Saturday , 16 March 2024

Why Did My Mac Run Out Of Disk Space And How To Fix It?

When your Mac runs out of disc space, it slows down considerably. You won’t be able to install new programs, and the functionality of those that you already have might be limited. It’s irritating from a personal viewpoint, and it might lead to losses for a business. To be able to download new files you’ll have to clean the disc space either manually or with the help of specialized software. Here are a few useful tips on how to prevent your Mac disc space from getting chock full and what to do if this happened.

You Downloaded Too Many Files

This often happens to people who prefer to keep their movies and music on a hard disc rather than to stream them online. Go to the About This Mac section to check the volume of your iTunes library. Click the Storage tab and then the Manage button to see the exact amount of gigabytes occupied by your photos, videos, and other documents.

To delete an unnecessary file you need to:

  1. Right-click it.
  2. Go to the Trash section and empty it.

Unless you empty the Trash, the file won’t be removed from your Mac automatically. It will keep occupying your disc space — with the only difference that now it has moved to another folder.

It might take you a few hours or even days to detect and delete manually all the content you won’t need anymore. Also, mind it that this scheme works only with macOS 10.12 Sierra or higher. If you use an older macOS, the statistics of the disk memory is not so easy to reach. So you’ll need to install extra software, such as Disk Inventory X. It’s free and efficient, and it works well on old Macs. However, even after you get rid of the unnecessary files, a large part of your disc space might still be occupied with something. Throughout the past decade of Apple dominance, many Macbook operating issues have been resolved simply by deleting unnecessary files.

There Are Large Duplicate Files On Your Disk

Sometimes we download the same file twice by mistake, or we save too many copies of the projects we’re working on. These files clog the memory of our Macs even though we’ll never use them again. The biggest problem with duplicate content is that it takes ages to detect it manually. To save time and effort, you should download a third-party app to find and remove duplicate content. It will scan your disk for similar-looking files and let you hand-pick the ones you won’t need. After you get rid of the duplicates, there still might be some garbage on your Mac.

You Need To Clean The Cache

Your Mac keeps accumulating cache and temporary files daily, so you need to remove them regularly. This option will come in handy in case you’re working on a huge project and any amount of extra space will be appreciated.

For this, you may try to install MacKeeper. This program efficiently finds and seamlessly removes all the files, apps, widgets, and extensions that you rarely or never use. Its price range is from €4.95 to €14.95 per month, depending on how long you purchase it. The investment is worth it because you just click the Find & Fix button and wait until your Trash is emptied automatically.

What Shall I Do If I Removed All The Unnecessary Files But The Disk Is Still Full?

If you removed all the caches, temporary files, duplicate, and unnecessary files but the device keeps running out of disk space, you have two ways out:

  1. Upload your files to a cloud.
  2. Use an external drive.

The biggest advantage of an external drive is that no one ever will get access to it, accept yourself. Even if a hacker attacks your Mac but the external drive isn’t connected to the computer, the files on the drive will be 100% safe. At the same time, if the drive gets damaged or you lose it, you might lose all the files forever. For these reasons, external drives are an essential Macbook accessory when you purchase your computer. If you decide to upload the files to a cloud, there might be a risk that someone hacks it one day. But a cloud will keep your files forever, with no risk of physical loss or damage.

How Can I Upload My Files To A Cloud

You need to go to the Manage Storage window and click the Recommendations button. The system will give you useful advice on organizing your content. For example, you can move to the cloud only those videos that you haven’t watched. Those that you have watched you can delete with the possibility of re-downloading them later. In iCloud, you get 5GB of free storage. To increase this storage space, you can select a tariff of 50GB, 200GB, or 2TB. The pricing for the tariffs differs depending on your region. As an alternative, you might try Dropbox. It gives you 2GB of free storage, and if you pay 9,99 $ monthly, you’ll get access to 2TB of memory space.

Your Mac might run out of disk space because its memory is clogged with unnecessary, duplicate, and temporary files. You might find and delete them manually, but this might take too much time and effort. Taking these steps can help you get more storage space and speed up your Mac. To make the process faster, smoother and easier, you’d better install Disk Inventory X, Gemini, MacKeeper or other similar software. After you get rid of the files you don’t need, you should move the ones that you need to a cloud or an external drive. After that, your Mac won’t be running slow anymore. You’ll be able to install all the programs you need and download as many large files as you wish.

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