are taking up more space than they should.
I have no idea why 'System' is greyed out while 'Documents,' 'System Junk,' 'Trash,' etc. allow you to review the files based on size and type. My hunch is that Apple does this on purpose to prevent users from deleting system files that could lead to serious issues.
What Files Are Included in System Storage on Mac?
During my research, I found many people report that Apple counts iTunes backup files and app caches (e.g. Adobe video cache files) in the System category.
Since it's greyed out and we are unable to click on that category for deeper analysis, we'll have to use a third-party app to assist.
CleanMyMac X is perfect for this kind of analysis. Since I tested the app in our best Mac cleaner review, it immediately came to my head when I saw 'System' was greyed out in Storage. Note that CleanMyMac isn't freeware, but the new 'Space Lens' feature is free to use and it allows you to scan your Macintosh HD, and then show you an in-depth overview of what's taking up disk space on your Mac.
Step 1:Download CleanMyMac and install the app on your Mac. Open it, under 'Space Lens' module, first click the yellow 'Grant Access' button to allow the app to access your Mac files and then select 'Scan' to get started.
Step 2: Soon it'll show you a folder/file tree and you can hover your cursor over each block (i.e. a folder). There you can find more details. In this case, I clicked 'System' folder to continue.
Step 3: The file breakdown below indicates that some Library and iOS Support files are the culprits.
The interesting part is that the System file size shown in CleanMyMac is much smaller than the size shown in System Information. This puzzles me and makes me believe that Apple definitely has counted some other files (not real system files) in the System category.
What are they? I have no clue, honestly. But as reported by other Mac users who experienced the same issue, they said Apple also considers app caches and iTunes backup files as System files.
Out of curiosity, I ran CleanMyMac again for a quick scan. That app found 13.92 GB in iTunes Junk. Further review revealed that the junk files are old iOS device backups, software updates, broken downloads, etc.
But even after adding this amount to the original system files returned by CleanMyMac X, the total size is still a bit less than what's returned in System Information.
If cleaning the System Storage is still not enough to bring your Mac available disk space to a normal level (i.e. 20% or more), see below.
What Else Can I Do to Reclaim More Disk Space?
There are tons of ways out there. Here are a few of my favorites that should help you get back a decent amount of space quickly.
1. Sort all files by size and delete old large files.
Open Finder, go to Recents and look at the Size column. Click on it to sort all recent files by file size (from large to small). You'll have a clear overview of what items are eating up a large amount of space, e.g. From 1 GB to 10 GB, and from 100 MB to 1 GB.
On my MacBook Pro, I found a few large videos that could be transferred to an external drive.
Note: If the Size column doesn't show up, click on the Settings icon and select Arrange By > Size.
2. Remove duplicate files.
Don't forget those duplicates and similar files! They can stack up without you being aware of it. Finding them is sometimes time-consuming. That's what Gemini 2 is designed for. Simply select a few frequently used folders (e.g. Documents, Downloads, etc.) in the main zone of Gemini.
It then scans them and returns all the duplicate files that might be worth removing. Of course, it's always a good practice to review them before doing so. You can also read more from our detailed Gemini review here.
Wrapping It Up
Ever since Apple introduced the Optimized Storage feature, Mac users got the option of saving space by storing content in the cloud. Apple also has several new tools that make it easy to find and remove unneeded files.
That bar under the Storage tab is beautiful. It does allow you to get a quick overview of what's taking up the most space on our hard drive. However, it still lacks insights into the 'System' category as it's greyed out.
Hopefully, the guides above have helped you figure out the reasons you've got so much 'System' data, and most importantly you've reclaimed some disk space — especially for new MacBooks pre-installed with flash storage — every gigabyte is precious!
Today in 2021, MacBooks are more spacious than ever. The new MacBook Air comes with a 256-GB hard drive. But no amount of storage seems to be enough as the ever-inflating digital media is taking over our hard drives. Cloud servers are only a partial answer to that. They aren't getting cheaper and consume insane amounts of the world's electricity. So if you want to take a load off your drive and help the planet, you should teach yourself a couple of storage-keeping tricks. Let's go.
