Remember that any space you assign will be taken from the available space for your Mac, and that macOS will run more efficiently if you leave at least 30 to 40GB of space free on its partition. Make sure you’re ready to upgrade. Before you upgrade, we recommend that you back up your Mac. If your Mac is running OS X Mavericks 10.9 or later, you can upgrade directly to macOS Big Sur. You’ll need the following: OS X 10.9 or later; 4GB of memory; 35.5GB available storage on macOS Sierra or later.

1. How Much Space Do You Need For Mac Sierra Madre
2. How Much Space Do You Need For Mac Sierra Leone
3. How Much Space Do You Need For Mac Sierra 10.13
4. How Much Space Do I Need To Install Macos High Sierra
5. How Much Space Do You Need For Mac Sierra 10.12

What is taking up space on my Mac?

There comes a time in every computer's life when it is full of files and programs, slowing it down so much that its owner searches for an article such as this in order to cure it of these ailments (before it gets thrown out the window!).

Worry not, you're in the right place. This article will take you through 8 steps which will free up space on your Mac - removing unneeded files and clearing space for the stuff you actually need.

No matter if you're tech savvy or not, anyone can use these tips to breathe new life into their Mac.

To find out how much space is available on your Mac:

1. Open the Apple menu (the Apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen).
2. Click 'About this Mac'.
3. Click 'Storage'.

This overview will show what categories are taking up the most space, as well as how much space is available on your Mac.

The 8 sections below address the biggest culprits of space-hogging on your Mac and how to clean them up.

Jump straight to:

1. Mac OS Storage Management

The first port of call when making space on your Mac is to see what tools your Mac offers you for such a task.

If your Mac is running macOS Sierra or later, it has great built-in tools for managing files and optimizing storage. To access these tools, click the apple icon in the top-left corner of your screen > About this Mac > Storage > Manage…

As you can see this is also how to check storage on Mac. The tool shows a breakdown of the storage space taken up on your Mac by media such as Apps, Books, Photos and others.

Let's have a look at each tool to see how it can help:

• Store in iCloud: Quickly store files (Documents, Photos and Messages) from your Mac in iCloud. When considering how to clear space on Mac, getting rid of files quickly springs to mind- However, if you need to keep the files, you can just move them to an external hard drive, or into iCloud!

  Enabling this option will allow your Mac to automatically save space when it’s needed.

  This is great as you’ll be able to access your files on any device using your Apple ID. However, if you have a large number of files, you’ll need to purchase more storage space than your allotted free amount (5GB)- obviously, depending on the amount of space you need, this can quickly become an expensive option.
  

• Optimize Storage: For those who download and watch lots of movies and TV, this option can save you a lot of space and a lot of time. Enabling this option will allow your Mac to automatically remove such files (which can be HUGE depending on their length and quality) once you have watched them.
  

• Empty Trash Automatically: Similar to the above, enabling this option allows the automatic removal of files, saving you time and space without having to keep on top of it manually. This will remove items in your Trash after 30 days of them being there. Be aware that once files have been removed from your Trash, you will not be able to retrieve them.

  Side note: Many points in this article will advise the removal of unwanted files from your Mac. However, these files are not completely removed from your computer until you empty the Trash (the space is not regained until they are removed from Trash). You can manually empty it by clicking the Trash Can icon in your dock, then clicking 'Empty'.

• Reduce Clutter: Find large and unused files on your Mac and delete them from your system. You’ll need to delete them manually, but it’s well worth it if you can remove files that you do not use.

  Navigate to files that you don't need using the 'Large Files' or 'Downloads' sorters, then hit 'Delete...'. Note that this action will bypass sending the item to Trash, so it's permanent.
  If you're finding unwanted files using the 'File Browser' tab, you'll need to right-click > 'Move To Trash'.

2. Find Duplicate Files Mac

The quickest way to free up space on your Mac is to automatically remove files that you don’t need. Without realizing it, you can accumulate gigabytes worth of duplicate files and folders on your computer.

The problem is that it can take so much time to find and delete these duplicates that people do not bother to do it even if they want to.

Luckily, you can use an app like Duplicate Sweeper to do this for you.

Duplicate Sweeper: Easily scan your Mac for duplicate files and photos. You can then select and remove duplicates based on your preferences. In this way you can keep your newest version of files and remove all duplicates with a click of a button.

In the example below, I was able to remove over 6000 files with one-click. This freed up 2.3 GB of space on my MacBook. Imagine manually going through and comparing 6000 files without Duplicate Sweeper... it would have taken forever!

For more information about Duplicate Sweeper, or to download the free trial:

Try Duplicate Sweeper free ▼

Receive an email with a link so you can download the free trial on your computer:

Note: We respect your privacy. We won't share your Email address with anyone else, or send you spam.

