How to Clear Disk Space on macOS Catalina?

Kepler Donald
Mac O’Clock
Published in
4 min readJul 15, 2021

Low disk space on Mac is a big concern for many due to the small storage capacity in SSD. Also, constant accumulation of caches, logs, junks, trashes, leftovers, and other unwanted files waste Mac storage and reduce free space. Moreover, insufficient disk space slows down your Mac performance and decreases an SSD’s life. So, you need to clear disk space regularly to regain free storage and optimize Mac. This post shares the best methods on how to clean up disk space on macOS Catalina.

Methods to Clear Disk Space on Mac

1. Using Storage Management App

macOS Catalina allows you to find and remove large files, downloaded files, and other unneeded files through the native Storage Management app. Follow the given steps to clear disk space using the app:

  • Navigate to Apple menu > About This Mac > Storage.
about-this-mac
  • Click the Manage button to access Storage Management app.
click-manage
  • In the Recommendations tab, click the required button beside each recommendation.
recommendations
  • Click Store in iCloud to store files, photos, and messages in iCloud and keep recent files and optimized photos on Mac drive to save space.
  • Click Optimize to save space by automatically removing watched iTunes movies and TV shows and keeping recent Mac email attachments.
  • Click Turn On beside Empty Trash Automatically to save space by routinely deleting items in Trash for more than 30 days.
  • Click Review Files to sort through documents and other content stored on Mac and delete unwanted large files and downloaded files.
  • In the Applications section, remove unused or inessential large apps that you can download again from App Store to free up storage space on Mac SSD.
delete-mac-application
  • In the Trash section, check the trashed items, secondary-click, and choose Delete to remove individual items or click Empty Trash to free up storage space.
empty-trash

Based on the used space in the iBooks, iCloud Drive, iOS Files, iTunes, Mail, Messages, Music Creation, Photos, and other folders present on your Mac, you can remove the unrequired items to clean up disk space.

2. Using a Third-Party Disk Cleaner

The Storage Management app is quite helpful but won’t help you remove caches, logs, and other junk items stored on your Mac SSD or HDD. You need to install SpeedUp Mac, which is one of the best third-party Mac disk cleaner software. It conveniently deletes unneeded files from the system.

The steps to perform Mac disk cleaning with SpeedUp Mac are as follows:

Step i) Launch the SpeedUp Mac software on your device.

speed-up-mac

Step ii) Select macOS Catalina disk and press the Scan button. The SpeedUp Mac app begins scanning the Catalina drive diligently.

scan-macos-catalina-disk

Step iii) Press CleanUp Now and clear disk space on macOS Catalina with a click of a button.

clean-up-mac-now

SpeedUp Mac tool also allows you to schedule the clean-up task; so, there is no manual intervention to clean Mac and optimize its performance. The mentioned software helps you remove apps without leaving any leftovers, traces, and other associated files. It also enables you to remove login items, clear up memory, and perform different speed-up tasks on Mac.

Final Thoughts

We have covered both the native and advanced techniques on how to free up disk space on Mac running on macOS Catalina. Of course, you can use manual methods to clear disk space. But if Mac’s regular disk cleaning task seems uninteresting, try a third-party disk clean-up software such as the SpeedUp Mac to clear disk space. Schedule the clean-up task, be more productive on your Mac, and leave the monotonous disk cleaning task to the disk cleaner software.

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