What's causing low disk space on your Mac?
Before you begin to free up disk space, let's identify what's taking it up. From the Apple Menu in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, select About This Mac and then click the Storage tab in the window that opens. You'll get a handy, color-coded graph that looks like this:
In the above example, you can see that apps, audio files, and 'other' (for details on what this 'other' category consists of, look here) are taking the most significant amount of space.
It's nice to see what's stored on your Mac, and even nicer to be able to browse the folders that contain the files themselves. Now that you've identified what's on your drive let's free up some space.
How to increase disk space on your Mac
There are several options here, so let's go through a few.
1. Remove large and old files
Often the files that end up taking the most space are tucked away in 'cold storage' on your computer. These are big movies, photos, or the like that you rarely look at but can't part with, either. In this case, archiving the files and moving them to an external drive is a good way to free up storage space on your Mac.
Locating huge neglected files can be a pain, but it gets super easy with the CleanMyMac X app. It has a dedicated Large & Old File finder. It will help you find massive files and sort them by size to define the largest ones quickly.
You can download the free version of CleanMyMac X here.
As the name suggests, it finds files that occupy a lot of space on your disk but haven't been opened for a long time. You can quickly review these files right in the app and decide which ones you want to remove. It's a really handy feature if you have a lot of heavy stuff piled up.
2. Empty Trash
Review your Trash bin's contents one last time before you empty it. Press Command and right-click the Trash folder on your Trash icon. Then, click Empty Trash to remove everything.
Use Command-Option-Delete to delete any folder immediately, bypassing Trash.
How To Get Disk Space Mac
3. Clean up the Downloads folder
Files love to hide in your Mac's Downloads folder. Old disk images, random photos, unused extensions, ZIP files… they're all in there, not making a sound. Hiding. ? Go to Finder and browse what's sitting in your Downloads, wasting space on your disk. Anything unnecessary can be dragged to the Trash.
4. Delete duplicate folders and files
How many times do we copy or download things twice? Like many users, I would prefer to have a backup twin of my important files. But that often ends up in my files being quadrupled…or what do they call a 4th or 5th copy of the same folder?
To effectively remove duplicate files and make space on Mac, you can use Gemini 2. This is how this app looks.
You can download this little duplicate finder here.
Gemini 2 analyzes potential duplicates by many criteria, not just the name of the file. It searches for:
- Duplicate folders
- Duplicate movies
- Similar images
5. Learn to use Optimized Storage
How To Clear Disk Space Mac
Optimized Storage is the built-in feature of the macOS. It's a sorting algorithm that shows different categories of files on your Mac for review and removal.
- Click the Apple Menu > About This Mac > Storage.
- Choose 'Manage…'
To your surprise, you see a yellow bar representing 'System' that seems to occupy way more space than you think it should. In the example above, it only shows 207 GB, but take a look at this Apple discussion — some Mac users report that System Storage takes an astonishing 250 GB.
Worse yet, you have no idea what's included in 'System' storage, because clicking the 'Manage' button brings you to this System Information window… and the 'System' row is greyed out.
Why does my Mac system require so much space?
How to insert table of contents in word 2016 mac. What does it contain?
Is it safe to remove some of those system files?
How do I regain more storage space?
Questions like these may easily get to your head. Although my Mac now has a good amount of disk space available, I'm always wary of files that are taking up more space than they should.
I have no idea why 'System' is greyed out while 'Documents,' 'System Junk,' 'Trash,' etc. allow you to review the files based on size and type. My hunch is that Apple does this on purpose to prevent users from deleting system files that could lead to serious issues.
What Files Are Included in System Storage on Mac?
During my research, I found many people report that Apple counts iTunes backup files and app caches (e.g. Adobe video cache files) in the System category.
Since it's greyed out and we are unable to click on that category for deeper analysis, we'll have to use a third-party app to assist.
CleanMyMac X is perfect for this kind of analysis. Since I tested the app in our best Mac cleaner review, it immediately came to my head when I saw 'System' was greyed out in Storage. Note that CleanMyMac isn't freeware, but the new 'Space Lens' feature is free to use and it allows you to scan your Macintosh HD, and then show you an in-depth overview of what's taking up disk space on your Mac.