3. Unused Apps- Uninstall Programs on Mac

One of the biggest areas you should consider when looking at how to free up space on Mac is your Apps. Maybe unsurprisingly, apps on your Mac can be some of the largest files on your computer. Removing apps that you don’t use can free up a huge amount of space. Let’s list your apps by their files size:

Open Finder, then open the Applications section. Display the items as a list (using the button with 4 horizontal lines), then click the ‘Size’ header to reorder your applications by size. You can then work down the list and decide which applications you don’t use. Simply drag an application from the list into the Trash Can on your Dock to remove them.

Remember that you’ll need to empty your Trash Can to completely remove the applications from your Mac.

4. Clean up media and downloads

The quality of media like photo and video is constantly improving. Unfortunately, this usually means that the corresponding files are bigger than they used to be.

For this reason, your saved media could be a great place to free up some of that precious storage on your Mac.

Open Finder and look through your Pictures, Movies and Music folders. If there is media there that you don't want, select it and move it to Trash to get rid of later. If you prefer to delete this media from the associated apps like Photos and iMovie, see how to empty their trash.

It is also recommended to check your Downloads file for unwanted files too.

This folder can receive copious amounts of files downloaded from multiple sources. Many of these files you may have only needed to read or use once.

You can get to your Downloads folder by opening a Finder window and clicking the 'Downloads' header.

Again, select whatever files you don't need, then right-click > Move to Trash/Bin.

Extra: Zipped / Archived files

If you receive a zipped file (with the .zip extension), opening it will unzip the file or folder and create the files in a non-zipped form.

This will create files that you can use, but it will not remove the (now unneeded) zip file. If you've already unzipped, you can delete the .zip file.

On the flip side, you can use file archiving to compress files or folders that you don't use regularly.

Say you have a folder of documents that you only need to save for safekeeping; right-click the folder in Finder and click 'Compress [file/folder name]'. This will compress the files and create a .zip file.

Don't forget to delete the original, uncompressed folder in order to save the space!

5. Delete iTunes backups

Depending on the number of files, photos, messages etc that you have stored on your iPhone, iPod or iPad, it’s backup on your Mac can be huge.

Keeping backups of your devices is a good idea. If something was to happen to your device, your data can be restored to it (or another device) using your backup. However, these backup files can be massive, and you may never need them! For this reason, consider backing up your devices to iCloud instead – freeing up space on your Mac.

To set your device to backup to iCloud, go to Settings > (your name) > iCloud > iCloud Backup.
To initiate a backup, connect your device to a power source and also to a Wi-Fi network. Lastly, ensure that your device screen is locked and that you have enough free space in iCloud to store the backup.

How to delete backups on Mac - You can also delete the backups which you already have stored on your Mac. To do this, open iTunes and go to iTunes > Preferences > Devices. If you don’t need the backups in the list, select and delete them!

Find out: where are iTunes backups stored?

Alternatively, if you don’t want to use iCloud for backing up your data, or if you only need certain data from your backups, you could use iBackup Extractor. This handy tool allows you to access and browse your backups, and extract any important photos, messages etc. that you need. You can save this data to your computer, then delete the backup from iTunes as seen above!

6. How to Delete Temporary Files on Mac

Some of the most common questions asked are 'how to clear cache on mac' and 'how to delete cookies on mac'. Well, let's answer those for you!

Temporary and cache are files that are stored locally in order to speed up processes. For example, images from a website that you visited can be cached, so that when you visit the page again, you don’t have to wait to download the images again, they are simply pulled in from the cache. That’s great for processes that you use regularly, but without care, your temporary and cached files can build up and eat away at your Mac’s performance.

Let’s see how to clear cache on mac – Open Finder > Go > hold ‘option’ and click ‘Library’ > Caches. Select and delete any cache files and folders that you don’t need to save space!

7. Taking out the Trash

How Much Space Do You Need For Mac Sierra Madre

Deleting files on your Mac usually only moves them to your Trash Can (or Bin).

This is great, because if you 'delete' something by accident, you can restore it to its original location - no harm done.

However, if you are culling files on your Mac to make space, you may wonder why you are not gaining storage after clicking delete.

To permanently delete files from the Mac, you'll need to empty your Trash Can. To do this, simply click the Trash Can (or Bin) icon in your Dock.

Here, you can review or restore files in your Trash/Bin.

To permanently delete all the files in your bin, click Empty. You'll be asked if you're sure, and to confirm the permanent deletion of the files.

Deleting files from Photos, iMovie and Mail apps...

Generally, you'll be able to use the steps above to permanently delete files. However, some apps have their own way to manage 'deleted' files.

As such, you'll need to empty trash cans in individual apps to ensure that files are fully deleted.

An example of this can be seen in the Photos app:

Click the 'Recently Deleted' header to access the trash in the Photos app.

After 'deleting' photos from the app, the files can remain in this section for up to 40 days before being automatically deleted.

If you are sure you'd like to permanently delete these photos, click 'Delete All' to remove them from your hard drive.

You can use similar steps to empty trash for other apps like iMovie and Mail.

