Very dumb! Clear Out the Downloads Folder That just shuffles the junk around it doesn’t eliminate it and clear out disk space.Īs I type this, almost 1 GB of disk space on my main Mac is taken up by 539 files on my Desktop, most of which are in a Desktop Junk folder I created to keep them out of the way. Then empty the Trash.ĭon’t do what I do, which is to wait until there are too many icons to actually find new ones that arrive and then file them all in a Desktop Junk folder on the Desktop.

What is all that junk? Do you need it all? Go through it all, file the keepers, and delete the junk. If you’re like me, your Mac’s desktop is a minefield of file and folder icons. That’s usually where you find commands related to an application’s internal Trash. Check the documentation for the applications you use, or just peek under the application or File menu. IPhoto isn’t the only application with its own Trash. I start with the easy stuff - the document files you can archive and take off your hard disk because you really don’t need them there - and work my way up to unused application and system files that probably shouldn’t be on your hard disk in the first place.įigure 4 Choose iPhoto > Empty iPhoto Trash. In this article, I explain how to find and delete files that are unnecessarily filling up your hard disk so you can free up space for new files. If you offload the things you really don’t need, you might wind up with enough room to put off that new hard disk purchase until you’re ready for a whole new computer. Six months or a year later, we wonder where all that free space went and we worry about having enough space for the next six months.īefore you run out and get a new hard disk, you can do a few things to free up space on the hard disk you already have.

We buy a new computer with a hard disk so big we’re convinced we could never fill it up. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: Visual QuickStart Guide

How to clean up disk on mac