How To Make Space On Your Macbook Air

These tips will help you free up storage space on your Mac computer. Low disk space may slow down your Mac.

A few months ago, I was receiving this error message:

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  • “Your startup disk is almost full”

I ignored this message for a long time until I saw this new popup message:

Press and slide your finger along the bottom of the Space bar over the bottom stabilizer bar until you hear the clips click into place. (The keycap is tilted up at this stage.) 13. Press along the top of the Space bar to secure it to the top stabilizer bar. (Listen for the keycap clicking into place.) 14. And you can store full-resolution photos in iCloud and keep what Apple calls 'optimized' versions on your Mac that take up much less space. If you snap lots of photos with your iPhone ($699 at. How To: Connect an External Display to Your MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro How To: Close All Open Apps on Your Mac with a Single Click How To: Use Split View Mode in Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan How To: Open Third-Party Apps from Unidentified Developers in macOS.

  • “Your start up disk is full”

I knew that something had to be done. I realized that I needed to clean up my computer and free up disk space. In this article, I explain what I did to increase available disk space on my Mac.

Following these tips will help your free up a lot of space on your Mac running macOS Sierra (or OS X). Please also note that freeing up space will likely increase your Mac’s performance.

1.How to check the current space on your Mac

First thing you should do is to check how much free space is available on your hard disk. You can easily check your disk usage from the About This Mac box. Here is how:

  • Please choose Apple menu > About This Mac, then select Storage.

2.Optimize Storage

macOS Sierra includes a new built-in storage optimization feature. This feature is specifically designed to free up storage space on your Mac. Upgrading to the latest macOS version may fix your storage problems. Because one thing I realized is that installing macOS sierra increased available hard disk space on my Mac. To access these options:

  1. Apple Menu
  2. Select About This Mac
  3. Click on the Storage tab
  4. Click Manage
  5. You will see there are four options:
    1. Store in iCloud
    2. Optimize Storage
    3. Empty Trash Automatically
    4. Reduce Clutter

3.Uninstall Unnecessary Applications, Delete Items You do Not Need

Delete files and folders

  1. Select an item you want to get rid of (files or folders)
  2. Press Command (⌘) – Delete. Or drag the item to the Trash.
  3. Then empty your Trash by going to Finder > Empty Trash.

Uninstall apps that you do not use/need

Remove apps that you no longer need or want. There are two types of apps:

  • Apps you downloaded from the Mac App Store. To uninstall these types of apps, follow these tips:
    • Open Launchpad
    • Click and hold down an app that you want to remove until they jiggle
    • Click (X) to delete
  • Apps you got from the Internet
    • Open Launchpad
    • Select the app you want to delete
    • Drag the app to the Trash
    • Then empty Trash

4.Erase Junk and Deleted Mails

Your junk/spam mails may take up a lot of space on your Mac. Thus deleting them can be a good idea. Here is how:

  • Open Mail
  • Click Mailbox from the Mail menu
  • Select Erase Deleted Items and Erase Junk Mail.

5.Your Downloads Folder

I regularly clear my Downloads folder. You probably download items from the Internet. Items you download are saved in the Download folder. You may want to delete them if you want more space. Here is how:

  1. Launch Finder
  2. Click Downloads
  3. Check your items that you downloaded, If you do not need them, delete them by dragging to the Trash (then do not forget the empty the Trash). You can also select all by pressing Command-A.

6.Use iCloud Photo Library and Optimized Storage

Macbook air system using too much space

Signing up will give your 5GB of free space. You can save space on your Mac with iCloud. I used to have a lot of photos and videos taking up a lot of space. Here is how to turn this on:

  1. Open the Photos app on your Mac
  2. Select Photos > Preferences
  3. Select iCloud
  4. Check the box for iCloud Photo Library
  5. Also select Optimize Mac Storage.

7.Remove Your Old iCloud Backups

Do you own iOS devices, like iPhone and iPad? Back up these devices using iCloud. If you are using iTunes to back up your iOS device, then your Mac may have multiple backups. To save space, you may want to delete your old backups. Here is how:

  1. Launch iTunes
  2. Select Preferences
  3. Select Devices
  4. You will see your backups that you can remove by Control-clicking.
  5. Alternatively, you can also remove your iCloud backups from your iOS device.

Bonus Tip: Restart your Mac

Do you rarely reboot your Mac? If you do, then restart your Mac now. Rebooting your Mac may help you as this process involves removing temporary files, system caches, app caches etc.

See also: Restore Your Mac To Factory Settings

“No matter what I do, my Mac is still slow”, an average tech-consultant hears this phrase multiple times a day. Give a person even the most powerful computer, and pretty soon it will be cluttered with apps, extensions, and things that are too much for it to handle. To reverse it, one has to go back and сlean up the mess, removing memory agents one by one. Prepare for a fight — every byte of memory is at stake. So let’s put your Mac on a diet and get it more free RAM to breathe freely.

