{"id":12984,"date":"2016-01-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/espirian.co.uk\/reclaim-disk-space-on-your-mac\/"},"modified":"2016-01-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T00:00:00","slug":"reclaim-disk-space-on-your-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/espirian.co.uk\/reclaim-disk-space-on-your-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Reclaim disk space on your Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having recently almost filled my iMac’s hard disk, I needed a way to free up some disk space. But where to start?<\/p>\n


\nI decided the best approach would be to find the largest files on my computer, deleting the ones I didn’t need.<\/p>\n

Here’s how to do it.<\/p>\n

Check existing disk space<\/h2>\n

Open a Finder window and take a look at the Status bar at the bottom.<\/p>\n

\"Status<\/p>\n

If you don’t see the Status bar, you can turn it on by going to the View<\/strong> menu and clicking Show Status bar<\/strong> (or press Cmd<\/code>+\/<\/code>).<\/p>\n

Look for large files<\/h2>\n

Now it’s time to search for the files taking up lots of disk space. Here’s how:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Go to the File<\/strong> menu and click Find<\/strong> (or press Cmd<\/code>+F<\/code>).<\/li>\n
  2. Click This Mac<\/strong> to make sure the search applies to the whole machine.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The single search rule displayed by default looks like this:<\/p>\n

    [Kind] is [Any]<\/p>\n

    \"[Kind]

      \n
    1. Set the left dropdown menu to Other\u2026<\/strong><\/li>\n
    2. Look for the File Size<\/strong> item, tick the corresponding In Menu<\/strong> checkbox, and then click OK<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
    3. Set the left dropdown menu to File Size<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The search rule changes to display 3 dropdown menus.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Set the middle dropdown menu to is greater than<\/strong>.<\/li>\n
      2. Set the right dropdown menu to MB<\/strong> and enter a value in the text field \u2013 say 100<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Now we can see all files larger than 100MB.<\/p>\n

        \"Search

        We can now review the files to see which ones can be safely deleted.<\/p>\n

        Start by looking out for duplicate files and old videos and apps that you no longer need or use.<\/p>\n

        \n

        Bonus tip<\/h3>\n

        To view a file quickly, click it once and then press the Space bar. This ‘Quick Look’ mode is faster than opening the app associated with the file.<\/p>\n

        I use this Space bar trick all the time to preview Word documents, images, videos and music files.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        The amount of free disk space will change only after you empty the Trash. Remember to be sure before deleting anything<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n  \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Having recently almost filled my iMac’s hard disk, I needed a way to free up some disk space. But where to start?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReclaim disk space on your Mac<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This quick tip will help you reclaim some disk space on your Mac. 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