8. Move files into external storage

The majority of the methods above cover how to delete unwanted files to gain space. But what you if want to keep your files?

If you need more space on your Mac, but deleting your files is not an option, you may want to consider investing in external storage.

You can purchase external storage drives pretty cheap nowadays.

The way this works is that you connect your external drive with your Mac via USB cable. The drive then pops up as a Location on your Mac:

You can then drag files from your Mac onto your external drive, or cut/paste them into specific folders on your drive.

Takeaways

These are the most effective steps to make the most of the available space on your Mac in our experience.

There's a lot of information above, but this is not an exhaustive list of everything you can do to clear space on your Mac. We hope that you now have the tools that you need to breathe new life into your Mac or MacBook.

Happy spring cleaning!

The new operating system for Mac has been officially released at the September keynote 2017 and the hype is real. With a lot of tweaks and refinements, the new macOS High Sierra promises a user experience deemed for the future of technology, bringing Apple one step closer to VR, AR and gaming capabilities.

But before you get to test the new features and fine-tunings, you’ll need to get your hands on High Sierra. While this step is easy since the new update is available for all users, you still need to have a compatible Mac. Which brings us to the subject of this article: how to find out if your Mac can run masOS High Sierra and what are the system requirements for macOs 10.13. Eager to find out? Let’s go!

macOS 10.13 High Sierra Compatibility

Now, if you’ve been running macOS 10.12 so far, we’ve got great news for you! Your Mac should also run macOS 10.13 High Sierra without any issues. Not sure which version of macOS you have? Find out by opening the Apple menu and clicking on About this Mac.

If you discover you are running an older version of macOS, don’t despair, as there is still hope.

Here’s a complete list of the Mac desktop and notebook devices that support macOS High Sierra:

Late 2009 or newer models:

2010 or newer models:

In short, any Mac from 2009 or newer has the configuration to support macOS 10.13 High Sierra. This comes to support Apple’s credo that any device made more than 7 years ago is too old and obsolete to support the newer capabilities in software development. However, devices between 5 and 7 years old are held in a sort of esteem by Apple who names them “vintage”, thus they still offer support (at least some kind) for them.

System requirements for macOS High Sierra

It’s interesting that the macOS High Sierra requirements and technical specifications are the same as for macOS Sierra. That’s great news for those who own older Mac models. They will also have access to all amazing innovations a new OS offers. But note that the new Macs with more powerful processors will make more out of macOS High Sierra. The more powerful the hardware, the better the performance will be. So keep your expectations realistic.

Probably you are also interested in macOS High Sierra space requirements. To run High Sierra, you’ll need 8 GB of available disk space. But you would be surprised to know that once you’ve upgraded to macOS High Sierra, you’ll have a lot of free space thanks to the new Apple File System and HEVC — a new encoding standard for video. As a result, your files, photos, mail, apps and videos will occupy less space on your Mac.

Please note that there is one more thing that can help you manage the space on your Mac and perfectly prepare it for the upgrade — a cleaning app like CleanMyMac X. With its help, you’ll remove all the junk your Mac contains in just two clicks — system junk, app leftovers, large hidden files, etc. An average user finds about 74 GB of potential junk to clear out. Just imagine how much free space you’ll have for the good things! Try it out. The tool is free to download.

How much space do you need for macOS High Sierra

How Much Space Do You Need For Mac Sierra Leone

To install or upgrade to the new macOS High Sierra, you’ll need at least 8 GB of free space. However, be prepared to be amazed. Once you upgrade to the new system, you’ll notice a bunch of free space as you begin to use it, due to its improved files system and the videos that take it easier on the space they occupy.

How Much Space Do You Need For Mac Sierra 10.13

How to Understand What Apps Aren’t Compatible with macOS High Sierra

In the move to further merge macOS with iOS, 32-bit computing apps will soon no longer be supported — as all apps for iOS are 64-bit. Sadly, some of them may be your old favorites. To check if any of your apps are 32-bit try this:

How Much Space Do I Need To Install Macos High Sierra

1. Launch Spotlight by pressing Command + Space bar.
2. Start to type in System Information and click Enter when it appears.
3. Find the Software section in the System Information.
4. Click Applications and wait until they load.
5. The right column in the Applications table will show if the app is 64-bit.

As simple as that!

The truth is that the earlier versions of some applications might not be supported by macOS 10.13. But it’s difficult to say exactly what apps aren’t compatible with macOS High Sierra right now because developers update them on a daily basis. The best option is to visit the app’s official site and check this information.

So, if you want to use your favorite apps, make sure to update them to the latest version. Otherwise, they won’t run on macOS High Sierra.

We hope our article was useful and you found all information about mac High Sierra compatibility and requirements you wanted to know. Starting September 25th you get access to all the latest improvements of a new version of macOS. To make it shine on your machine, prepare your Mac for the upgrade. Stay tuned!

How Much Space Do You Need For Mac Sierra 10.12

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