How to free up space on your Mac

Published 2026-11-11

Measure first, then delete from the top of the list. On most Macs the space is in a handful of places: the Trash and Downloads, a few big files, app data in ~/Library/Application Support, iPhone backups, developer tools, caches, and local snapshots. The order below is judgment from how these folders behave, not a statistic. Check each one with the command shown, and only delete what you can name.

Get the real numbers first

Open System Settings > General > Storage. The bar is a summary and it takes a minute to fill in. Two details make it differ from what you see in Terminal.

Finder and Storage count in powers of 10 (1 GB is 1,000,000,000 bytes). du -h and df -h count in powers of 2. The same folder reads about 7% larger in Terminal. Use df -H if you want Terminal to match Finder.

Second, and most articles skip this: df -h / does not show your files. Since macOS 10.15 the system sits on a sealed, read-only volume mounted at /, and your data is on a separate volume. On one Mac it reads like this:

$ df -h /
/dev/disk3s1s1   228Gi    12Gi    29Gi    29%   /
$ df -h /System/Volumes/Data
/dev/disk3s5     228Gi   176Gi    29Gi    86%   /System/Volumes/Data

The first line says 12 GB used. The second says 176 GB. Look at the second one. The free figure (29 GB) is shared between them, because both volumes live in one APFS container.

1. Trash and Downloads

Empty the Bin only after you have looked in it. Items in ~/.Trash still occupy disk until you empty it, and the Bin on an external drive is a hidden .Trashes folder on that drive.

du -sh ~/.Trash ~/Downloads

Downloads fills with disk images (.dmg), installers (.pkg) and zip files you already extracted. Sort Finder's Downloads window by Size in List view. A .dmg whose app is already in Applications can go. This is recoverable from the Bin until you empty it. In Finder > Settings > Advanced you can tick "Remove items from the Trash after 30 days" if you never look in there.

2. A few very large files

One 40 GB screen recording or virtual machine outweighs ten thousand small files. The method, including a sorted list of everything over a size you pick, is in Find large files on Mac.

3. App data in Library

Your home folder's hidden Library often holds more than Documents does. On the Mac used to check this guide, ~/Library was 54 GB of a 92 GB home folder.

du -hd1 ~/Library 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -8
du -hd1 ~/Library/Application\ Support 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -8
du -hd1 ~/Library/Containers 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -8

The 2>/dev/null hides permission errors, but those errors matter. Folders such as Mail, Messages, Safari and Photos data are protected, and Terminal gets "Operation not permitted" unless you grant it Full Disk Access in Privacy & Security. Without it, du silently undercounts, and your biggest folder may be one it cannot read.

Chat apps, editors, browsers and AI tools keep gigabytes here as local databases and downloaded models. Deleting an app's folder in Application Support resets that app and can delete data that exists nowhere else (unsynced notes, local-only chat history). Open the app and clear the data from its own settings when it offers that.

Docker Desktop's disk image lives in ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker and is often the largest single item. See Docker taking space on Mac.

4. iPhone and iPad backups

du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup

This path is protected, so run it from a Terminal with Full Disk Access. Each device gets one folder named by a long ID, and one backup is often 20 to 100 GB. Do not delete folders by hand. Connect the device, open it in Finder, choose Manage Backups, select the old one, and delete it there. Deleted backups cannot be recovered, so confirm the phone has a current iCloud backup or a newer local one.

5. Developer files

If you build apps, Xcode alone can hold tens of gigabytes. ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData is safe to delete and rebuilds on the next build. Old simulators and device support files are bigger and less obvious. Details are in Clear Xcode DerivedData. Homebrew, npm, pip, Gradle and Cargo keep download caches too:

du -sh ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew ~/.npm ~/.gradle ~/.cargo 2>/dev/null

Those caches only cost you a re-download. Project folders (node_modules, target, build) are rebuildable too, but only after you confirm the project has a lockfile and you are online.

6. Caches

People start here and get small returns for large risk. Caches are rarely the biggest item, and not everything in them is disposable. See Is it safe to delete Library caches?

7. Local snapshots and "System Data"

If System Data is large and you cannot find the files, look at snapshots, swap and caches by name. What is System Data on Mac breaks it down. Time Machine local snapshots covers the one most likely to hold deleted files' space hostage.

8. Duplicates

Last, because the payoff is usually modest and the risk of removing the wrong copy is real. Find duplicate files on Mac shows how to compare by content.

Apps you no longer use

Applications are listed by size under Storage > Applications. Dragging an app to the Bin leaves its support files behind. Uninstall apps and their leftovers shows where they go.

What to do when you deleted a lot and nothing changed

Three causes. The Bin was not emptied. A local snapshot still holds the blocks. Or the Storage screen has not refreshed yet, which can take a few minutes. Check the Bin, then run tmutil listlocalsnapshots /.

Keep going

• Storage by type: see which kind of file fills your Mac: Spotless groups the files in your home folder by type and age, from app data and developer files to videos, with the biggest files in each group.
• How to clear cache on a Mac: Where macOS and your apps keep cache files, how to measure them, which ones are safe to delete, and the exact steps for Safari, Chrome and developer tools.
• How a Spotless clean works: Scan, look, choose, review, Trash.
• Pricing: Every feature for $9, once.

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