For those of you whose storage problems won’t get solved by reindexing — download MacFly Pro to sweep your system from unwanted files. Head to Cleanup section after launching the app, select System and hit ’ Scan ’. Once that’s done, click Review files to choose what you want to remove, and then ’ Clean ’. While purgeable information can be restored at any time, there’s little risk you’ll remove any important data: Click on the Apple menu at the left of the Finder menu bar and choose About this Mac. Click the storage tab and you’ll see a bar with different colored sections on it. Each of these sections describes a specific type of data.

  1. Removing Purgeable Files From Mac For Bootcamp Mac
  2. Mac Manually Free Purgeable

To remove the purgeable files, you will need to make macOS believe that your disk is full. To do that, use the command “mkfile” to create new files to fill up your storage. Then delete those files and you should see that you don’t have any more purgeable space. In your case, open terminal and type this: mkfile. Once the large purgeable area was cleared then I could delete the temporary smaller files and copy the large one that I intended. Note, that deleting the smaller temporary files caused my purgeable area to grow again, fortunately it grew small enough that I could copy the large file.

I was having some problems with a game and support told me to do a “clean install” of the graphics drivers. I didn’t read the entire instructions the support guy gave me, so I did a dumb and thought that meant I needed to uninstall my graphics drivers and then install new ones, when what I should have done is used one of NVIDIA’s built in tools.

Macs are praised for their user-friendliness, thorough user experience design and optimization. However even Apple computers have their moments when you can’t help but feel the need for explanation.

Somewhere at the top of the burning questions list is Storage. At times, you can’t even tell what takes up the space on your Mac and what do you need to delete to claim it back. System, Other, Purgeable types of storage — what are they, and more importantly, how do you clear them? Let’s get this figured out.

How to Clear System Storage on Mac

There have been incidents when System Storage started taking obnoxious chunks of space. Unfortunately, you can’t tell what really takes the space judging from the info provided by OS X storage tool.

It could be anything from local Time Machine backups going bananas to Spotlight indexing misbehaving and everything in between. There is no exhaustive list of what is considered System storage too. At least it is not provided by the folks at Apple. Typically, it’s all the OS X-generated files, like system logs, caches, backups (both macOS and iOS) etc.

If you are looking to get a detailed peek into your system files, you should look into third-party tools like OmniDiskSweeper or Disk Inventory X. Both are free.

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Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that you might not even need to delete anything to make free space on your disk. Technically, you are not getting any more storage, as it may simply be the problem with Spotlight indexing that fails to provide accurate information regarding the free space on your drive.

To start reindexing, go to System Preferences > Spotlight and switch to Privacy tab. Next, hit ’+’ and add your drive to the list of folders you want to prevent from indexing. Reboot your Mac. Lastly, head back over to Spotlight settings and this time remove your drive from the Privacy list. This will launch Spotlight indexing which may temporary slow down your Mac until it the process is completed. Upon completion you should see a more accurate up-to-date information about your storage.

For those of you whose storage problems won’t get solved by reindexing — download MacFly Pro to sweep your system from unwanted files. Head to Cleanup section after launching the app, select System and hit ’Scan’. Once that’s done, click Review files to choose what you want to remove, and then ’Clean’.

How to Clear Other Storage on Mac

Other storage is by far the most confusing of the bunch. The only explanation provided by Apple regarding Other files is that these are the files “that your Mac doesn't recognize as belonging to any other category”. This explanation obviously leaves a lot of room for additional interpretation. Plug-ins, extensions, files within disk images, archives, virtual machine hard drive, Windows Boot Camp partitions, etc. are all up there with the files that OS X, supposedly, considers as Other.

Fortunately, macOS Sierra and above do a better job of classifying such files through Storage Management tool. On the contrary, the tool doesn’t do well at cleanup of those files.

Manually locating and cleaning files that OS X considers to be “Other” is painstakingly time-consuming. Using third-party tools, however, makes the process a lot less frustrating. With MacFly Pro you can free up major space on your drive without breaking a sweat. From the Smart Assistant tab, run an exhaustive system-wise scan to get an overview of files that can be safely purged from your system.

Another thing you should do is check your Downloads folder or any other directory that your downloads default to. Such folders are a hub for ‘Other’ files that you tend to forget about. Revisit and remove unneeded dmgs, archives, etc.

Purgeable Storage. Clean Up Other Files On Mac

Purgeable Storage is something you will start seeing after you have enabled Optimize Storage option. What it means is that when your MacBook runs low on free disk space it will start automatically deleting watched iTunes movies and TV series episodes.

And while we're on the topic of native Mac optimization — don't enable the Store in iCloud feature unless you want to pay for the storage plan of at least 200 gigs. If free 5GBs of space is all you've got, then you'll run into the iCloud storage is full message in no time.

In other words, it’s the storage that can be made available automatically. Note, that all purgeable files can be downloaded again on your demand. There is no real need for tips on how to erase purgeable storage on Mac, as it is done automatically. Yet, if you are the type of person who prefers doing it manually, you can open iTunes and go to Movies Library to remove films you have already watched or no longer plan on watching.

These are just a few tips that will set you on the right path to a better understanding of what’s going on with your Mac’s storage. Whether you’re looking to cleanup your startup disk or maintain it that way — MacFly Pro is your go-to assistant.

Optimized Storage helps you save storage space 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. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.

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Bootcamp

Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.

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.

Store in iCloud

Mac Manually Free Purgeable

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 to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.

Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving 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 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

Purgeable

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 or later, 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. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
  • If you're using 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 or later, 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 you're using 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. Software mixer untuk pc. 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:

  • 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 described in this article, 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

  • The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
  • 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.