The Complete Guide to Freeing Up Space on Your Mac (2026)

Running low on disk space is one of the most frustrating problems Mac users face. It slows down your system, prevents software updates, and can even cause apps to crash. The good news: most Macs are sitting on 10 to 30 GB of reclaimable space hidden in caches, old downloads, duplicate files, and forgotten developer artifacts.

This guide walks through every practical method to free up space on your MacBook or iMac, starting with the quickest wins and working through deeper cleanup techniques. Whether you have a 256 GB MacBook Air or a 2 TB Mac Studio, these steps apply to any Mac running macOS Ventura, Sonoma, or Sequoia.

1. Check What's Using Your Storage

Before deleting anything, you need to understand what is consuming your disk. macOS provides a built-in breakdown.

Using About This Mac

Open Apple menu > About This Mac > More Info > Storage Settings (on macOS Ventura and later) or Apple menu > About This Mac > Storage (on older versions). You will see a color-coded bar showing how space is distributed across categories: Applications, Documents, macOS, System Data, and Others.

Pay attention to these categories:

• System Data -- often the largest surprise, sometimes 20 GB or more. This includes caches, logs, VM files, and other system artifacts.
• Other -- a catch-all that macOS uses when it cannot classify files into a neat category.
• Documents -- your personal files, which may include large videos, disk images, or old project archives.

Using Terminal for Precision

For a more precise view, open Terminal and run:

This gives you the ground truth, without macOS's sometimes-confusing category labels.

2. Use macOS Storage Management

Apple built a Storage Management tool into macOS that provides several space-saving recommendations. Open it via Apple menu > About This Mac > More Info > Storage Settings > Storage, or search for "Storage" in System Settings.

Store in iCloud

If you have an iCloud+ subscription, macOS can offload Desktop, Documents, and Photos to iCloud and keep only recently accessed files on your local drive. This is one of the most effective ways to free up space without deleting anything. Files you have not opened in a while become cloud-only and can be downloaded on demand.

Optimize Storage

For Apple TV and iTunes content, enabling "Optimize Storage" automatically removes movies and TV shows you have already watched. This can recover anywhere from 2 to 20 GB depending on your media library.

Empty Trash Automatically

Enable "Empty Trash automatically" to remove items that have been in Trash for more than 30 days. Many users forget that Trash still counts against your storage until you empty it.

3. Clear System and Application Caches

Caches are temporary files that macOS and apps create to speed up repeated operations. Over time they accumulate to surprising sizes. There are three main types of caches on your Mac:

User Caches

Located in ~/Library/Caches, these are created by individual apps. Common offenders include Spotify (up to 5 GB of offline music caches), Slack (1-2 GB of media caches), and creative tools like Adobe products or Figma.

You can safely delete the contents of most folders within ~/Library/Caches. Apps will recreate their caches as needed. Just avoid deleting the folders themselves.

System Caches

Located in /Library/Caches, these require administrator privileges to manage. They include font caches, kernel extension caches, and system framework caches. Be more cautious here; in general it is safer to let macOS manage these, or use a trusted tool to identify which ones are safe to remove.

Browser Caches

Every web browser maintains its own cache of downloaded web assets. See our dedicated guide on clearing all Mac caches for browser-specific paths and instructions. Browser caches alone can account for 1 to 4 GB.

4. Clean Up Downloads and Old Files

Your Downloads folder is often the single largest accumulation of unnecessary files. Disk images (.dmg), installer packages (.pkg), zip archives, and ISO files tend to pile up after you have installed the software they contain.

Sort by Size

Open Finder, navigate to Downloads, and switch to List view (Cmd + 2). Click the Size column header to sort by file size. You will likely find forgotten disk images and large downloads you no longer need.

Sort by Date

Files older than a few months are strong candidates for removal. If you downloaded it, installed the software, and have not touched the installer since, it is safe to delete.

Check Desktop Too

Many users use their Desktop as a temporary staging area. Over time, large files and folders accumulate there. Sort your Desktop by size and archive or remove anything you no longer need.

5. Reduce Mail Storage

If you use Apple Mail, it stores local copies of all your emails and attachments. For users with years of email history, this can easily reach 5 to 10 GB.

Remove Large Attachments

In Mail, go to Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items for each account. Then go to Mailbox > Rebuild to force Mail to sync with the server and remove any orphaned local data.

Check Mail Data Size

If this number seems high, consider removing old IMAP accounts you no longer use, or switching to a lighter email client that does not cache as aggressively.

6. Remove iOS Backups

If you have ever backed up an iPhone or iPad to your Mac, those backups may still be taking up significant space. A single iPhone backup can be 10 to 50 GB.

Find and Remove Old Backups

Open Finder and connect your iOS device (or go to the backup location directly). On macOS Ventura and later, you can manage backups through Finder > [Your Device] > Manage Backups.

Alternatively, check the backup directory manually:

If you have switched to iCloud backups or no longer own the device, these local backups can be safely deleted. That alone could reclaim 20 to 50 GB.

