How to optimize the storage on Mac?

If the storage on your Mac is getting too full, you may encounter a slew of problems. As your startup disk fills up, your Mac gets slower and slower. If your startup disk fills up completely, your Mac may not even be able to boot up.

To keep your computer running smoothly and efficiently, you can take advantage of your Mac’s Optimized Storage feature.

Understanding what's taking up storage

Before we dive into optimizing storage, here's a quick reminder of how to check it and, more importantly, what can be eating up that valuable space: 

1. Open System Settings. 
2. Go to General > Storage. 

Once the colored graph loads, you will see the main categories of space eaters. You can also scroll down and see additional ones. Pay specific attention to the largest space hoggers that are not self-explanatory: 

• iOS files — expands if you use your Mac to back up iPhone, iPad, or iPod if you have one
• System Data — all kinds of caches (including system, app, and browser cache)
• Mail and Messages — mainly because of attachments

Now, let's move on to clearing up that space.

How to optimize storage on your Mac 

The Optimized Storage feature can help save space on your Mac by storing your content in iCloud. When you need more storage space, files, photos, and other items you rarely use are automatically stored in iCloud. When you need a file, simply find it where you last saved it—the file will download when you open it.

Here’s how to access Optimized Storage:

1. From the Apple menu, go to System Settings > General > Storage.

2. Check Recommendations under the colored graph.

3. From here, you can optimize your storage. 

You can also choose to store videos and photos in iCloud (replacing them with optimized versions on your Mac) and empty your trash automatically.

Next, you can remove some files manually: 

• Click the i next to each category and remove unneeded stuff from there (pay close attention to the space hoggers mentioned above: Mail, Messages, and iOS Files).
• Go to the Finder and sort the files in your folders by size so that you can find and remove the oldest ones.
• In the Finder, press Command + Shift + G and paste this path in the window that pops up: ~/Library/Caches
  Delete files from subfolders (keep folders intact), but be sure to double-check what you send to the Trash.
  Repeat for this path: /Library/Caches 

Optimize Mac storage with CleanMyMac

CleanMyMac by MacPaw makes it easy to optimize your Mac’s storage and free up space. It pairs a powerful Cleanup tool that lets you delete unnecessary system and user files with My Clutter tool that is designed to help you declutter your MacBook by finding large and old files, unneeded downloads, similar images, and duplicates. Get a free trial of the app.  By the way, this app is notarized by Apple (a safety clearance process). Take a look at some of the items you can delete:   

With its Applications tool, CleanMyMac can also scan through your apps and automatically locate their leftovers, data caches, and associated support files. Whenever CleanMyMac tells you how much space an app is using, it includes all this extra information, so you can be sure you know exactly which apps are taking up the most space.

CleanMyMac lets you select apps from its scan list and delete them permanently (along with all their associated files). Its disk scan also shows you how much space you’re freeing up by deleting apps — in real time!

And you can also optimize cloud storage with the help of its Cloud Cleanup feature. Just connect your account and run a scan from time to time to always have enough room for your next sync.