Step 1:Download CleanMyMac and install the app on your Mac. Open it, under 'Space Lens' module, first click the yellow 'Grant Access' button to allow the app to access your Mac files and then select 'Scan' to get started.
Step 2: Soon it'll show you a folder/file tree and you can hover your cursor over each block (i.e. a folder). There you can find more details. In this case, I clicked 'System' folder to continue.
Step 3: The file breakdown below indicates that some Library and iOS Support files are the culprits.
The interesting part is that the System file size shown in CleanMyMac is much smaller than the size shown in System Information. This puzzles me and makes me believe that Apple definitely has counted some other files (not real system files) in the System category.
What are they? I have no clue, honestly. But as reported by other Mac users who experienced the same issue, they said Apple also considers app caches and iTunes backup files as System files.
Out of curiosity, I ran CleanMyMac again for a quick scan. That app found 13.92 GB in iTunes Junk. Further review revealed that the junk files are old iOS device backups, software updates, broken downloads, etc.
But even after adding this amount to the original system files returned by CleanMyMac X, the total size is still a bit less than what's returned in System Information.
If cleaning the System Storage is still not enough to bring your Mac available disk space to a normal level (i.e. 20% or more), see below.
What Else Can I Do to Reclaim More Disk Space?
There are tons of ways out there. Here are a few of my favorites that should help you get back a decent amount of space quickly.
1. Sort all files by size and delete old large files.
Open Finder, go to Recents and look at the Size column. Click on it to sort all recent files by file size (from large to small). You'll have a clear overview of what items are eating up a large amount of space, e.g. From 1 GB to 10 GB, and from 100 MB to 1 GB.
On my MacBook Pro, I found a few large videos that could be transferred to an external drive.
Note: If the Size column doesn't show up, click on the Settings icon and select Arrange By > Size.
2. Remove duplicate files.
Don't forget those duplicates and similar files! They can stack up without you being aware of it. Finding them is sometimes time-consuming. That's what Gemini 2 is designed for. Simply select a few frequently used folders (e.g. Documents, Downloads, etc.) in the main zone of Gemini.
It then scans them and returns all the duplicate files that might be worth removing. Of course, it's always a good practice to review them before doing so. You can also read more from our detailed Gemini review here.
Wrapping It Up
Ever since Apple introduced the Optimized Storage feature, Mac users got the option of saving space by storing content in the cloud. Apple also has several new tools that make it easy to find and remove unneeded files.
That bar under the Storage tab is beautiful. It does allow you to get a quick overview of what's taking up the most space on our hard drive. However, it still lacks insights into the 'System' category as it's greyed out.
Hopefully, the guides above have helped you figure out the reasons you've got so much 'System' data, and most importantly you've reclaimed some disk space — especially for new MacBooks pre-installed with flash storage — every gigabyte is precious!
Today in 2021, MacBooks are more spacious than ever. The new MacBook Air comes with a 256-GB hard drive. But no amount of storage seems to be enough as the ever-inflating digital media is taking over our hard drives. Cloud servers are only a partial answer to that. They aren't getting cheaper and consume insane amounts of the world's electricity. So if you want to take a load off your drive and help the planet, you should teach yourself a couple of storage-keeping tricks. Let's go.
What's causing low disk space on your Mac?
Before you begin to free up disk space, let's identify what's taking it up. From the Apple Menu in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, select About This Mac and then click the Storage tab in the window that opens. You'll get a handy, color-coded graph that looks like this:
In the above example, you can see that apps, audio files, and 'other' (for details on what this 'other' category consists of, look here) are taking the most significant amount of space.
It's nice to see what's stored on your Mac, and even nicer to be able to browse the folders that contain the files themselves. Now that you've identified what's on your drive let's free up some space.
How to increase disk space on your Mac
There are several options here, so let's go through a few.
1. Remove large and old files
Often the files that end up taking the most space are tucked away in 'cold storage' on your computer. These are big movies, photos, or the like that you rarely look at but can't part with, either. In this case, archiving the files and moving them to an external drive is a good way to free up storage space on your Mac.
