Optimized Storage in macOS Sierra and later* can save space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand. When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically. Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it. Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.
* If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.
Find out how much storage is available on your Mac
Choose Apple menu > About This Mac, then click Storage. This is an overview of available storage space on your Mac, as well as the space used by different categories of files:
Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below. (The Manage button is available only in macOS Sierra or later.)
Manage storage on your Mac
The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.
CCleaner for Mac! Clean up your Mac and keep your browsing behaviour private with CCleaner, the world's favourite computer cleaning tool. Free download. You may want to compress your files because compressed files take up less storage space. Here is how you can locate large files so you can compress: Select Finder Go Home File Find then open the Kind menu, then select Other. Now check the checkbox for File Size. Now enter a file size (e.g. 50MB) and find items that are larger than 50MB.
- App Cleaner for Mac is a simple application that uninstalls applications and all associated files. It is available from many download sites, although not from the App Store, and it installs easily.
- Ccleaner for Mac OS X 10.7 OS X Lion - EaseUS CleanGenius, is a ccleaner for Mac system caches, system logs, user caches, user logs, user trash, user downloads cleaning. Free download this Mac.
Store in iCloud
Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:
- Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
- Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
- Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.
Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.
Optimize Storage
Click the Optimize button, then choose from these options.
- Automatically remove watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from the iTunes Store and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.
- Download only recent attachments. Mail automatically downloads only the attachments that you recently received. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.
- Don't automatically download attachments. Mail downloads an attachment only when you open the email or attachment, or save the attachment to your Mac.
Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.
Empty Trash Automatically
Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.
Reduce Clutter
Reduce Clutter helps you to identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.
You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.
Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.
Where to find the settings for each feature
The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.
- If you're using macOS Catalina, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. Then click Options next to iCloud Drive: Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders setting. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
In macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings. - In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
- In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
- If you're using macOS Catalina, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
In macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.” - In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.
Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”
Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space
With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:
![Storage cleaner for mac 10.9.5 download Storage cleaner for mac 10.9.5 download](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Purple30/v4/b3/32/98/b332988e-b948-17bf-d9a2-c3ab48707519/pr_source.jpg/643x0w.jpg)
- Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
- Reminds you to delete used app installers
- Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
- Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed
How to free up storage space manually
Even without using the Optimized Storage features of Sierra or later, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:
- Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
- Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
- Move files to an external storage device.
- Compress files.
- Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.
Learn more
- When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
- If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.
Like PC, Mac also needs to clean up for more disk space and better performance.
Mac OS X 10.7, also called OS X Lion, is the Operating System of Apple Inc. How to clean up Mac OS X 10.7?
Windows has most popular cleanup utility called Ccleaner. Is there any ccleaner for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion?
The answer is YES.
EaseUS CleanGenius is an easy-to-use Mac cleaner software
It can remove useless files and applications to free up more disk space for Mac OS X 10.7 or higher. It has the easy-to-use and powerful features:
Fast clean up your Mac: Just one click to remove system caches, system logs, user logs, user caches, user trash, user downloads and free up more disk space.
Tips: Before cleaning, please make sure whether there are some files that you don't want to clean up in User Trash and User Downloads.
App uninstaller: App uninstaller lets you remove unused applications completely and free up more disk space. When you drag an application to the Trash bin, it will leave behind the leftover which wastes your precious disk space. That is why to remove the applications completely.
Monitor disk space: It will show you the disk space available and will alert you in advance if the disk space is already running low. You can clean or move files to free up disk space to ensure that your Mac is running smoothly.
Disk ejector: Using this one will allow you to eject the mounted drives, such as external storage disks, CD and DVD disks, SuperDrive, network storage and disk images.
Duplicates Finder: Duplicate files have the identical contents and waste the precious disk space. CleanGenius can easily find and remove duplicate files to reclaim the wasted disk space.
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Disk Usage: Visualize the size of your files & folders and remove the unwanted large files to free up more disk space.
Free Memory: When the free memory of your Mac is insufficient, you can easily use CleanGenius to free memory and speed up your Mac for better performance.
Set Login Items: Unneeded applications may auto run every time when you start Mac. This will reduce your Mac performance. If you don't want an application to start every time you launch your Mac, just open CleanGenius and disable the startup items you find annoying.
Browser Plug-ins Cleanup: Support to clean up and remove browsers such as Safari, Chrome or Firefox plug-ins, cache and cookies. Your browsing histories, bookmarks and downloaded files won't be cleaned.
Since the EaseUS CleanGenius released, it has received high reviews from the users and editors:
'CleanGenius Looks Like CCleaner For Mac OS X
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On Windows, CCleaner is the go-to program when it comes to keeping your PC's hard drive spotless, as well as uninstalling programs without having to go through operating system's sluggish interface. CleanGenius, with is slick UI and bevy of options, looks like a contender for an equivalent app for Mac.'
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'CleanGenius is one of the must-have utilities for Mac users. It offers one-click disk clean and keeps track of the space available on your drives, informs you immediately if the volume is out of space. This is great!!!'