Optimized Storage helps you save storage space space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:
Clean Up in the Mac Contextual Menu Preform a right-mouse click or use the key combination 'Ctrl-Click' to bring up the contextual menu. Hold and drag your cursor to select the 'Clean Up' item in your. Desktop organizing tips to keep your Mac's desktop clean. Keeping files on your desktop not only makes it difficult to find what you need when you need it, but it can also be a reason why your Mac runs slower than it should. We've come up with a few helpful tips to keep your desktop tidy. Clean Up & Sort By. No need to tell you how to clean up. 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. Why is it important to clean up your Mac from time to time? Well, your smart machine needs this to work properly, better cope with any given tasks and not make you wait long. You need to take care of your computer, and that's why you should learn these three ways how clean up Mac efficiently and quickly. Unclog Files and Apps on Mac. Three dots on a toolbar – More Tools – Clear Browsing History – Cookies – select the amount of data or choose a certain period of time during which you want to delete cookies – (click on) Clear Browsing Data Button.
- 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.
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
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
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. 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.
A lot of icons and files on the desktop take up precious space on your screen and in your memory, so cleaning up your Mac desktop doesn't only make the screen look good, but it also makes the machine work faster too. So, we will learn how to clean up desktop on Mac in this article.
How Do I Clean up My Desktop on A Mac
We have gathered a list of the most effective tips and tricks to keep your desktop all nice and clean and your Mac work faster. Let's check out these useful tips below.
Trick 1: Arrange Your Desktop Icons
There are a number of things you can do to arrange your Mac desktop is well-placed columns automatically. Mac provides a very easy solution to automatically re-arrange your Mac desktop. All you need to do is hit Right-click on your desktop and select Show View Options (You can also go in the Finder app and look for this in View-> Show View Option or simply press Command + J) to get this screen.
The selection here gives you the option of automatically arranging your desktop according to Name, Size, Label, Date Modified, Date Created, Date Last Opened, etc. The first thing I would recommend is to check Snap to Grid and then select the arrangement criteria in the way you like.
Tips
The latest Mac OS X Mojave gives you another option to group together your files, which is called Stacks. As the name shows, this feature stacks the common files and folders on one part of your desktop screen instead of everything lying around scattered. It's very useful when you are fond of putting things you use on the desktop more often. Just open Finder, then click View section and choose 'Use Stacks'.
Trick 2: Adjust Icon Size on Desktop
Mac has always optimized its features to make them user-friendly, and what makes anything special are the small details. You have the option of adjusting small details when it comes to your desktop icons, you can select the size of the icons on your desktop along with the space between the grid columns. This is an excellent feature to clean up Mac desktop even when you have a large number of icons.
Trick 3: Organize Desktop Items into New Folders on Mac
We talked about the cool stacking feature in the latest macOS X Mojave, but even if you are using an older version of macOS, there is a very easy way to get around this fix. You can group all the items that fall in some category or the other and put them in folders. All you have to do is create a folder on the desktop and name it for the category you would like to group your files in and start throwing everything inside. Isn't it an amazingly easy way to clean up Mac desktop!
You can right-click anywhere on your Mac desktop and click New Folder (if you are a fan of keyboard shortcuts, just hit Command + Shift + N), rename the folder and here you go.
Trick 4: Hide Desktop Icons on Mac
If you have done the above things to clean up your Mac desktop and still feel that you need more space on your screen. Mac OS Finder lets you hide the items on your screen till the time you want to use them. A number of ways are available to achieve this.
1. Use Finder:
How to cancel bluestacks subscription. You can go to Finder > Preferences and just select what all devices you want to show or hide on your Mac desktop (The items can always be accessed from the Finder sidebar).
2. Use Terminal
Another useful tip helps to clear Mac desktop by hiding all your desktop icons temporarily when you are not using anything. This might get a little technical but if you learn this single command, so we don't recommend this way to beginners. Type the following command in the Terminal application:
And a similar command can bring all those hidden icons back to your desktop.
Trick 5: Get Rid of All Unneeded Files
How to clean up my Mac desktop with a more efficient way? Have you ever wondered if you need all those files jumbled up on your desktop or not? As a rule of thumb, anything older than seven days should be moved away from the desktop, maybe in some other folder on your drive. If you don't remember why you put any file on the desktop in the first place, then it has no place on your Mac desktop at all. Get rid of these files to get a lot of space cleaned up on your Mac desktop. You can use either of the following.
1. Move to Trash
To get rid of a file you don't need anymore, you can just move it to the trash items folder. To remove an icon, select and drag it to the Trash or you can right-click and choose ‘Move to Trash'. However, cleaning up every icon from the already cluttered Mac desktop takes up a lot of time, a recommended way is to use an efficient Mac cleaning software. And the Umate Mac Cleaner is one of the best Mac cleaner app available on the market, which is highly recommended and trusted by many famous tech sites like Macworld, MakeUseof, Cult of Mac and more.
2. Automatically Detect and Delete All Unneeded Files with Umate Mac Cleaner
Automatically removing all your unnecessary files can be done by using Umate Mac Cleaner. It is easy to use, efficient and powerful with the best features available for cleaning up your Mac. Umate Mac Cleaner is able to completely scan your Mac system and chase junks from every corner of the device for a full cleanup.
How To Clean Up Imac
One of the app's main features - Clean Up Junk is designed to locate all the unneeded files and remove them on a single click. It has 2 cleaning modes available - Quick Clean and Deep Clean. Instead of digging through a cluttered desktop, you can just let the app scan through your Macbook to find all the files you don't need in minutes. You definitely want to use this application rather than clicking every icon one by one.
Getting Umate Mac Cleaner up and running on your computer is very easy and simple. Just follow these steps:
1. Download , install Umate Mac Cleaner and launch it.
2. Hit the big Scan button in 'Clean Up Junk' tab.
3. Once the scan is complete, only select the items you want to delete and click 'Clean' to confirm the request.
Let's see which way is better to delete unneeded files on your desktop. You will find answer in the form below.
Time Needed | Functionality | Whether hidden junk files removal is supported | |
---|---|---|---|
Umate Mac Cleaner | A few seconds | Automatically scan your Mac for junk files and removes them with one click. | Yes! It will automatically scan your Mac for chasing junk filess from every corner of the device including hidden ones. |
Move to Trash | Maybe hours | Need to dig around the desktop for hours to end. | No! This way only supported to delete those files you can see. |
Actually, You Can Avoid Desktop Clutter & Keep Your Desktop Clean
How To Clean Up Imac Desktop
You can use all these tips and tools to clean the clutter from your Mac desktop. The best choice would be to avoid this altogether in the first place and not let your Mac desktop get filled with unnecessary files. But the only reason these files get to your Mac desktop is that you need to quickly access them. A perfect application that provides you an alternate to avoid putting files on the desktop and still be able to quickly access them is ‘Spotlight'.
Spotlight is an application launcher embedded in MacOS. It's a very simple way to access your files and applications. You can press Command + Space on your Mac anytime to go to Spotlight and type in the name of the app or file you need to access, the launcher will find the item and start listing the matches to your keywords as you type. You can search for any file, folder or application using Spotlight.
Conclusion
Now you know how to clean up Mac desktop, right? It's not a surprise that we need to clean up our Mac desktop every now and then, even the most organized out of us get to this point. These tips will help you get your space sorted out, and your machine running as good as it always was. We recommend regularly using a cleaning software tool like Umate Mac Cleaner to avoid piling up junk files and other unnecessary desktop clutter on your Mac.