Locating huge neglected files can be a pain, but it gets super easy with the CleanMyMac X app. It has a dedicated Large & Old File finder. It will help you find massive files and sort them by size to define the largest ones quickly.
You can download the free version of CleanMyMac X here.
As the name suggests, it finds files that occupy a lot of space on your disk but haven't been opened for a long time. You can quickly review these files right in the app and decide which ones you want to remove. It's a really handy feature if you have a lot of heavy stuff piled up.
2. Empty Trash
Review your Trash bin's contents one last time before you empty it. Press Command and right-click the Trash folder on your Trash icon. Then, click Empty Trash to remove everything.
Use Command-Option-Delete to delete any folder immediately, bypassing Trash.
How To Get Disk Space Mac
3. Clean up the Downloads folder
Files love to hide in your Mac's Downloads folder. Old disk images, random photos, unused extensions, ZIP files… they're all in there, not making a sound. Hiding. ? Go to Finder and browse what's sitting in your Downloads, wasting space on your disk. Anything unnecessary can be dragged to the Trash.
4. Delete duplicate folders and files
How many times do we copy or download things twice? Like many users, I would prefer to have a backup twin of my important files. But that often ends up in my files being quadrupled…or what do they call a 4th or 5th copy of the same folder?
To effectively remove duplicate files and make space on Mac, you can use Gemini 2. This is how this app looks.
You can download this little duplicate finder here.
Gemini 2 analyzes potential duplicates by many criteria, not just the name of the file. It searches for:
- Duplicate folders
- Duplicate movies
- Similar images
5. Learn to use Optimized Storage
How To Clear Disk Space Mac
Optimized Storage is the built-in feature of the macOS. It's a sorting algorithm that shows different categories of files on your Mac for review and removal.
- Click the Apple Menu > About This Mac > Storage.
- Choose 'Manage…'
By far, the most-space demanding of your files will be Applications.
Mac Check Disk Space
Using the quick tabs above, you will decide what is there you can toss away. Make sure also to check Recommendations (on top of the list). There are a couple more space-saving options there.
6. Uninstall unused applications
If you're like me, you often try an app '..just to see what it does'. While that's fun, it frequently results in a slew of forgotten apps. It's a good practice to set a reminder to review your Applications folder and clean out the ones you no longer use. However, note that simply dragging an app into your Mac's trash doesn't eliminate all of its related files.
CleanMyMac X's Uninstaller feature, on the other hand, leaves no leftover pieces behind, which means more available space on your Mac. CleanMyMac X finds every app-related document and file, no matter where it has been tucked away and deletes it from your Mac.
And speaking of setting up a reminder, CleanMyMac's scheduler will handle that task for you, too. Just tell it how often you'd like to be prompted to give your Mac a good cleaning and leave the rest to the app.
7. Delete your Desktop screenshots
Mac's Desktop is where you keep screenshots by default. With a feature called 'Stacks,' you can organize your Desktop into clearly labeled folders. One of such folders will be Screenshots, which you can later remove in one sweep.
- Go to your desktop.
- Right-click somewhere in the middle of your Desktop.
- Select 'Use Stacks'
Now you should see the Screenshots folder with all your screengrabs neatly stuffed inside. Drag this folder to the Trash and empty it.
8. Get rid of system junk
It's not just your files that are hogging disk space — it's also useless system files like logs, cache, unused binaries, old iOS backups and installers, and what not. Fortunately, CleanMyMac can find and eliminate them all to make low disk space a thing of the past, at last.
System junk is comprised of:
- User cache files
- Application cache
- Broken downloads
- Unused .DMG installers
As you can see, the 'User cache' category alone can recover about 3 GB of space. So the best way to free up space on Mac is to start with this type of files.
With just a few clicks, you'll discover what's where and what's ripe for deletion. The best way to free up hard drive space is to run CleanMyMac X and wave goodbye to space-hogging files. Don't worry. You won't miss them. Hopefully, you managed to clear a lot of disk space — drop by for more Mac housekeeping tips. 😉
