macOS Storage Recommendations Explained

Open System Settings → General → Storage and macOS offers a short menu of recommendations: Store in iCloud, Optimize Storage, and Empty Trash Automatically. The names undersell how different they are — one changes where your files live, one quietly deletes re-downloadable media, and one is a Finder checkbox wearing a different hat. Here's what each actually does.

Where the recommendations live

Go to System Settings → General → Storage (on macOS Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia alike). You'll see a colored bar showing what's using the disk, the recommendations near the top, and a category list (Applications, Documents, Photos, and so on) below it. Give the pane a minute — the bar and category numbers are calculated in the background and start out incomplete, which is why the totals sometimes seem to change while you watch. The recommendations only appear while they're relevant; once a feature is on, its card shows as enabled or drops off the list.

Store in iCloud: moves files, doesn't shrink them

Click Store in iCloud and you can choose to keep your Desktop & Documents folders, Photos library, and Messages history in iCloud. All files still appear in Finder, but when your disk runs low, macOS evicts the least-recently-used ones — leaving a placeholder with a cloud icon that re-downloads on open.

• The win: genuinely large — this can offload hundreds of gigabytes from a small SSD.
• The catch: you need enough paid iCloud storage (the free 5 GB won't cover it), and evicted files are unreachable without internet. macOS decides what gets evicted, not you.
• The surprise: people enable it, later see cloud icons on the plane, and assume files were "deleted." They weren't — but if offline access matters to you, this is the recommendation to skip.

Optimize Storage: narrower than it sounds

Despite the sweeping name, this toggle does two specific things: it removes Apple TV movies and shows you've already watched, and it keeps only recent email attachments on the Mac instead of downloading all of them. Both are safe — watched videos re-download from Apple, and Mail fetches any older attachment from the server when you open the message.

Note what it does not touch: your photos. Photo optimization is a separate setting inside the Photos app (Photos → Settings → iCloud → Optimize Mac Storage), which is where the really big wins usually are.

Empty Trash Automatically: the easy yes

This deletes anything that has been in the Trash for more than 30 days. It's the same setting as Finder → Settings → Advanced → Remove items from the Trash after 30 days — turning it on in either place flips both. The one caveat: after 30 days those files are gone for good, with no Put Back. If you use the Trash as a delete button, enable it; if you use it as a "maybe later" pile, don't.

A sensible default for most people: Empty Trash Automatically on, Optimize Storage on, and Store in iCloud only if you already pay for iCloud+ and have dependable internet.

Go deeper on the Trash setting

The 30-day auto-empty is the recommendation most people should enable first — but it deserves two minutes of thought about what you keep in the Trash. Our guide to auto-emptying the Trash after 30 days covers the Finder checkbox, the Terminal command, and the trade-off.