First, remove desktop clutter. Get a combination of Setapp apps that clear away unneeded desktop files.

Download Declutter Free

“Your system has run out of application memory”

How do you know your Mac is low on memory? Floating “rainbow wheels” aside, you may notice your Mac now takes ages to load. You’ll also see many browser applications crashing. You’ll be also thrown warning messages as “Your system has run out of application memory”. To help it, you should first visit the Activity monitor to see memory usage on Mac.

How to check RAM usage on Mac

Go to Applications and type in Activity Monitor in the search bar. This invokes a good old Activity Monitor that should tell how much free memory you’ve got left.

A shortcut to open Activity Monitor:

Press F4 and start typing Activity Monitor in the search bar.

I’ve attached a screenshot from my Mac and as you can see my memory usage almost reached full capacity. Here’s what it all means:

App memory: taken by apps and processes
Wired memory: reserved by apps, can’t be freed up
Compressed: inactive, can be used by other apps
Swap used: memory used by macOS
Cached files: memory you can really use

Notice the colored graph under Memory Pressure. If your graph is all but red and yellow, your Mac is really gasping for fresh memory. It seems counter-intuitive, but “available memory” your Activity Monitor is not that important after all. In fact, it’s a system intended behavior to use all memory resources when available. On the contrary, the Memory Pressure graph is much more telling, so grow a habit to check this graph in the Activity Monitor every now and then.

How to check CPU usage on Mac

Open the CPU tab in Activity Monitor to keep in check CPU-heavy processes. Normally an app would be using 0-4% of CPU. If it takes abnormally more than that, go inside that particular item in the list and press the Quit button.

How to free up memory on Mac

How To Make More Space On Your Macbook Air

Tip # 1. Remove Login Items to lower Mac memory usage

Login items are programs that load automatically upon Mac startup. Some of them covertly add themselves to the list and this is no good. If you’re looking to free up RAM, they are the first candidates for deletion. Don’t worry, you’re not deleting the app itself, you just stop it from auto-launching every time.

So, to remove Login Items and at the same time reduce your memory usage of your Mac, you need to:

  1. Open System Preferences and select Users & Groups.
  2. Click your nickname on the left.
  3. Select the Login Items tab.
  4. Check programs you don’t want to load as your Mac starts.
  5. Press the “–” sign below.

Now, you won’t see these apps pop up the moment you turn on your Mac. Although this method doesn’t require some superpowers of yours, some special Mac optimization and memory cleaner tools may do the job faster and ensure the smooth performance of your Mac. CleanMyMac X is an excellent example of such software. Here’s how to disable Login Items with CleanMyMac X:

  1. Download it for free and go to the Optimization tab.
  2. Check Login Items to see the list of apps that get opened when you start your Mac.
  3. Click Remove.

As you’ve already come to the Optimization module of CleanMyMac, you can also fix hung apps and heavy memory consumers there. In this way, you’ll free up the solid amount of RAM on Mac — 100% free of charge.

Tip # 2. Free up disk space if Mac is low on memory

The available space on your Mac’s drive translates into virtual memory. This comes to save you when you’ve run out of physical RAM. So now your computer relies on your hard drive space to keep your apps going.

The classic geek rule of thumb holds it that you should keep at least 20% of disk space on your startup drive. Not only this potentially reduces your future spending on iCloud storage but it also keeps your Mac speedier.

What to delete to free up space:

  • Large unused files, like movies
  • Old downloads
  • Rarely used applications
  • System junk

But here’s a simpler solution to save your time — clean up your drive with CleanMyMac X— the app I’ve mentioned above. Many users recommend it as an excellent way to free up more space because it searches for large & old files, useless system files, Photo junk, mail attachments and shows everything you can safely delete. Interestingly, it finds about 74 GB of junk on an average computer.

How To Make Space On Your Macbook Air Louder

Extra trick: How to free up RAM on Mac with CleanMyMac X

If you have downloaded CleanMyMac, you may also take advantage of its amazing feature — the ability to free up RAM in a few seconds. Try this next time you see “Your system has run out of application memory” message.

  1. Go to the Maintenance tab on the left.
  2. Click Free Up RAM.
  3. Click Run.

As simple as that!

And you can do it even if you download a free version of the app.

Tip # 3. Clean up your Desktop

This tip always comes at the bottom of instructions and unfairly so as it is quite effective. Without even looking at your Desktop I would assume it’s cluttered with mountains of icons. Thing is, your macOS was designed in a way that it treats every Desktop icon as a little active window. The more icons, the heavier memory usage on Mac. So in order to release available memory resources, it’s recommended to keep your Desktop clean.

