Over time, your Mac probably accumulates a lot of cruft. Old applications you no longer use, data you have no use for, a desktop full of icons (only four of which you actually ever use)…you know what I mean. With so many people working from home lately, the problem has only gotten worse.
Before you upgrade, we recommend that you back up your Mac. If your Mac is running OS X Mavericks 10.9 or later, you can upgrade directly to macOS Big Sur. You’ll need the following: OS X 10.9 or later; 4GB of memory; 35.5GB available storage on macOS Sierra. Beneficence & Confidence – Stellar Mind 01. Hypnosis (Intro) 02. Jerz To The Jugular (feat. El Da Sensei) 03. Travelling Man 04.
Now is as good a time as any to tidy up your Mac, freeing up storage space and probably CPU cycles and RAM in the process. Here are a few tips to make quick work of your Mac “spring cleaning.”
Open the Storage Management app, either by using Spotlight (Command-space) or by clicking the Apple logo in the upper left of the menu bar, choosing About This Mac, clicking the Storage tab, then Manage.
In the Recommendations tab you’ll see a number of useful options, like Store in iCloud and Empty Trash Automatically. The Optimize Storage solution will get rid of things like old TV shows you’ve already watched and old email attachments when you’re low on storage space.
While you’re in the Storage Management app, click on the Applications tab in the left column. You can see all your installed applications here and sort them by size, easily deleting apps you haven’t used in ages.
Then, click on Documents in the left tab. There are several sections here, like Large Files and Unsupported Apps, that are worth perusing. Big library files (for apps like Lightroom or Final Cut Pro) are likely to show up here, and you might not want to mess with them. But you may have old large files and documents, or apps that no longer even work on your version of macOS, that you can safely remove.
If your desktop is littered with icons, you should probably tidy things up a bit. Right-click (two-finger tap on a trackpad) any open space and choose Clean Up to get things arranged neatly, or Clean Up By to sort them as well. Consider the Use Stacks feature to automatically stack-up files of the same type into a single icon. Just click on that icon to open the stack. This can really tidy up your desktop!
Power users that really want to clean out their Mac’s storage may want to check out a third party app like DaisyDisk ($9.99). It’s a simple and clear way to see everything on your Mac, or any other attached storage device or drive. It can do things like dig into the mysterious “Other” category and help you clear out what you don’t need.
It may seem unnecessary to pay money for an app that just helps you delete stuff from your Mac’s storage, but there’s a lot of value in disk analyzers like this. It can really be eye-opening to see exactly what’s filling up your Mac’s SSD.
Automatically back up all your files with Time Machine, which is built in to your Mac, or choose another backup method.
Create a backupYou can also use iCloud and iCloud Drive to store files, such as your photos, documents, and music.
Set up iCloud and iCloud DriveWhen you have a backup, you can use it to restore your files at any time, including after the original files are deleted from your Mac.
Restore from a backupMaking a backup is an important part of preparing your Mac for service, especially because some types of repair might require erasing or replacing your hard drive.
Get your Mac ready for serviceTo see the size of a specific file or folder, click it once and then press Command-I. To see storage information about your Mac, click the Apple menu in the top-left of your screen. Choose About This Mac and click the Storage tab. For Time Machine backups, it's good to use a drive that has at least twice the storage capacity of your Mac.
macOS can save space by storing your content in the cloud. This isn't a backup, but it includes new tools to make it easier to find and remove large or unwanted files before you make a backup.
Use Optimized Storage in macOSYou can use Disk Utility if you need to erase or format a storage device.
Learn how to use Disk UtilityAsk everyone. Our Apple Support Community can help you find answers.
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