7. Find and Remove Large Files

Sometimes a handful of large files are responsible for the bulk of your storage usage. Finding them quickly is key.

Using Finder Smart Folders

In Finder, press Cmd + F, change "Kind" to "File Size", set the condition to "greater than", and enter a value like 500 MB. This shows you every large file on your Mac in one list.

Using Terminal

Common large file culprits include: video files, virtual machine images, iOS simulator data, old Time Machine snapshots, and Xcode archives.

8. Find and Delete Duplicate Files

Duplicate files are more common than most people realize. Photos imported multiple times, documents saved in different locations, and music libraries with redundant copies all waste space. On an average Mac, duplicates can account for 2 to 8 GB of wasted storage.

The Problem with Name-Based Detection

Many duplicate finders only compare file names or sizes. This misses files that have been renamed but are otherwise identical, and it produces false positives when different files happen to share the same name.

Hash-Based Detection

The most reliable approach is to compare files by their actual content using cryptographic hashes. Two files with the same SHA-256 hash are identical regardless of their names or locations. This is what professional duplicate finders use.

For a deeper walkthrough, see our guide on finding and removing duplicate files on Mac.

9. Clean Developer Tools and Caches

If you are a developer, your Mac is likely storing the largest amount of reclaimable space in tool-specific caches and artifacts. Developers commonly have 15 to 40 GB of cleanable data sitting in various hidden directories.

Xcode (Often the Biggest Offender)

Xcode accumulates data across several directories:

• Derived Data (~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData) -- build artifacts that can be safely removed. Xcode will rebuild as needed. Often 5 to 15 GB.
• iOS Simulators (~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator) -- old simulator runtimes you no longer use. Each runtime is 2 to 6 GB.
• Archives (~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives) -- old build archives from App Store submissions.
• Device Support (~/Library/Developer/Xcode/iOS DeviceSupport) -- cached symbols for each iOS version you have connected to. Can reach 10 GB.

Homebrew

npm, pip, and Package Managers

Node.js developers often have a massive ~/.npm cache. Python developers accumulate caches in ~/Library/Caches/pip. Rust developers can check ~/.cargo/registry. Each of these can be multiple gigabytes.

For a comprehensive look at all 17 developer toolchains DeepClean scans, see our developer tools cleanup feature page.

10. Tackle System Data

"System Data" is the most confusing storage category on macOS. It is a catch-all that includes caches, logs, virtual memory swap files, APFS snapshots, and various runtime data. It is not unusual for System Data to consume 15 to 30 GB.

For a deep dive into what System Data actually contains and how to reduce it, read our dedicated guide: What Is "System Data" on Mac and How to Reduce It.

Quick System Data Reductions

• Clear system logs: sudo rm -rf /var/log/* (they will be recreated)
• Remove Time Machine snapshots: tmutil deletelocalsnapshots [date]
• Restart your Mac: this clears VM swap files and some temporary caches

11. Uninstall Applications Properly

Dragging an app to the Trash removes the application bundle, but it leaves behind preferences, caches, support files, containers, and other associated data scattered across your Library folders. Over time, these orphaned files from apps you thought you removed can account for several gigabytes.

Where App Leftovers Hide

• ~/Library/Application Support/[AppName]
• ~/Library/Caches/[bundle.id]
• ~/Library/Preferences/[bundle.id].plist
• ~/Library/Containers/[bundle.id]
• ~/Library/Saved Application State/[bundle.id].savedState

When uninstalling an app, check each of these locations for remnants. Better yet, use a tool that tracks these relationships automatically.

12. Clear Browser Data

Web browsers are aggressive cachers. They store page assets, service workers, GPU shader caches, and extension data across multiple directories.

Safari

Go to Safari > Settings > Privacy > Manage Website Data and click "Remove All." You can also enable "Remove history items" to auto-clear after a period.

Chrome

Chrome stores its cache in ~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome and additional data in ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome. Open chrome://settings/clearBrowserData and select "Cached images and files" to clear it through the browser interface.

Firefox, Arc, Brave, Edge

Each Chromium-based browser has its own cache and application support directories. They all accumulate data independently, so if you use multiple browsers, you may have multiple gigabytes of redundant cache data.

13. Automate Cleanup Going Forward

The best cleanup strategy is one you do not have to think about. Here are ways to keep your Mac storage lean over time:

Summary: Typical Space Recovered

Here is a realistic breakdown of what most Mac users can reclaim by following this guide:

• Caches (system + app + browser): 3 to 8 GB
• Downloads and installer files: 2 to 5 GB
• iOS backups: 10 to 50 GB (if present)
• Large files and duplicates: 3 to 10 GB
• Developer tools: 5 to 30 GB (if you are a developer)
• Mail data: 1 to 5 GB
• App leftovers: 1 to 3 GB

For most users, the total is somewhere between 15 and 40 GB of reclaimable space. Developers often see even higher numbers because of Xcode, simulators, and package manager caches.