You don’t have to do it all by yourself. With apps like Declutter and Spotless, every desktop cleaning session will be scheduled in advance and executed automatically. Your only job is to define the rules on how your files should be organized.

Tip #4. Clear cache files

Another way to free up RAM on Mac is to clear it of cache files. Of course, it won’t save you gigabytes of space, but deleting cache regularly, you can help your Mac run faster and avoid system issues.

So, to remove cache files on your Mac, you need to:

  1. Open Finder.
  2. From the Go menu, select Go to Folder.
  3. Type ~/Library/Caches in the field and press Go.
  4. In the window that appears, you will see all your cache files.
  5. Press Command+A to select all files or delete files one by one.
  6. Enter your user name and password to confirm.

If you find some files still in the folder after you emptied it, maybe you have some windows open on your Mac. Just like that, you can save up some space on your Mac. Don’t forget to empty the bin afterward.

Tip # 5. Tune up Chrome’s Task Manager

Although Google Chrome is not the one to blame for massive memory usage, it can indeed affect your Mac's performance. If you use Chrome as your primary browser, you probably have many windows opened there. Chrome runs a lot of processes to ensure a fast browsing experience for you. So, it uses your RAM for storing your tabs, plugins, and extensions. Look at how many entries Google Chrome has in Activity Monitor:

The question then arises, 'Why does Chrome use so much RAM?' The thing is that each process is responsible for a separate plugin or extension of your browser. For example, when a tab unexpectedly falls, you need to refresh it to continue your work there. If one process were responsible for all tabs and extensions, you would need to restart the whole browser instead. Can you imagine how many times would you do that? That’s the proper answer to why Chrome uses so much RAM.

I’ve been using Chrome for some years only to discover (recently) that Chrome had a task manager of its own. You can use it to force quit memory-heavy processes in the browser. It’s a handy tool because it lets you see how a page weighs on CPU usage on a Mac.

  1. Go to Chrome settings (dotted icon in the top right corner)
  2. Click More tools -> Task Manager

To free up even more RAM, close the GPU process. The GPU Process, though helpful in theory to accelerate pages, eats up a considerable amount of memory. Click to end it to free up RAM on your Mac.

Tip # 6. Manage RAM usage with CleanMyMac X menu

CleanMyMac X has another useful and convenient feature for managing your Mac’s performance and memory usage. As you install CleanMyMac X and start it for the first time, it’s icon will appear in your menu bar. Click the icon to open the CleanMyMac X menu. Here you can find updates on the current condition of your Mac and perform quick tweaks to increase your Mac's speed. Whenever you feel like your Mac underperforms, open the CleanMyMac X menu to check how much RAM is available and free it up as well.

Tip # 7. Close Finder windows

Okay, suppose you’re still asking yourself, how do I clear RAM on my MacBook Pro/MacBook Air. The next trick is as magical (you’ll see for yourself) as it is time-saving. It’s no secret that each window in the Finder eats up RAM. But how many open windows are there? Some of them are collapsed or stacked in some blind spot on your screen. This Finder command merges all your windows into one. See how to do it:

Click on Finder > Window > Merge All Windows

Now you can manage Finder windows more effectively and free up memory on MacBook.

What else you can do to minimize memory usage on Mac

I’ve saved the easiest tips for the end, as long as these ones are self-explanatory.

  • Replace AdBlock (very memory-demanding) with a lighter extension
  • Keep fewer opened tabs in the browser
  • Restart your Mac more often to free up RAM
  • Close all hung-up print queues

That was my take on how to make your Mac a bit speedier to use. If you’re looking for more guidance, check simple ways to speed up your Mac.

How To Make Space On Your Macbook Air Keeps

Frequently Asked Questions

How to check application memory on Mac?

To check RAM usage on your Mac, go to Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities). In the Memory tab, you will see all the active processes that are using your Mac’s RAM. At the end of the window, there is a Memory Used graph, which indicates how much application memory is used.

How to find out whether your Mac needs more RAM?

Your Mac may be using almost all its RAM, but you don’t need more if it’s using it efficiently. Open Activity Monitor and go to the Memory tab. The Memory Pressure graph shows the current condition of your RAM: green color means your Mac’s using RAM effectively, while yellow is a sign that some application or process is using too much of application memory. The red memory pressure signals that your Mac needs more RAM.

How to quickly free up RAM on your MacBook?

To free up RAM on your Mac, firstly, you should find out what app uses so much of your memory. The memory-heavy programs are listed in Activity Monitor, Memory tab. If there is an app you aren’t using at the moment, click it and press the “X” sign to quit it. This will, in turn, free some of the application memory

How To Clear Space On Macbook

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