How to free up disk space on Mac

A few gigabytes of free space left can slow your Mac down, cause Time Machine backups to fail, and stop software updates from downloading. The biggest space consumers are usually in predictable places, and most are safe to delete without touching anything critical.

Check what you have first

Before deleting anything, find out how much space you have. Go to Apple menu > About This Mac > More Info, scroll to Storage, and click Storage Settings. You'll see a coloured bar broken into categories — Applications, Documents, iCloud Drive, System Data, and so on.

For a faster read in Terminal:

# show free and used space on your main volume
df -h /

To check the size of a specific folder before you start clearing it:

# check how much your Downloads folder is using
du -sh ~/Downloads

The easiest wins

Empty the Trash

Deleted files sit in the Trash until you empty it. Right-click the Trash icon in the Dock and choose Empty Trash. On machines that haven't been emptied in months, this alone can recover several gigabytes.

Clear the Downloads folder

Downloads is reliably cluttered on most Macs — disk images, old PDF attachments, zip archives from years ago. Open Finder, click Downloads in the sidebar, sort by size, and delete what you no longer need.

Remove old iOS and iPadOS backups

Finder backups of your iPhone or iPad can run to 5–20 GB each. To remove old ones: open Finder, connect your device (or click its name in the sidebar), click Manage Backups in the device panel, then select any backup you no longer need and click Delete Backup. If you back up to iCloud instead, check anyway — some people accumulate both.

App caches and leftover data

Every app stores cached data in ~/Library/Caches. Most is safe to delete — apps rebuild on next launch. Focus on the largest entries first:

# see the biggest cache folders
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/*

If you've uninstalled an app, check ~/Library/Application Support too — apps often leave gigabytes behind even after they're gone. Sort by size and remove folders for anything you've deleted.

If you use Xcode, derived data is one of the biggest single space consumers on developer Macs. It's safe to delete — Xcode rebuilds it on the next build:

# remove all Xcode derived data (safe to delete)
rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData

Use Optimise Storage

Go to System Settings > General > Storage and review the recommendations. Three are worth switching on:

• Store in iCloud — offloads files you haven't opened recently; small placeholders stay on your Mac and the files download again when you open them.
• Empty Trash Automatically — deletes anything that's been in the Trash for more than 30 days.
• Reduce Clutter — opens a file browser sorted by size so you can find large files without Terminal.

Duplicate photos

In macOS 13 Ventura and later, Photos includes a Duplicates album in the left sidebar. macOS identifies likely duplicates and lets you merge them with one click — a quick win if you've ever imported from multiple devices.

What not to delete

A few places that look deletable but aren't safe to touch:

• /Library/Caches (system caches, not your user caches) — some entries here are required for booting. Leave them alone.
• ~/Library/Mail — your local email store. Don't delete it unless everything is backed up server-side.
• The System volume — macOS Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia use a sealed, read-only system volume.

Stick to ~/Library/Caches and leftover app support folders. If you want a visual map to find what's unexpectedly large, DaisyDisk (Mac App Store) shows an interactive sunburst of your drive and makes it easy to spot the culprits.